AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“She couldn’t have shifted that far back,” I explained. “It would have killed her.”
“Oh, I assure you, she could. She traveled even farther than that for us on more than one occasion.”
“I don’t see how. The farthest back I’ve gone was the sixteenth century, but that was in spirit. I don’t know if I could make it that far with my body.”
The rolling pin hit the table top as loudly as a gavel. “You’ve gone back in time with your body?” He looked outraged.
“Uh, yeah?”
“For what possible reason?”
“Because I can’t stay anywhere long enough to get anything done when I’m in spirit form. I’m like a ghost with nothing to haunt—my energy gives out after a few hours and I have to shift back. Not to mention that trying to do anything without a body is really—”
“But you can have your pick of bodies! You’re Pythia. You can possess anyone you choose! That is the reason you have that power, to make time shifting less perilous!”
I didn’t reply, but I thought about Agnes’ shoulder wound. It seemed like she hadn’t told Marsden everything. She probably hadn’t wanted to worry him, but obviously she’d taken her body along from time to time. Maybe there were missions where possessing someone was just too dangerous. Getting the person she was possessing shot might screw up the very time line she was trying to fix. Or maybe she hadn’t liked possessions any more than I did.
“And how do you know that, Jonas?” Pritkin demanded from the stairway, his old coat draped over his arm.
“Lady Phemonoe mentioned it,” Marsden said, grabbing a knife and cutting board and laying into some onions.
“Odd that she never told anyone else,” Pritkin said, handing me his boots. I took them gratefully. Summer in Britain was a lot different than July in Nevada, and my toes were cold.
Marsden looked a little shifty. “Yes, well, we worked together a long time and . . . she trusted me.”
Pritkin’s eyes narrowed. “Enough to spill age-old secrets?” “We didn’t have in-depth discussions. It was just a . . . a slip of the tongue, here and there.”
“A slip of the tongue?” Pritkin repeated, and something about the way he said it made Marsden go all pink.
“John!”
“Jonas, are you blushing?”
“It’s hot in here!” Marsden said testily. “You might have installed some proper ventilation.” He’d opened a window, but most of the fragrant steam had chosen to hang around.
“That’s a bit tricky with stone walls,” Pritkin said dryly. “And you’re evading the issue.”
Marsden glanced at me. “Do you know, I think I need more basil. Cassie, if you wouldn’t mind?”
“Oh, I’d mind,” I said, planting elbows on the table and looking at him expectantly.
He sighed and added the onions to a pot on the stove, showing us his back in the process. “She was . . . we were . . . good friends, as well as colleagues.”
Again, it wasn’t so much what was said, as how he said it. “Wow.” I was impressed. “You and Caesar—”
Marsden threw some mushrooms in a colander a little harder than necessary. “Yes. Well. As you say. But that isn’t the point, is it? The point is that you’ve been doing it wrong, child.”
“Yeah. Imagine that. And with all of thirty seconds’ training, too.”
“You’re fortunate to still be alive!” he said sternly. “Do you have any idea how many diseases you could have encountered in the past? How many times you might have eaten foods that, while perfectly safe for the people of the time, would be deadly to you? And that is assuming the dark mage you are chasing doesn’t kill you first!”
“Does that happen a lot?” I asked nervously. “Mages slipping through time?”
“It takes an extraordinary amount of power, and few are able to raise or to control so much. Most who try end up dead long before you need to worry about them. Leaving you free to deal with other responsibilities.”
“Such as?”
Marsden went ninja on some garlic. “Any number of things. We’ve already discussed the petitioners who will expect you to see the future for them and give advice.”
