Page 33

“Which is why we shouldn’t be using them at all!”

“Yes, and I’m sure if we leave now, Lord Mircea will simply let it all go—”

“He isn’t a lord,” I put in, since she’d called him that repeatedly. “That’s used for Senate members, which he isn’t—yet.”

“See?” Rhea said. “We’ve already slipped up, and we haven’t been talking half an hour yet!”

“Then we may as well go all in,” Hilde said mildly. “And erase what we must later.”

“If that even works,” Rhea grumbled, because she wasn’t stupid, either. Which was probably why her eyes were haunted and her face pale. She knew what kind of a mess we were in; she just didn’t know how to get out of it.

Which made two of us, I thought, as Hilde began speaking.

“It seems that Morgan was smart enough to collaborate with a demon to learn the difficult art of body snatching,” she informed us, as if talking about the weather. “It is highly illegal, and in fact, is one of the few crimes that will result in a death sentence—”

“Considering what else she’s risking, I doubt that bothers her much,” Rhea said dourly.

“—as it involves a perversion of the necromancer arts, allowing her to break off bits of her soul to invade other bodies. Necromancers do this to control the dead, of course; Morgan is using it to control living people, which is why I doubt her contention that she has made numerous copies of herself. Subdividing the soul saps its power, and while necromancers can often control more than one body at a time, they do not have competition. No one is working against them, as there is no longer anyone home, so to speak. Whilst she is currently in possession of a coven leader—”

“Coven leader?” I said.

“That’s where she got all the back up,” Rhea told me dourly.

“—and holding a powerful magic user against her will must be difficult, even with a soul that is largely intact,” Hilde continued. “However, she does have at least one other body under her control—her own. We need to find it before she completes whatever task she has in mind—”

“Forgive me,” Mircea began, only to be talked over.

“Unless she traveled as a spirit, leaving her body behind, in which case we’re fucked,” Rhea added.

“Language,” Hilde admonished her.

“The Lady says it all the time—”

“The Lady is Pythia and may do as she pleases.”

“Your pardon,” Mircea tried again, to no avail.

“Do you know another word that suffices?” Rhea challenged the older woman.

“Any number of them,” Hilde said. “Considering that Morgan certainly did not travel in spiritual form—”

“We can—”

“If you please,” Mircea said, more strongly.

“We are the Pythian Court,” Hilde said staunchly. “And in any case, that ability is usually reserved for the Pythia or her heir. Neither of which Morgan is!”

“She’s not a necromancer, either,” Rhea pointed out. “So can we be sure that—”

Mircea’s hand struck the table, causing me to have to catch the dish of pickled herring before it hit the floor.

“You don’t know why she is here?” he asked politely, but with a muscle tightening in his jaw.

The two women looked at him for a moment, as if trying to work out why he was annoyed.

“What?” Hilde finally said.

“You said ‘whatever task she has in mind’,” Mircea repeated. “It almost sounded as if you do not know what she plans.”