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I swallowed. “Lizzie, you’re a powerful clairvoyant. You could be rich. Important people would want to see you, important jobs would be open to you—”
“And all I have to do is give back the power, right?” she sneered. “I tried to bring back gods. They’ll let me rot in here.”
“I could talk to Jonas. You could get out—”
“When I’m middle-aged! Or older. And what would I have then? Who would be waiting for me? My name stricken from the roster, debased, demoted, scorned. My family never had an acolyte, either, and they were so proud, you understand? My father was proud!”
“Lizzie—”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. This isn’t just about them, it’s about me. It was the only thing I ever had that made me special. And I was, you understand? I am! I’ve done things, seen things, that they never will! Not with all their money, and I—”
She cut off, and this time, when she met my eyes, there was no anger in them. Just utter resolve. “I won’t ever be Pythia,” she told me. “But I won’t go back in shame, either. I’ll die as I’ve lived. As an acolyte.”
I bowed my head. I could argue with her all night, but she’d had weeks to make up her mind, and anyway, what could I say? I would have done the same.
“So be it.”
One of the previously unseen guards moved forward, into the picture, and looked at me, uncertainty on his face. But she only laughed at him. “That’s not how it’s done,” she said, with a trace of her old haughtiness.
And no, it wasn’t. Despite what the Circle seemed to think, they didn’t run the Pythian Court. Her death wasn’t theirs to give.
A moment later, the guard was joined by another. Both of them senior war mages, both of them frantically looking around the tiny room. But their captive wasn’t there.
Blue eyes met mine, in person this time. My hand clenched around her throat—a spasm, not a threat. I’d threatened her with this fate once before, but it wasn’t like that now. Now, it was a choice on her part, and a duty on mine.
But it was still so fucking hard.
She saw, and her lips quirked. “You’re Pythia,” she told me. “It’s part of the job.”
I swallowed, and nodded.
“And you are an acolyte,” I whispered.
A young throat under my hand, a proud tilt of the chin, a glint in the eyes.
And a moment later, I discovered that I’d lied to the witches.
There weren’t even any bones.
Chapter Thirty-six
I flashed back into the foyer of my suite a couple of hours later. Emilio was on guard again, and he smiled in welcome. “Heard we’re keeping Marco.”
“Yeah.”
“Anybody else coming back?”
“No. But we’re not losing anyone else, either.”
He grinned wider and threw open the door. “Then you won.”
“No,” I told him quietly. “Nobody won.”
I went in.
It was dark and quiet, even though it was the middle of the night. That was usually high noon as far as vampires were concerned, but only Marco’s hulking shape was visible, outlined against the slightly less dark of the terrace. His cigar end flared bright red against the night, reminding me of the bonfire I’d just left.
Claude’s couture, and the remnants of the ancient spell it contained, had gone up in flames. I wasn’t sure if it was the quantity, because they’d cleaned out his warehouse as well as his shop, or if it was the magic imbued within the clothes, but it had turned into a raging inferno. Brilliant red, orange, and green flames had shot up three stories high, sending leaping fingers scratching at the star-strewn sky. Occasionally something would pop, and there would be a sizzle of silver or a flash of blue or purple, to join the other colors. Or a comet-like burst of gold would suddenly shoot out of the heart of the flame, heading for the heavens.
