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I sighed. “Asked it how?”
“I . . .” She stopped. And then just sat there some more, blinking. “I’m . . . not sure.”
“That would make two of us.”
“But you can do it,” she insisted. “Lady Phemonoe said many times that she had to ask the power about this or that. And you are her heir, and a Pythia of great ability—”
I choked back a laugh.
“You are! You have done more already than some ever did! And you have done it alone!”
“Not alone,” I correc
ted. “I’ve had help—”
“I have yet to see any!”
Rhea seemed to be getting a little upset, for some reason.
“I have had help,” I repeated, because it was true. “It’s just that, right now, people are a little freaked out about the war. Like I am about this.”
She shook her head. “But you shouldn’t be. The power is your partner, your helper, your . . .” She threw her hands up. “I do not understand how you have done so well without it. I truly do not!”
“Well, that’s what I’m saying. Today didn’t go so well. And I really need to know if I screwed something up.” And how badly, and if I was supposed to fix it, and God, I hoped I wasn’t supposed to fix it!
“I cannot help you,” Rhea said, looking upset. “The lady . . . she never said . . . merely that she had to ask.”
“Like you would a person?” I asked. “Because Apollo’s dead—”
“But the power isn’t Apollo. It came from him, long ago, but since coming to us, it . . .” She stopped, and thought for a minute. And then started speaking slowly, as if trying to remember some long ago conversation. “The Lady said that we don’t know what it is, exactly, or what it’s become since Apollo released it. But we know what it isn’t. It isn’t human and doesn’t think like a human. But it isn’t a mindless energy source, either. Those who try to exploit it find that it actively works against them.”
I nodded, thinking of Myra. Every time she’d shown up to cause trouble, the power had thrown me at her, ruining her day. It might not have been able to stop her from using it to travel around, but it could make sure she regretted the trip. “So . . . I work for it, basically?”
But Rhea shook her head. “No. Some people have thought that the Pythias are merely the power’s avatar, a body for it to inhabit. But that’s not the case. Nor are you subject to it. You are partners.”
Which was great, but that didn’t do me a lot of good if we couldn’t communicate.
“Partners how?” I persisted, because any information was more than I had.
“The power uses your clairvoyant abilities to look into the past, into the future, and provide you with information,” she told me. “And options. The Pythias have to do the actual work, and make the final decisions. But the power gives you information that no one else could have. It is why all Pythias have to be powerful seers.”
I blinked as something finally made sense. “So you’re saying I almost never have visions anymore . . . because my power is using up all the bandwidth?”
Rhea nodded. “The more you use it, the fewer visions you will have, as it needs your abilities to see where to take you in the past. That is one reason for the court—our clairvoyance compensates in the times when yours is . . . busy.”
“Like when you saw Ares’ return,” I said, and immediately wished I hadn’t. Rhea blanched, whatever details she was remembering haunting her eyes. I wasn’t sure whether that had been her first vision, but since she’d said the power didn’t come to her, it was a possibility. And what a way to start!
But a moment later she swallowed and recovered. “Yes. The power may have tried to show you as well—I am sure it did—but the amount that you have been using your gifts . . . and for so long . . . and it couldn’t risk exhausting your abilities when you might need them again at any time . . .”
“And it couldn’t give a heads-up to the acolytes, since they’d have just thrown a party,” I said sourly.
She nodded again. And then frowned. “Are you sure it has not been helping you, Lady?”
I thought about it while I washed off more Victorian-era grime. Maybe it had been, in some ways. Like maybe Rosier and I hadn’t ended up in the middle of the Welsh countryside by accident. Maybe we’d gone there because I hadn’t been thinking about a particular place when I shifted; I’d been thinking about Pritkin. And he hadn’t been at court.
It was possible, now that I thought about it, that we’d originally landed somewhere pretty close by. But I’d been unconscious and Rosier had been trying to get away from the entry point as fast as possible, and we’d missed him. Only to meet up again later, because we were still in the same general area.
My power had known where he was, even though I hadn’t, and it had taken me to him.
