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“Seeing the future is . . . problematic.”
“Nonetheless, people will want you to try. Along with presiding over the Pythian Court and supervising the initiates, it is a Pythia’s primary duty.”
“I know I’m going to regret asking this, but the Pythian Court is what, exactly?”
“A court of mediation for high-level disputes among the supernatural community. For example, if the Clan Council of the Weres were to have a dispute with the vampire Senate that they could not work out themselves, they might bring it to you in an effort to avoid bloodshed. The Pythia can best judge these cases because she alone can see how the dispute will end if it is not resolved.”
I swallowed. Great. Something else I did
n’t know how to do. Not that it made a difference in this case. Half the supernatural community wanted me dead and the other half thought I was their little pawn. Neither group was going to listen to a damn thing I had to say.
As for the initiates, I couldn’t imagine a scenario that would have me seeking them out. Myra had been bad enough; I didn’t need a whole court waiting for me to kick off. Or trying to help me do so.
I looked up to see Marsden staring at me suspiciously. “Please tell me this isn’t the first you’ve heard of all this,” he said.
“Okay, I won’t tell you.”
His knife thwacked into the cutting board hard enough to wedge there. He left it, glaring at Pritkin. “You should have brought her to me before this! She needs training!”
“I might have, if you had mentioned you could provide it.”
“I would have, if you had mentioned that you were running about with the new Pythia! You used to keep me informed about such trifles!”
“Wait a minute.” I grabbed Marsden’s wrist, to keep him from trying to chop something else. “You can train me?”
“Not as Agnes could have, no. I can tell you what I saw and observed over a period of decades, but I don’t have your power. I can’t help you with things like possessions.”
“I hate possessions.”
“You seem to be holding up to this one fairly well.”
“This is a body swap, not a possession.”
“Semantics,” he said offhand.
“No. It really isn’t,” I said flatly. “There’s no one else inside my head and no one is getting hurt.”
Marsden looked at me impatiently. “I’m sorry if you find the idea distasteful, but we’re talking about your life!”
“No, we’re talking about someone else’s.”
“This is exactly why you need training. The other initiates don’t question the necessity for occasional unpleasant acts.”
Yeah, I bet they didn’t. The Circle liked to get them young and brainwash them from childhood. They’d probably walk into a fire if the Circle told them to and never even question it. But that wasn’t my style. And if Marsden and I were going to work together, he had to understand that.
“I don’t have the right to steal part of someone’s life, put them in danger to protect myself and possibly traumatize them forever in the process,” I told him quietly.
“That’s overstating the issue,” he said stubbornly. “And it’s for the common good.”
“Which makes perfect sense, unless you’re the one getting screwed over for everyone else’s good.”
“It is not up to you to revise a system when you don’t even know what it is!”
“But Apollo does know,” Pritkin pointed out. He’d stayed quiet during our discussion, seated at a small table near the wall, systematically cleaning his weapons. But he’d apparently kept up, because his voice had a definite edge. “He’ll be prepared for the status quo and have a plan of action for any move we make based on it. If we hope to best him, we must learn to think in new and different ways.”
“Stay out of this, John!” Marsden snapped.
“Why?” I asked. “He’s right.”
