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One of the few upsides of an otherwise hellish job is the ability to shift spatially as well as temporally. That’s a fancy way of saying that I can pop in and out of places as well as times, something that’s saved me on more than one occasion. I’d used the ability to move across continents; getting out of a pair of handcuffs was child’s play.
I shifted a couple feet to the right, expecting to leave the cuffs behind. I’d pulled a similar trick once before and it had worked great. But this time, the cuffs traveled right along with me. Agnes demurely rearranged her skirts as I tried again. My body moved another couple feet to the left, but my hands remained as tightly bound as before.
“What the hell?”
“Magical handcuffs,” she murmured.
“Get them off!”
“I thought you didn’t need my help.”
From the powder room, we heard the sound of angry voices and the clash of steel on steel. “You may need mine,” I pointed out.
She sighed. “Some days I really hate my job.”
I managed to get to my feet, but having my hands bound threw my balance off. I fell onto the steps, bounced off and ended up on my abused butt. “I hate mine all the time,” I said bitterly.
“Okay, you’re a Pythia.”
“We go through all that, and you believe me because I have a bad attitude?”
She started working on the cuffs. “That and the fact that the Guild can’t do spatial shifts.”
“So why did you attack me?”
“Because you aren’t supposed to be here! This isn’t even supposed to be possible!”
“Maybe the power thinks I need training, too,” I pointed out.
“The power doesn’t think. It isn’t sentient. It follows a strict group of rules, such as those built into any spell. One of which is that you can’t interfere in a mission that has nothing to do with you!”
“I’m not interfering,” I said crossly. “I just wanted to talk! You’re the one who—”
“And in case you didn’t get the memo, we’re the good guys!” she added furiously, cutting me off. “We don’t go around changing time!”
“Never?” I asked skeptically. Because if Agnes hadn’t broken that rule, I wouldn’t be alive.
“Oh, God.” She threw up her hands. “Here we go again. Every initiate starts out thinking she can save the world.”
“Can’t you? You’re Pythia. You can do anything you want.”
She laughed. “Oh, you are new.” She tugged on the cuffs. “Damn.”
“What?”
“They’re stuck.”
“What do you mean stuck?”
“I mean, they won’t open,” she said patiently.
I pulled on them until it felt like my wrists might pop off. “Why not?”
“I don’t know. I don’t design these things. I just use them.”
“What kind of dumb-ass philosophy is that?!”
“You drive a car, don’t you? Do you know how that works?”
