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“Jo.” I didn’t elaborate, because I’d filled her in on what had happened when I first arrived. “I thought she had a body because she was in Faerie, but that wasn’t it.”
Gertie nodded. “Too restrictive. It would trap her there.”
“While I’m here on earth.” Along with everyone I loved. I glanced at Pritkin. If she hurt him—
But of course she was going to hurt him. Or, at least, she was going to try. She’d seen us together in Wales, where I’d finally caught up with his dispossessed spirit. She knew what he meant to me.
Which put him at the top of her list.
I glanced around the room, eyes narrowed, breath coming faster, as if expecting her to walk out of a wall. She didn’t, but it didn’t help much. I could almost feel her watching me.
Or Jonathan. Because no way weren’t they working together. He’d killed Tristram in order to take his place at the senate meeting, got me on that mountaintop, and then sent his little attack dog after me. But for what?
Because that hadn’t felt like an attempted kidnapping to me. Maybe Dorina was wrong, and he didn’t care about my power. Or maybe he and his allies were on a different page. They wanted me dead, he wanted me captured, and Jo . . .
Jo just wanted to play.
“The power likely used Chimera to alert you to the fact that the rogue was doing the same,” Gertie told me. “And could therefore follow you beyond the confines of Faerie.”
“She said she was going to hurt everyone I loved,” I said, my voice harsh. “She said she was going to beat me—”
“At what? If she meant finishing what she started in Wales, that makes little sense. If she somehow obtained enough power to knock several hundred people out of the timeline, she could have shifted a god through the barrier and ended this immediately!”
I shook my head. I wasn’t sure how Jo had done what she did, but I did know one thing. “She doesn’t want the gods back, not now. She was never a true believer like Aeslinn. She didn’t care about them one way or the other, except as a way of getting revenge on the magical community she felt had wronged her. But I doubt she even cares about that anymore.”
“Death does tend to change one’s priorities,” Gertie agreed.
“And bringing the gods back would end her little game.”
“What game?” Pritkin demanded, looking angry. Probably because he wasn’t understanding half of this—not a usual circumstance for him. When it came to magic, it was usually the other way around, with me running to catch up while he explained things. But I knew ghosts—which is essentially what Jo was now, no matter how many substitute bodies she made for herself—better than anything.
“Jo isn’t human anymore,” I told him. “She’s a vengeful ghost who wants to beat me, to show that I just got lucky last time and that she really is the best after all. And she won’t rest until she does—”
“But beat you at what?” Gertie repeated, like a terrier with a bone.
“I don’t know. She’s tied up with Jonathan, this crazy dark mage high up in the Black Circle. He’s working to help them in the war, but he’s also running his own game—”
I stopped, because I didn’t need any more drama tonight, which is what we’d have if Pritkin found out that Jonathan was after my power.
“I don’t know what he wants,” I repeated. “But he may be where she got all that extra energy. He’s high up in the Black Circle leadership; he could get her whatever she needs.”
“Life magic, to extend her stamina and allow her to access more of the Pythian power,” Gertie said, frowning.
“Something that will drive her mad!” Pritkin said.
“She’s already mad,” I pointed out. “Hell, she’s already dead—twice now. She won’t care what the cost is, as long as she defeats me.”
“But the Black Circle would,” Pritkin argued. “Their leadership isn’t like the rank and file; they would have been caught years ago if so! They are shrewd, calculating, and extremely jealous of their magical stores. They would not give away mass amounts of power for no purpose.”
Which is why Jonathan wants mine, I thought. What had she promised him? Give me what I need and I’ll get you your very own demigod, one you can drain over and over? That I could see. She’d tell him anything to get what she needed to take me on.
But what had he, in turn, promised his Circle?
Because I didn’t think it was me. His allies wouldn’t take the risk of having me get free, as Louis-Cesare had. I hadn’t been willing to risk it with Lizzie, and she could channel far less power—and wasn’t Artemis’s daughter. No way would they let him keep me as one of his pets.
If so, he wouldn’t have had to pal up with a nutcase like Jo.
No, he was running his own game, but he had to be giving them something, or promising them something. Something big. Pritkin was right; they wouldn’t give him carte blanche otherwise, and they wouldn’t do it for long. Father had run his con on the Black Circle’s leadership for a while, but even he—who did have genuine ghosts in his service, just not the army of them that he’d promised—had eventually had to flee.
