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“She was being strangled,” the older woman pointed out.

“Not all of the time!”

“I believe that you have come back for this Morgan woman, yes?” Mircea asked, determinedly dragging the conversation into line.

“Yes, precisely,” the older witch agreed. “She used some old, forbidden spells to slip through the centuries—”

“Centuries?” I repeated blankly.

“—which happens occasionally, by fanatics wanting to rewrite history or desperate sorts attempting to get rich. Knowing the future is, after all, a sure-fire way to do that. And the best way to know the future is to travel into the past.”

“And then the Pythia goes after them,” I said, finally understanding what they were saying, even if I didn’t believe it.

“Yes, well, at times.” The older woman topped off her drink, which she appeared to have made a good dent in. It had been that kind of night. “Fortunately, most of the would-be time travelers manage to blow themselves up long before they shift a single day. The spells are dangerous in the extreme, and even when they do work, navigating through a different era is more difficult than people think. We of the Pythian Court spend years in training, and even we often hit snags. The mages in question usually find themselves in trouble long before we arrive to cart them back home.”

“Plague,” the younger witch said dourly. “Or some other disease. Or bad food,” she added, frowning at my feast some more. “Or saying the wrong thing to the wrong person, because they don’t know any better . . .”

“Yes, it’s always rather nice when they take a knife to the eye before we catch up to them,” the older woman agreed. “I’m Hilde, by the way. I don’t think we introduced ourselves? And this is Rhea. I’m sure you understand why we do not wish to give our full names.”

Actually, I didn’t understand, but then, that was proving true for most of what they said.

“Dorina, usually go by Dory,” I reached across the table to take her hand. “Don’t have a last name.”

The younger witch looked surprised suddenly, and her eyes flicked to the vampire before she could stop them. But then she looked down into the depths of her tankard, and stayed that way. The older, on the other hand, never so much as batted an eye.

Experience, I thought, also keeping my face neutral.

“And the illustrious Lord Mircea completes our little group,” Hilde said pleasantly. And then her forehead wrinkled. “Ah, that explains a few things.”

“What does?” I asked, trying to withdraw my hand and being denied.

I could have forced the issue, but something in her expression stopped me. “Yes,” she murmured, her eyes half closed. And then they opened to skewer me. “Did you know you carry a tracking spell?”

“What?”

The younger witch grabbed my hand and then cursed. And a moment later, my skin tingled and I heard a snap. Of the spell, I assumed, as it suddenly felt like I could breathe again.

“She spelled me?” I said, furious.

“So, that is how she found us,” Mircea said. “I had wondered.”

“But she was there first!”

“Yes, she is smart, that one. There aren’t many coven witches in the Circle’s chief stronghold these days, allowing her to guess where we were heading as soon as we approached the shop. I thought it odd that Mistress Ellaria would claim to have a concealment charm over her entrance to fool the Circle when she has been there for generations. She is well known to the locals and such a ruse would hardly fool the Corpsmen for long. They likely visit regularly to ensure that she is acting only as an herbalist, and not using forbidden magic.”

I nodded. The Corps was the strong arm of the Circle, their bully boys who enforced their laws. And hey were very good at what they did.

“That’s why everyone looked at me like I was mad when I fell in,” I said. “The damned thing had just gone up, and they didn’t know.”

He inclined his head. “Mistress Morgan likely cast the spell to slow us down, and buy her time to intimidate Ellaria into helping us.”

“And to set a trap. That’s why they already had the broomsticks; they flew into the courtyard under concealment spells!”

“Very likely,” he agreed. “And once we were in back, and they knew that we had the ring, they struck. It was well planned.”

I glowered, feeling less like singing the damned woman’s praises. Possibly because my hand felt like it had been plunged into a bowl of stinging nettles. Like most malevolent spells, this one hadn’t gone quietly.

It and its mistress clearly had points in common.