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“He said you became part of the Pythian Court when he sent you there,” I told her. “He said that you’re our problem now.”
Lizzie didn’t immediately say anything, but her face was eloquent. And this time, there was sadness there, and pain, and somethi
ng of the little girl she must have been, who was sent away from everything she knew and everything she loved to a cold, foreign place with huge ceilings and echoing marble halls and cutthroat politics. I felt tears well up in my eyes.
“Lizzie. Please—”
“You know what he told me, when I left?” she said, not even looking at me. But off into space, her eyes unfocused, her face blank. Like she was also seeing that little girl again. “I was seven, but I remember. My power came late, you know. Other girls were having visions and chatting away to spirits when they were barely old enough to talk, but mine . . .”
She laughed. “I woke up screaming one night; everyone thought it was a nightmare. But it wasn’t. And then someone remembered Great-Aunt Agatha, who had the sight . . .”
“Lizzie—”
“They had me tested, and it was wonderful,” she told me, her eyes shining. They finally met mine, but I still didn’t think she was seeing me. She was seeing something else, something that lit up her face like a child looking at a present-laden tree on Christmas morning. “Everything changed in that moment.
“I’d never been anything. No one had ever wanted me. I had two brothers and two older sisters, and I was just in the way. The stupid one, the plain one, the talentless—but not then. And they were so relieved!”
Her eyes finally focused. “Father paid a witch,” she told me, the words pouring out of her now. “One of those coven creatures, old and hideous, but powerful, too. He and mother couldn’t have children, like so many of us, but she said she knew a spell. But there was a price: some of the children would be born . . . wrong. Substandard. Even monstrous. But some would be the opposite: strong and smart and talented. Father made the deal.”
I bet he did, I thought, remembering that study. And the family photos that had been so prominently displayed all over it. Lizzie hadn’t been in any of them, and neither had one of the boys I’d heard about. I’d seen a son and two daughters, arrayed around their proudly beaming parents, because what magical family had so many?
But of the others, there was no sign.
“My eldest brother was wrong,” Lizzie said, seeing my face. “I don’t know how; we never talked about him. But the others were fine—better than fine! Tall and strong and smart, and their magic came easy. For a while, everyone thought I was another of the wrong kind. They whispered that mother should have quit while she was ahead. That she’d pushed her luck one time too many, and I was the result.”
“Lizzie—”
“They watched me all the time. They talked about my brother, how he’d changed as he grew. I think they were waiting for it to happen to me. They spoke about him in whispers, but they never used his name. I asked one of the servants about it once, but she wouldn’t tell me. I was spanked for even asking. He didn’t exist anymore, you know?”
“I know.”
“I was afraid that that would be me. That one day, I’d look in the mirror and see a monster staring back. They wouldn’t tell me what had happened to him, so I didn’t know what to look for.” She laughed suddenly, and it was a little manic. “I got a pimple once, my first one ever, and freaked out. I thought that was it, that I was changing. I started screaming and screaming, and everyone came.
“I never would tell them why.”
“Lizzie,” I said. “You have a choice—”
“I don’t!” She stared at me, the blue eyes wide. “That’s what I’m telling you! I had one chance, when they realized I wasn’t a monster, that I wasn’t going to be one. And, even more, that I might have the family gift! And it was glorious! My sisters, so used to ignoring me, to putting me down, to going shopping with mother while I was left behind—well, all of a sudden, they were being left! I got all sorts of pretty things, they did my hair, had me sit for pictures. I almost didn’t mind the things I saw at night, when the visions came.”
“I know how that feels,” I told her, remembering. “It’s terrifying—”
“No! It was worth it! I was somebody, for the first time. For the only time! I remember when father came to tell me that I had been selected for the Pythian Court. Some acolytes had come a few days before, although I hadn’t known who they were then. I just thought they looked like angels, all in white.
“They talked to me for a while, asked about my visions. And then one of them did something that caused me to have one. It was one of the bad ones; I ended up cowering behind the sofa, shivering in fear. I thought they’d hate me then, that they’d think me some kind of idiot. But they just thanked me and left, like nothing had happened! And then, a few days later, father called me to his study.”
“He told you that you’d been selected.”
She laughed a little then. “It was the happiest day of my life! Everyone had been so weird for those few days—jumpy, nervous, but excited, too. And always watching me, I didn’t know why. Until he called for me. You’ve seen that study, right?”
I nodded.
“I’d never been in there. None of us kids had, except for my eldest brother. My next eldest,” she corrected herself. “That’s where father did business, where important things happened. That’s where he told me I was going to be Pythia someday.”
“He couldn’t tell you that,” I said. “It wasn’t his to give.”
She brushed it away. “He thought he controlled everything. And in the family, he did. Even beyond it . . .” Her eyes had gone distant again, but now they snapped back to mine. “Do you know what he told me, when I left? That the only thing we’d never had was a Pythia. Every other major office, even Lord Protector, had been ours at one time or another, but not that. Not until me.
“He told me to come back as Pythia, or not at all.”
