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“Yes.”

“Oh, yes.Oh, good,” Enid said, and sat down abruptly.

“What the hell use is a loop like that to anybody?”Alphonse asked, scowling.

“None,” Rhea said.“It’s defective.”

“Is it?”I asked, glancing at her.“Think an old Pythia knew we’d need this more than a manuscript someday?”

She looked surprised for a second, then smiled.“I learned a long time ago, Lady.Never underestimate a Pythia.”

I thought she could be talking about herself, as much as the ancient Seer who, thousands of years ago, had bought us a reprieve.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Tony,” Rhea said, sitting on the edge of a dusty table.“You begin.”

“Yeah.Yeah, it’s probably better that way,” he said, darting little glances at Alphonse and Mircea, who were on opposite sides of him.As if not sure who to be more worried about.

It was Mircea.Alphonse would merely kill him; Mircea would make him wish he were dead.But right then, he was looking at his wayward servant with more curiosity than anything else, and I had to admit to sharing it.

What was Antonio Gallina doing with Rhea, of all people?

And maybe I said that out loud, because he answered me.

“The gods put me here,” he said, looking aggrieved.“I’m basically a jailer, to make sure their captive Pythia doesn’t off herself and deprive them of their little trap.Zeus gave up trying to persuade her to join him a while ago, but he figured she could still be useful.He expected you to show up sooner or later and didn’t know if you could tell whether she was alive or not.If shewasalive, this would probably be your first stop, and his brother could kill you before you caused any trouble.But if she wasn’t, you’d be off doing who knows what, and he couldn’t have that.So I was plonked down in the same prison to make sure their bait kept breathing.”

“Some reward for screwing us all over,” Alphonse said, and to my surprise, Tony agreed.

“It was that damned Pythia!”he said viciously.“She said if I did what she told me, I’d live.But you call this living?Stuck in here all the time with little Miss Perfect over there, while the world goes to hell?You call this—”

“What Pythia?”I interrupted.

Tony paused to glare at me with his mouth still open, maybe because he wasn’t used to being interrupted.Especially not by the little girl he’d once kept at his court to predict calamities, so he could profit from them.But I wasn’t that kid anymore and hadn’t been in a while, and I guessed it showed on my face.

Because after a moment, he cleared his throat and moderated his expression.“You know, I should start at the beginning.”

“Make it quick!”

“Why?So Alphonse can kill me faster?”he said nastily, because he couldn’t keep up even the pretense of civility for more than a few seconds.

“He’s not going to kill you,” Rhea began.

“Like hell I’m not!”Alphonse snarled.

Then we all had to pause so Topknot could spell the screeching scholar who’d just come in and immediately tried to bean her with a scroll.

He fell over into a stunned sleep and then the gods showed up and started running for us again, and damn, that didn’t get any easier!I thought, staring furious death in the face.Until they winked out just in time, and Alphonse grabbed Tony by the neck.

“Talk!”

“Okay, okay!I was going to anyway!”He took a moment to adjust his bathrobe.“I went to see Lady Phemonoe, in that fine house of hers in London.I’d figured out who Roger Palmer was married to, and why his wife was so shy, wanting to stay tucked up in that patch of woods all the time.Or, I thought I had,” he amended.“I thought she was just the Pythia’s missing heir, and I was in line for a serious reward.”He snorted.“Reward my ass!”

“You went to see Agnes?”I said.

“Yeah, I’d been there once before, ‘cause Rasputin was recruiting.He intended to challenge for the role of Consul of the North American Senate a long time before he actually did it.He was in bed with the gods, and they were giving him orders to destroy the senate’s power, as they figured our consul was gonna be a problem for them in the war to come.Only I didn’t know that then.I just knew he was dangling some pretty fine offers my way, but they carried a lot of risk.I don’t like risk—”

Mircea snorted, although whether because Tony was a notorious coward or because of the incredible risk of what he’d been doing with the gods ever since, I didn’t know.