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It was doubly annoying, since I’d never worn any of them. Because who needs twenty ball gowns? No one, that’s who. Least of all me, since I didn’t
get invited to those kinds of parties anyway.
Well, not usually.
And when I did, someone tried to kill me.
I put the skirt back and kept looking.
“Go with a power suit. They’re mostly wearing power suits,” Fred advised.
“I don’t have any power suits.”
“Why not?”
“Because my wardrobe keeps getting blown up!”
“Then wear something Pythia-like. What do they wear for official visit–type things?”
“Damned if I know.” I’d seen Agnes in little-girl white, a retro-fifties cocktail dress, and an eighties standard evening gown. But if there was an official Pythia costume, I must have missed it.
“I bet it’s something Grecian,” Fred said. “You know, all flowy stuff and sandals like you see on those old statues. When they wear clothes, I mean.”
I frowned. “I don’t know. Delphi was a long time ago. They’ve probably modernized.” Hell, even nuns didn’t wear medieval habits anymore.
“Yeah, but does the average witch know that?” he asked shrewdly. “Besides, you should probably play up the whole goddess thing. For the intimidation factor.”
“I’m not a goddess.”
“But you’re related to one.”
I stopped thumbing through outfits but didn’t turn around. This was the first time anybody had brought it up, at least in my hearing, since we all found out a week ago. I’d been too busy to really worry about it, but now I wondered. “Is that a problem?”
“You’d think it would be an asset, although they don’t seem to be real impressed so far. I mean, who breaks into a goddess’ penthouse, anyway?”
I finally turned around, and met gray eyes that looked exactly the way they always did—vague. And staring approximately at my left ear. Fred had had terrible vision before the change, which usually restored stuff like that. But his eyes must have been really bad, because he was still pretty myopic. He was the only vamp I knew who wore glasses, although he did it on the sly.
“You can put them on, you know,” I told him. “Nobody else is here.”
“Yeah, but they could come in. Besides, I can see. ’Specially if you keep coming out with stuff like that tie-dye. I mean, if it looks garish to me—”
“Fine. Just thought I’d offer.” I stood there a minute. “So, how are the guys taking it?”
“They don’t know. At least, I don’t think so. The ones back home could have mentioned it, but they mostly gossip about the master. And I don’t think anybody’s seen me with glasses since I got here.”
“No, I mean, about my, uh, lineage. How is everybody taking it?”
“Oh, that.” He shrugged. “I heard a couple say it made sense. That no human woman could possibly get in as much trouble as . . . uh, that is, they didn’t seem too bothered about it. If you know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean.” And I was suddenly, profoundly grateful to be living with creatures hundreds of years old, who took things in stride. Vampires were hard to impress, but they were also hard to rattle. I felt my spine relax a little as one fear evaporated, at least.
“Of course, they’re a little worried that this makes you more high-profile, so people are gonna start trying to kill you more. But I told them, hey, remember last time? I mean, if a bunch of other demigods couldn’t take you out, who are they gonna send? It’d have to be something really weird, something really unusual, something really dangerous—”
“Like a trio of coven witches?”
Fred blinked. “Naw,” he finally said. “There’s only three of them. If they were gonna off you, they’d probably have sent more than that.”
“Thanks,” I said sourly. “That makes me feel a lot better.”
