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Tony pretended not to notice.“Anyway, when I went to see the Pythia the first time, I was vague about all that, but she figured out I was being offered a dangerous opportunity and told me the reward wasn’t worth it.That it wouldn’t go like I planned, which…” He glanced around.“Pretty spot on there.

“So I told Rasputin and his thugs that I’d think about it—”

“What did they want with you?”Mircea interrupted to ask, and Tony shot him a look.

“What do you think?I was yours, all right?I could access your court whenever I needed to, and I had old associates who lived there all the time.And you were her highness’s right-hand guy.You knew all her secrets and were in on every plan; hell, you made half of them!And knowledge is power.But you were damned tight-lipped and your guys weren’t any better.Nobody could get anything outta them, so they needed someone on the inside—”

“You,” Mircea said.And it was amazing how much menace he managed to put into that one word.

“I told ‘em no, all right?”Tony said, looking like he’d figured out who he needed to fear.“Or I put ‘em off, anyway, ‘cause telling guys like that a flat no ain’t healthy!I was gonna respectfully decline later, only then I met Roger the Bastard Palmer.Worst decision I ever made was not killing him immediately—”

“What did my father have to do with this?”I demanded.

Tony switched his look to me so he could glower, which he didn’t dare do to Mircea.“Everything!It all started going bad as soon as I met him!I shoulda known; I even told Alphonse that that guy was nothing but trouble—”

“But you didn’t kill him.”

“No, more’s the pity!”He sent me another baleful glance.“Bastard sold me this BS about being a down-on-his-luck garbage man.One who was good at enchanting stuff as well as disenchanting it.And I always needed mages.The crap ones I had kept blowing themselves up or getting one of my shipments confiscated ‘cause their shit wards failed right alongside a goddamned Coast Guard ship, and then I had to kill ‘em—”

He waved it away.“Anyway, I needed competent help.And when I had him checked out, I discovered that he was up to his eyeballs in trouble with the Dark Circle.But that didn’t bother me.Their guys are good, and if he’d gotten in with them, it meant he knew his stuff.And if he’d managed to piss ‘em off, so much the better, ‘cause he couldn’t just up and leave me, could he?He needed a bolt hole, and I needed wards that worked!”

We had to pause again for the scholar to show up and freak out, and the gods to come screaming at us once more.And damn, I hadn’t thought they’d gotten that far, I thought, as one of them, an old man with a beard as long as he was tall, almost reached the hallway where the rooms were.He was close enough that I could see the veins in his neck sticking out, and the hunger in his eyes.

I shivered and looked away because Tony was continuing.

“But one of the guys I’d had checking Roger out recognized the broad he had with him—uh, recognized your mom,” he amended, as I glared at him.“She’d been in all the papers after she up and ran off with some mage—your dad, I guess—and he had an eye for a pretty face.So I went back to see Agnes again—”

“Lady Phemonoe,” Rhea said angrily, because we were all on edge.

“Whoever, to get the damned reward.She was offering a fuck ton of money for information that would lead to her heir’s return.So I figured, what if I could tell her exactly where she was?That would be worth even more, right?Not to mention making a friend in high places, which I might need depending on how things went with the rebellion.”

“But it didn’t go well.I figured it would be easy since I already knew her, and since I had the info she was after.That got me an audience right away, but it was weird.We were talking, all normal like, then her eyes turned white out of nowhere, and she started speaking in this monotone and told me to join Rasputin if I wanted to live.Told me I’d end up worse than dead if I didn’t.Told me—damn I don’t even know what all she told me, because she freaked me the hell out.And then she said to leave and never return, or she’d kill me herself!”

“What did you do?”Pritkin asked, looking intrigued.

“What the hell do you mean, what did I do?One of the most powerful women on the planet, who’s buddy-buddy with the Silver Circle, threatens me with worse than death?I fucking ran!All the way back to Philly!And I damned well stayed there!”

“Of course you did,” Pritkin said thoughtfully.“Tell me, had Cassie been born by then?”

Tony looked like he didn’t understand the question, but he answered.“Yeah.That was why I thought it was a good time to go to London.Roger’s wife had just popped out a baby, so I didn’t figure either of ‘em would be going anywhere.”

Pritkin nodded and looked at me.“The Pythian power?”

“What?”I said.

“You told me that it uses a Pythia’s clairvoyance, and that you haven’t had many visions since you achieved the office as a result.”

“Yes?”

“Wasn’t the same true of your predecessor?”

“I… suppose so.The power uses our eyes—our metaphysical ones—to keep watch over the timeline, and we can’t use them simultaneously.It would be like a human trying to look in two directions at once.”

“Yet Lady Phemonoe had a vision.That was a vision, yes?”

“That was a vision, yes.”

“Then it is safe to assume that the Pythian power must have permitted it—” He paused, looking frustrated, for another round of screaming and godly fury, before continuing.“—or perhaps even planted it, as it did not want Mr.Gallina—”