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T wenty minutes later, we were watching a new war mage sniffing about. But unlike the others, who hadn’t gotten any better at ignoring distractions, this one was coming steadily closer. Zara narrowed her eyes as he slipped past two and then three different redirects, barely pausing at the last, and then just stayed in place, his head thrown back to silver his face with moonlight, listening.

We all stayed quiet; I don’t know why, as it was Pritkin, and I was going to have to talk to him sooner or later. But if this little reprieve was designed to give me a chance to recover and gather my thoughts, it had failed utterly. After what the sadhu had said, my brain had mostly shut down and was doing the equivalent of sitting on a sofa, mindlessly watching a sitcom while eating mint chocolate chip, and my God, I could go for some mint chocolate chip!

So I didn’t have a plan and wasn’t up to making one. Or to telling him what I obviously needed to tell him, which he wasn’t going to like. Or to discussing what the hell had happened back there.

I wasn’t up to anything, so I dully watched Pritkin wait, I guessed for me to call him over. And when I didn’t, he surprised me by starting to sing. His nice, low tenor, kept quiet so as not to attract the attention of the other mages prowling the area, had the feys’ heads jerking up and the witches stiffening.

I knew why when the desert wind started to jive with the tune he was playing on the surrounding landscape. It sounded like he’d made it into his own little orchestra, with the shush-shushings of sand setting a rhythm like brushes on cymbals, the local frogs chiming in like a chorus singing backup, and a few distant howls, maybe wolves or coyotes, giving some variation on the theme. And then the wind itself decided to wail a haunting solo because Pritkin’s voice had suddenly stopped.

He was coming, following the stirrings of sand that formed in front of his feet, making a path straight to us. The desert was pimping us out, and it seemed to like Pritkin better than the witches, as it was ignoring their attempts to shore up the spell. And the fey didn’t help them, why I had no idea, but instead, they were just sitting there until Bodil abruptly stood up.

“Let us give them some space,” she said, walking off.

The fey followed her, even Enid, after a pause, who had stuck to me like glue until now, although she looked back once, biting her lip. The witches were a harder sell, staying put like resentful rocks with no intention of budging. And the sadhu stuck out his chin mutinously.

“No one commands me but the goddess,” he said, and his followers quickly arrayed themselves like a wall in front of us.

That left me looking at Pritkin, who stepped past the witches’ wards a moment later, through a lattice of old bones. He stopped, and we stared at each other for a heartbeat, then two, while the zombies rattled menacingly. Then he cocked an eyebrow in that way I hate because I can’t do it, and I sighed and womaned up.

“It’s fine,” I told the sadhu, although my voice didn’t sound like it agreed. “We need to talk.”

“You can talk with us here,” Topknot snapped, although I hadn’t asked her. “He’s been plotting with the rest of ‘em. You know what he wants!”

“Yeah. I know. Give us a minute, will you?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Gray Curls told me as they got up. “Dying for no reason won’t help us!”

Yeah, I thought.

But neither would sitting here.

“We’ll be nearby if you need us,” Zara said and led the others away.

That left the sadhu, who still hadn’t budged. If anything, his line of skeletal followers had gotten more aggressive, crowding Pritkin as if determined to bear him away into the sands. I sighed again and touched the holy man’s withered shoulder, and he turned and bowed low, his forehead hitting the dirt again.

“He’s a friend,” I said.

“He’s a war mage!” he said, looking up. “You can’t trust them!”

“They say the same thing about you.”

He grinned a little at that. “And they’re right. Except where you’re concerned.”

“Why am I any different?”

He shook his head hard enough that the bones in his necklace, which looked disturbingly human, rattled. “I saw what you did. And felt it when you picked me up and brought me here, yes, and my family!” I guessed he meant the bony minions because they rattled in agreement. “And actions speak louder than any honeyed words, goddess.”

“I’m not a goddess.”

He grinned again, a stretching of withered flesh. “Close enough,” he said and kissed my hand. “And we will be close by,” he added, shooting a poisoned look at Pritkin.

He and the bone squad clattered off into the night, leaving me temporarily alone. But still, Pritkin didn’t come any closer. We just looked at each other for what felt like a long time before I got tired of it.

“Well?” I said. “I’m fine, by the way.”

“I stayed with you until that was certain,” he said, but didn’t approach.

“Is there some kind of problem?” I finally asked, too tired for whatever this was.

“I’m not sure.” He finally came over and sat down on the sandy hill beside me. “Are you all right?”

“You said you already ascertained that,” I answered acerbically, because no, I was not all right!

“I didn’t mean physically,” he said, and took my hand when I didn’t want him to take my hand! But I didn’t pull away because it felt good. It felt more than good, familiar calluses, potion-stained skin, and all.

He needed a manicure, I thought, staring down at our clenched hands. We both did. My poor nails looked like a beaver had chewed on them, and my hands were dirty.

In more ways than one.

I flinched in memory and thought about crying.

His arm went around me, and my head went onto his shoulder automatically. It didn’t mean that I wasn’t still hurting and horrified and resentful. I knew damned well what I’d done, why he was here, what everyone wanted.

And I couldn’t give it to them, even though I didn’t have an alternative to offer.

I didn’t have anything.

“You’re not all right,” he said after a moment, and I burst out laughing. Somehow, it changed to tears when I wasn’t looking and then to hysterical little sobs with slight screechy notes that only became worse when he pulled me close.

I tried to stop; I really did. But every time I made the effort, the screechy noises got worse because stopping meant talking, and I couldn’t talk! I couldn’t do any of this!

“Any of what?” Pritkin asked because I guessed I’d said that last out loud. “You don’t have to do anything, Cassie. Do you understand? No one is going to make you—”

“Aren’t they?” I looked at him wildly. “Isn’t that exactly what they’ve been talking about? Why you’re here?”

“I’m here for you ,” Pritkin said fiercely. “And Madesh had no reason to give you incomplete information. Nothing has been decided—or will be without you.”

“Madesh?”

“The necromancer. I assume he talked.”

“Yes, he talked! He told me what they’re planning, Jonas and Rosier and those dark mages who have suddenly seen the light—”

“That’s debatable,” he said dryly.

“—I know what they want!”

“But that isn’t what you have to do ,” he said with emphasis; I guessed to break through my panic, only it wasn’t working.

“Isn’t it? Then what are we supposed to do? Because I can’t go in there! You saw what happened. If I go anywhere near Vegas, there will be more of those things ... hundreds more, maybe thousands! And no, I can’t take them all, but I could take some , hanging around the edges, waiting until one or two were alone, and then—”

“Cassie.”

“—when I’m more powerful, take more at a time. Because I can shift , Pritkin! With my power restored, I can use the Pythian spells, which aren’t just Pythian spells! I needed the Pythian power to fuel them once, but I can do them alone ; my mother’s blood sees to that! I think that’s why she was so powerful; she could shift away from her enemies, too. Taking all she liked, gorging herself on their power until reinforcements came, then shifting away. Not all the gods can do that; maybe most can’t! But I can; I just proved it by getting us all here. And I could do the same thing. I could be just like her! ”

Pritkin hadn’t tried to break in again; he’d just let me talk. I finally stopped, panting and terrified and desperate, not knowing where to turn. Until he focused my attention back on him, grasping my face in his hands and pulling our heads together.

“You aren’t like her.”

“Not now, maybe! But you saw —”

“I saw you stop . I saw you use up all that power, give away all that advantage, and instead decide to rescue us. And more than just us. You took them all, even the men who had just been trying to kill you, who had broken their oaths and turned on you, the one person able to stop all of this.”

His voice hadn’t risen, but it had hardened, and I wondered what he’d said to his fellow war mages when I wasn’t there. Nothing good, probably, which wasn’t fair. I’d done worse to them.

“I killed them,” I whispered. “I killed war mages —”

“You protected yourself—”

“I killed them! And I didn’t care!” I tore away, stood, and then whirled on him because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. And because he needed to get this. “Do you understand? They were nothing to me! I didn’t even think about them. If they lived, if they died, if they burned to death screaming—it was nothing to me!”

“And yet you stopped.”

“Because you asked me to! You and Mircea—”

“And you listened—”

“Barely!” I stared at him. He had no idea how close it had been. No idea at all.

I sat back down, feeling shaky and unwell. Pritkin wisely did not reach for me again, but he was listening. And waiting because he wanted to understand.

It was something. I just didn’t know if it would be enough, if I could make him get this. Especially when I didn’t want to!

“Pritkin, I’ve... had problems with addiction before. The Tears of Apollo…” I stopped because I’d never told him this. Never let him know just how bad it had been. “It’s supposed to be used for emergencies, to increase our stamina and let us channel more of the power, but I…”

I stopped and licked my lips. He thought I was so strong, but the opposite was true. I’d bent the rules so many times, and not just out of necessity.

Not even close.

“You were under an immense amount of stress,” he said. “It wouldn’t be a stretch to call your entire reign an emergency.”

“Yeah. That’s what I told myself.” I paused and then came out with it because I might be a lot of things, but I wasn’t going to be a coward, too!

“I started mainlining the stuff,” I said flatly. “I was using bottles per week—multiple ones.”

“What?” He blinked because, no, he hadn’t known the full extent of it. That potion was supposed to be consumed in sips on a very, very occasional basis, whereas I had been basically chugging it.

“Gertie caught me,” I said, referencing a former Pythia who had been training me back in the Victorian era, along with her heir Agnes, as there was no one left to do it in mine. “She almost had a fit, and Agnes practically tore me baldheaded because they knew how seductive it is. How overwhelming. How... perfect.”

I felt my hands clench and had to force them apart. I wanted to break down because Pritkin was the last person who believed in me, really believed, just as he’d been the first. I didn’t want to do this!

But he had to understand why this plan of theirs wouldn’t work.

“I told myself I was taking it because I had no choice,” I said hoarsely. “That I needed it because I was just a little half-human who wasn’t up to the fight otherwise. I told myself a lot of things, anything, everything, that would make it okay to keep on going. But the truth was, I was addicted. And the more I had, the more I wanted.

“Not because of the drug itself, but because of what it did, allowing me to consume more of the Pythian power than I ever could alone. That’s what we do when we channel the power; we consume it, like I consumed it from those gods I attacked, like I will again, given half a chance!”

“You won’t—”

“Stop saying that! You don’t understand! I know I have to get to Rhea, but if I get a taste—just one—”

“You were taken by surprise,” he said stubbornly. “You know what to look for now—”

“No! You keep acting like what happened was an accident when it wasn’t! It was just like before, when I told myself I was being careful, that I could handle it.” I laughed, and it was ugly. “You saw how well I handled it!”

“I saw you prove you could . The fact that we’re alive says that much.”

“You saw me get lucky!” I countered savagely. “All those gods flying at me like that jolted me enough that your words could get through. If they hadn’t…” I shook my head. “The addiction didn’t sneak up on me, Pritkin. I wanted it, just as I wanted to drain all of them. Just as I want to right now. Even after all of that, even after killing war mages , men who had survived fifty years of hell until they met me—”

“Until they attacked you,” he said again, steadfastly loyal and blind because of it. He wouldn’t think the worst of me, and I didn’t know how to make him understand. How to tell him that the animal under my skin was already growing antsy. That it had fed and fed well but had used most of it up getting away, and now... it was hungry again.

It wanted to feed.

It was why I’d been out here, sitting on my ass and doing nothing, because I wasn’t doing nothing. My hands were dirty from me burying them in the ground, clenching my fists around it as if it could hold me in place and keep me from racing off to the city that I could just see glimmering between some hills in the distance. I’d been busy not doing that, not tearing into whoever I met on the way, not cannibalizing them to feed my ever-growing hunger, not…

Being her.

But it had taken everything I had and, weirdly, had made me understand her better. I never had before, never had figured out why my mother was so distant, so indifferent, so cold . Never realized that she was still sunk in her addiction and so hungry for power that it had consumed her every thought.

But there’d been no mad little gods running around then, after she’d banished them all, and no way for her to feed without the demon lords coming down on her in her weakened state like a plague. She’d almost died in the last battle with the other gods and couldn’t risk it, couldn’t do anything but get weaker every year, and yet the need had clawed inside her. I knew it had.

It did in me.

“Listen,” Pritkin said, and this time, he did touch me, gripping my forearm and dragging me close. Close enough that I could see the trust in those green eyes when he looked at me, the utter belief that I was going to betray. Not because I wanted to, but because that’s what I was, what all the gods were. Ravenous, selfish, predatory.

Monsters.

“Listen.” He shook me a little. “ You are not your mother . You proved that by risking your life for us—”

“Pritkin, you don’t—”

“I do understand.” It was low-voiced, but it was savage. “I understand you better than anyone else I’ve ever known. They say you only really see the truth of someone when they’re tested, when their back is against the wall, and they are scared and hungry and desperate and filthy, when they have nothing but their courage to draw on, and even that seems likely to fail. And I have seen you like that, Cassie, more than once.

“ I know you . I knew you then, in that damned warehouse with gods screaming toward you across the desert and a group of people who had just been trying their best to slaughter you waiting in the wings. I knew what you’d do.

“Leaving people behind, being ruthless, and not caring what harm they cause are things our enemies do. You’ve gotten this far by being the opposite, by never abandoning your people, by giving a damn, by sacrifice . It’s something they cannot and will not ever understand. It’s why you draw people to you. It’s why you win .”

“I haven’t won yet,” I said miserably as he hugged me close. Because, no, he didn’t get it. And I didn’t have the words to convince him or the strength to try anymore. He’d realize the truth eventually, but by the time I saw the dawning horror in his eyes and the betrayal on his face, I’d be so drunk on power that I wouldn’t care.

I thought that might be the very worst part of it.