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“Which I have done. You simply refuse to accept anything I say.”
“Because it doesn’t make sense! Do you really expect—”
I lost the thread of conversation again, because the stone around me suddenly heated up, and not like a rock on a sunny day. More like lava. Jonas gave a tremendous, wrenching jerk, and it felt almost like the bricks liquefied for a split second—
And then suddenly hardened again, leaving me trapped worse than before.
Way worse. Now my head and shoulders were sticking out, but my hands were stuck by my head like I’d been thrown into the stocks, and my chest was compressed to the point that it was hard to breathe. The stones went back to their former grind a second later, louder than ever, being right in my ear. And allowed me to catch a breath only when the ones directly underneath my chest turned just so.
Which they did about half as much as I needed.
“Urk,” I said, staring desperately at the sliver of Marlowe I could still see through the screen.
r /> Hurry up, I thought, but not at Jonas. I could breathe, sort of. I was okay. I was going to be okay. Probably. And I wanted to hear—
“—control what you believe,” Mircea was saying. “I see many important people, including the leaders of other senates—”
“And yet every Pythia,” Marlowe said doggedly. “Before she was even crowned, in one case, receives a visit, and not in an official capacity—”
“Official visits are cold and formal. I do my best work in a more relaxed setting. I cannot charm anyone on behalf of the consul if I do not even know them.”
“And yet these visits do not appear to be working,” Marlowe pointed out.
“Do not appear to be working yet,” Mircea said, finishing his drink. “Every Pythia is different—”
“Including the one you visited before joining the senate?”
Unlike Marlowe’s other comments, it was said mildly, almost diffidently, a rapier strike instead of a bludgeon. And unlike the others, it landed. Mircea’s eyes flashed amber, bright enough to rival the lightning outside, and Marlowe took a quick step back.
“You have been busy,” Mircea hissed.
Marlowe blinked at him, as if he wasn’t used to hearing that tone, either. But he recovered fast. “You have to admit, it looks suspicious—”
“It would not have, had you not gone looking for it!”
“It’s my job to look for it. And I have a credible witness who saw you—”
“Paying a legitimate visit in broad daylight! Else you would have had no witness to worry you.”
Marlowe blinked again at the implication. But then forged ahead anyway. “I wouldn’t be worried if I knew why you were there. It could hardly have been on behalf of a consul you did not even know at the time.”
“I never said it was.”
“Then why?”
Yeah, I thought dizzily, why?
And then the stones started to heat up again.
No! I thought, kicking my legs, trying to get Jonas’ attention. Not yet!
And got smacked on the butt for my efforts.
Son of a—
Another jerk, and this time, I was up to my neck. Which would have been an improvement, except that now I couldn’t breathe at all. There was some agitated grasping going on in a way that would have been overly familiar if I hadn’t been about to suffocate. And either the moon had just gone behind a cloud or the room was starting to dim.
That wasn’t a great sign, and neither was the blood suddenly pounding in my ears, or the heart fluttering in my chest, or the damned moving bricks, which felt like they were trying to behead me. But the worst part was, I couldn’t hear.
