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He was back and we were alone and oh my God, I could talk!
So I did. It spilled out in half-incoherent sentences, the words almost falling over themselves because I didn’t have to weigh each one, didn’t have to leave it trembling on my tongue while I ran down all the reasons why I couldn’t say that to this person, because to this person, I could say anything. And while his jaw got tighter and tighter as he listened, he didn’t try to interrupt me.
“It’s not that I don’t get it,” I said, long minutes later. I’d sat up against the headboard, the blankets around the legs I’d pulled up to my chin, but my toes sticking out. “The Pythian Court faces some next-level shit sometimes, and despite being time travelers, you don’t always get do-overs—”
“Like yesterday,” Pritkin said, speaking for the first time.
I nodded. “My power isn’t reliable in Faerie. If I went back to try to keep Jo from changing time, I might end up changing it worse, and getting all those people on that train killed. Or like on the search for you. I’d love to pop back to Wales and finish this. But the way things played out, Ares got dead. What if, by killing her—permanently this time—I changed that? So I get why the court is like it is. I do.”
“But you don’t like it.”
“God, no!” I thought back to those little girls clustered around Gertie. Her entire court hadn’t been in the ring, just the acolytes. And some of the younger initiates hadn’t even been in the room. But some of them had.
There’d been one girl, maybe fourteen or so, the same age I was when I ran away from Tony the first time. I remembered how scared I’d been then, how my heart had seemed to
hammer in my ears constantly, how I almost never slept, not for days, so sure that he or his men were right behind me. How I’d stopped even looking in the mirrors in the bus stations and fast-food places where I briefly stopped, because I didn’t like my expression.
The same one I’d seen on her face today.
She hadn’t wanted to be there; she hadn’t found it exciting. Some of the others had, their eyes shining, their fists clenching at their sides, so wanting to be in there! I could get that, too. Women in this period didn’t have a lot of chances at power, and the idea could be intoxicating for some. But for others . . .
Whatever happened to being a kid? Playing with freaking dolls, or coloring books, or whatever they played with here? What ever happened to not shouldering the cares of the whole world before you’d figured out how to ride a bike?
“No,” I told Pritkin now. “I don’t like it.”
“Then do your court differently. Every Pythia’s court is different, some radically so. Your court can be whatever you want—”
“Pritkin! I don’t have a court!”
I threw off the blankets, even though it was cold, because it was cold underneath them, too. I’d taken off the ruined dress, and had been napping in what they called a “chemise,” which was less Victoria’s Secret and more Granny’s Closet. I had to remember not to trip over the flounce as I paced around.
“I don’t have a court,” I repeated. “I have a bunch of little girls I can’t protect—”
“Little girls? Like the ones I saw the other night?”
I ran a hand through my hair. “Yes, the initiates are all that’s left, with an average age of maybe eight. Some of them are barely walking yet! They take them from their families early, plop them into court, and don’t care if it brutalizes the hell out of them—”
I stopped talking, my throat tight, but kept pacing.
“Some of the Corps’ training techniques would likely shock you as well,” Pritkin told me quietly. “Not to the degree of killing living, physical bodies—although I strongly suspect that has more to do with not having them to spare than with squeamishness. But, of course, the men and women who take part volunteer—”
“And they are men and women,” I said savagely. “They’re not children!”
“The concern is that if powerful clairvoyants are left with their families, they may come under the influence of those who would misuse their gifts. As that vampire did yours.”
I nodded miserably, because he had a point. Tony had used what he learned from my visions to profit off of all kinds of things, from natural disasters to stock market drops to underworld wars. And he’d hurt plenty of people along the way.
I wouldn’t wish that on the girls, either, and the court did keep them safe from that kind of thing until they grew up. And a mature clairvoyant in charge of her skills is a damned hard person to manipulate. It also gave them training on how to control their gift, so that it didn’t torment them the way it had me, with visions coming hard and fast, sometimes one after the other, until there were days when I’d crawled under my bed, trying to get away from them, biting my lip to keep from screaming myself hoarse, because I knew that would alert Tony to the fact that I’d Seen something.
“Before the current rules, powerful magical families used their clairvoyants against each other,” Pritkin told me. “The court existed, but until the high middle ages, there was no requirement for families to surrender their daughters to it. Most felt that it was an honor, but some held them back, hoping to give their clan an advantage.”
Like the covens still did, I thought.
“The court does some good,” I admitted, although that was hard to do today. “I just wish—”
I cut myself off. It didn’t matter what I wished. And I didn’t even know what that was, anyway!
But Pritkin, who had been reclining on the bed, sat up. “What do you wish?”
