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But she wasn’t here! She was dead! Finally, completely!
Like I was about to be, I thought, despite the Pythian Court being a working anthill of people.
They were coming and going not twenty feet away, passing quickly across the large entryway that the parlor opened onto. I could see them past the male passenger’s legs: war mages with grim looks on their faces, tracking muddy footprints across the marble floor; acolytes rushing about, the hems of their long white dresses damp from the snow that swirled in every time the door was opened; dull-faced castaways standing around, looking blank, waiting to be led gently away; and Gertie—
Gertie.
My brain skidded to a halt. The current Pythia had stopped in the middle of the hall, her motherly shape more motherly than usual due to the corset she wasn’t wearing, because I’d gotten her out of bed. That had been hours ago, when I’d shifted here to ask for help, because the passengers were her people and because I desperately needed it. Like I desperately needed her to look at me now.
But she wasn’t. The parlor was dark, with just enough light filtering in from the entryway to see by. There was no reason for anyone to look over here, no reason at all, except for the small movements of my leg, spasming against the female passenger’s skirt. And I didn’t know what I could do to draw attention—
Now that I was choking, too.
My leg began kicking harder, but just the one. The left was as rigid as if taped to a board, but the right was determined to make up for it, battering the woman’s skirts viciously. I tried to move slightly, so that my kicks would hit her shin instead of all that material. If she woke up, even just to scream at me, it should be enough.
She didn’t wake up.
The glassy-eyed stare never wavered, the slack jaw never firmed, the body never moved. Maybe because I couldn’t, at least not at will. I kept kicking the damned skirt instead of her, violently enough to send it swaying—
Into a table full of tchotchkes.
I stared at them, my panicked brain finally clutching onto an idea. She was an elderly woman wearing a big, old-fashioned bustle on the back of her dress, the kind that had been out of style for a while even in this era. And it felt like there was some sort of solid framework under there, not just a bunch of material, which made it considerably heavier than the skirt. I watched, my heart in my throat, as the bustle slowly took on a life of its own, the continued movement having a cumulative effect. It swayed back and forth, back and forth, back and forth—
Until the wildly swinging undergarment finally followed the path of the skirt and slammed into the little table. It had a round marble slab above a slender wooden base and had already been top-heavy. Now it fell to the side, sending the knickknacks it supported scattering widely—
Right onto the overstuffed cushions of a sofa.
I stared at them in disbelief. The room contained a hardwood floor, a bunch of heavy wooden furniture, and a glass-fronted cabinet. Most of the ornaments were glass, too, and should have made a racket loud enough to wake the dead. But, somehow, they’d landed in the one spot sure to muffle it all.
Meanwhile, the room was darkening, and not because of the storm outside. My eyesight was failing, although part of that was likely due to the tears of mingled rage and dismay leaking down my face. I’d come so far, overcome so many odds, from hateful acolytes to vengeful gods, and now I was going to die to a time accident and a goddamned sofa?
But try as I might, I couldn’t break out of the seizure, or whatever was happening to me. I couldn’t move at all, other than for spasms I couldn’t control. I couldn’t do anything.
But someone else could.
I could just see well enough to make out the slender wrist and bitten nails of the woman who bent over and plucked a round glass paperweight from between the sofa cushions. It was faintly green, with a lot of captured bubbles, and looked heavy. I knew that because she held it right in front of my face.
“I could let you die here,” Jo said softly. “Just sit down and watch you drown. But what would be the point in that?”
I stared at her, certain I was imagining things. I’d just seen that same smiling face be eaten away by age and rot. Seen papery skin tear off and stream away, along with clumps of solid gray hair. Seen teeth through a hole in her cheek and her skull through dead, empty eye sockets.
Yet here she was, dark hair sleek and shining, green eyes bright and mischievous, red lips grinning at the expression on my face.
“You should feel special,” she whispered. “You’re the only one to ever beat me. But the game’s not over yet, is it?”
She tossed the paperweight up and down, up and down, laughing softly at something that only her demented brain could understand. Then she stopped and sat the glass ball on the boards of the floor in front of me. Less than a foot away, but impossible to reach.
“I’m not just going to win, Pythia,” she told me. “I’m going to crush you. You’re going to see everything you love turn to ashes before the end, and when you do, remember it was me.”
She gave the paperweight a sudden, violent shove and disappeared. I watched it bump, bump, bump across the floor, alternatively obscured and revealed by the woman’s still swinging skirt. I saw it hit Gertie’s ankle, heard her curse, saw her eyes jerk up to meet mine. But I barely noticed.
I was too busy mentally screaming.
* * *
* * *
“It’s called Chimera,” Gertie said, while I sat in the midst of a mountain of blankets, clutching a large mug of tea. The storm was lashing outside, screaming like a whole army of banshees, but I could barely hear it in here. The room was warm, with a large fireplace splashing light and heat everywhere the blankets around me were thick and cozy, and the tea was almost hot enough to scald my tongue.
