Page 37

A t least we know why Rhea didn’t come down to meet us,” I said, staring at the spells crossing and crisscrossing the outside of the Penthouse I used to call home. They glowed brightly with every color of the rainbow, and a few that weren’t found there and were so strange that they made my eyes want to cross. A thousand, thousand glowing lines wrapping up my heir so tightly that nobody could hope to cut through them all.

Which is why we didn’t try.

We just went through them instead.

Even in the spirit world, I felt their tug in my flesh, the anger in the pulsating bonds fighting me as I pushed through them, as if they knew I was there. But we were in another world, which worked by different rules. So they snapped and snarled and grumbled and lashed out—

And we walked through just the same, until we stumbled out the other side as if emerging from an electrical storm.

Into a darkened suite, with only a single light burning.

It was on a desk facing the expansive windows to the balcony, holding a tarot spread and a mug of what I already knew to be tea. But Rhea wasn’t sitting there; nobody was, like nobody appeared to be moving anywhere within the suite, something so wrong that it sent a chill up my spine. This place was usually a madhouse.

It had little girls running everywhere, playing with dolls, building blocks, crayons, or bossing around the animated footstool that followed them about like a puppy. Petitioners sat kicking their heels in the waiting rooms outside my audience chamber, or attempting to bribe my appointment secretary to move them up the list, while I hid out in the kitchen to avoid them and snare a snack at the same time. A ghost or two floated through, drawn by the sheer number of clairvoyants in one place, and occasionally offering commentary. And Reggie, our token war mage, could be found on the balcony “training” Jesse, my majordomo Tami’s son, who had decided he wanted to be a war mage despite being a necromancer.

But none of that was happening today. Today, it was as silent as a tomb, with the only sounds coming from the spirit world behind me as I approached the barrier. And felt the tension against my fingertips when I got too close.

“Careful,” Billy said. “You step through, you’re back in real time.”

“How long do we have?”

“Not long. They’re pretty stupid, these “gods,” even the ones who haven’t gone completely nuts. But it’s not gonna take long for ‘em to figure out they don’t need to go on a wild goose chase through the Paths after you, but can just come here. It’s not like they don’t know what you want.”

“Just grab her and we’ll go somewhere else!” Alphonse said, which didn’t sound like a bad idea.

“Help me find her,” I said, and everyone scattered.

I approached the table, where the tarot cards were in a messy spread. The High Priestess lay across the World card, which was a much nicer version than mine, with pristine edges and no dirty fingerprints, as if it hadn’t been used often. Or possibly at all, as what was the point of a tarot deck with no clairvoyance?

I wondered what that had been like for Rhea, stuck in this horrible place with no friends, no allies she could reach, and no power to see a potential resolution. And for so very long. I had been here a few days and had already come close to breaking; how had she managed fifty years?

And what had it done to her, I wondered, shivering slightly.

Then I didn’t have to wonder when a lone figure stepped through the doors from the darkened balcony, backlit by the light from distant explosions.

Rhea didn’t look that different. She was older, with the nineteen-year-old I’d known now a woman grown. But she was still young, as mages typically live two hundred years or more, so at not quite seventy, she wasn’t even middle-aged.

But the years showed in other ways. There were lines on the once fresh face that shouldn’t be there, a darkness in the eyes, a frown on the forehead with a rut deep enough that it spoke of long periods with no reason to smile. There was also a weariness in how she walked, a slowness that spoke of having nowhere to go.

Had they left her all alone? I thought, tearing up for the girl I’d known. Had she had to see everyone else fall, and been the only one left standing?

I suddenly feared for her, and for us, not sure if I would have survived mentally intact through something like that. My God, fifty years . I’d heard that number since I arrived, and even before in Faerie, but it only hit me just now.

Fifty. Years. Alone.

Was she even sane?

And then she sat at the table, the light shining on her dark chignon, picked up her half-cooled mug of tea, and brought it to her lips—

And froze.

For a long moment, she didn’t move. Just stared at the High Priestess card, which was now several inches over from where it had been. I hadn’t realized until that moment that I’d reached through the barrier to touch it, but I guessed I must have, because the card was lying beside the World in the Future position, rather than on top of it. And after a moment, Rhea stretched out a trembling hand to pick it up.

Then she was on her feet, screaming: “Cassie!”

And I was stepping out of the world of the dead into that of the living, tearing through the last shreds of that other space, and was immediately grabbed by my half-crazed-looking heir. Who stared at me for an instant in complete disbelief, before shaking me violently, hugging me, and then staring at me some more. Before collapsing, weeping, to the floor, which is where we were when the others came running back in.

Mircea was still holding Zara, who was looking more alert; Billy was zooming around the room, saying shit, shit, shit , although I didn’t know why; and Alphonse—

Alphonse was killing Tony.

“Wait!” Rhea screeched, seeing them at the same time I did.

Alphonse did not wait. I didn’t know where he’d come up with him, but the portly little bastard who had raised and tormented me in about equal measure was dangling by the neck from one of his former servant’s beefy hands, and if he hadn’t been a vampire, he’d have been sans a head right now. And then he was being beaten against anything and everything, as if he were a club that Alphonse had decided to use to wreck the room, and Mircea was telling him to stop, and he wasn’t stopping.

Because Alphonse didn’t care about a fist to the mouth. Alphonse didn’t care if he died for this. Alphonse had crossed worlds and great spans of time and almost died a dozen times for this moment, and he intended to enjoy it.

Maybe that was the real reason Tony wasn’t yet dead but was instead being slammed against the floor, the walls, and every piece of furniture Alphonse could find. It was fast turning the lovely decorating Tami had done into kindling that I was afraid was going to stake Tony before I could find out why Rhea was yelling. For some reason, she seemed to be against his imminent demise.

And then Mircea passed Zara off to Pritkin, grabbed his wayward grandson, and shook him. Which did nothing but shake Tony, too, because Alphonse wasn’t letting go. “Mine,” he snarled, and to my surprise, Mircea nodded.

“The offense was enough; he is yours. But not yet.”

“When?” It was an animalistic sound, deep and guttural and so full of rage that it was almost indecipherable, like the first word had been. And I realized something.

Alphonse might just hate Tony more than I did.

Which probably explained why he didn’t let him go, even when he sat him in the one chair that hadn’t already been wrecked, which happened to be Rhea’s. And stood behind him with a meaty hand on his shoulder while Tony stared at us. And then stared some more when the rest of our party popped back into real space, causing the fat man to screech a little.

“W-what is going on?” he demanded, his voice a little high.

“We have guests,” Rhea said, as if she couldn’t quite believe it, either. But she was back under control, tear-streaked face and all, her hair a little messy, but otherwise, the very image of a Pythia in a long, white lace dress of the type I thought she’d abandoned. But maybe, after everything, it had been a comfort to her, a reminder of better times.

I found myself wanting to hug her, so I did.

For a moment, she hugged me fiercely, as if she’d never let me go, her fingers digging into my back. But then she tore away, staring first at me and then at the rest of the blood-covered group. “That was you outside. I thought it was Father trying to reach me again, but it was you—”

“And we have a bunch of gods on our tail,” I told her. “I’m sorry; it wasn’t easy to get to you—”

“I don’t know how you managed it at all! Nobody else—but then, I don’t know why I’m surprised. I knew you’d find a way. I knew you’d come!”

“And it is wonderful to see you again,” Mircea said, breaking in smoothly. “But perhaps we can talk at a later time?”

“Yeah, we need to go,” I told Rhea.

“Go? You just arrived—”

“Did you miss the part about trailing a fuck ton of gods?” Alphonse demanded. “I just gotta kill this guy, then we can—”

“ No! ” Rhea and Tony said together, causing me to look back and forth between them in confusion.

“I can’t go beyond the threshold,” Rhea said shakily. “If I do, I die.”

“She bears a curse,” Pritkin confirmed before I asked. “Not one I’ve ever seen.”

He sounded astonished, probably because that was two new spells in one day.

“Can you remove it?” Mircea said tightly.

“Possibly. Eventually…”

Pritkin didn’t finish the thought, but he didn’t need to. We all knew the rest. We didn’t have eventually.

“What is he even doing here?” I asked, glaring at Tony. Who was wearing a nice, plush bathrobe and slippers and looked suspiciously comfy, other than for the blood stains from the beating Alphonse had been administering. “Do you know what he did? ”

“Yes,” Rhea said. “What I sent him to do.”

I just stared at her for a second. “Come again?”

She put a shaking hand to her forehead, and yeah, I knew the feeling. “I sent him back in time. To find you in Faerie. And bring you here,” she said, speaking slowly and distinctly so there could be no mistake.

Only that didn’t help, because, “ What? ”

“I know how it sounds—”

“You know, I kind of doubt that!” I said, feeling like my own head was about to explode. “Rhea, you don’t understand—”

“It’s you who doesn’t understand,” she said, shaking off her shock, because she was nothing if not resilient. “I need to explain, and I have rehearsed this so many times, but—”

“You thought there would be more time,” Mircea said, causing her to look at him in surprise.

“Time? No, that isn’t the problem—”

“Isn’t it?” I asked, grabbing her. “So, if you sent him, you can still use the power?”

“No. The gods didn’t dare reabsorb it, for fear of what it might do to them, but—”

“Then can I?” I said, not letting her finish.

“No. Or rather, I doubt it. You’re often the exception to the rules, but the Pythian power only interacts with our clairvoyance, and the gods rescinded Apollo’s gift. Without it—”

“Goddamn it!”

“But you said you sent Tony?” Pritkin repeated.

“It would have been more accurate to say that I asked him to go,” Rhea clarified, looking from Pritkin to me. “The power to do so came from the orb containing your parents’ souls, and, ultimately, from your mother—”

“Well, that’s just great!” Alphonse said. “How the hell are we going to get back now?”

“The same way we got here!” I looked at Tony. “Tell me you still have it!”

“You know, I don’t think I like your tone—” he began, before Alphonse ripped out his comb-over. “Son of a bitch!”

“It won’t work.” That was Rhea, talking fast. “Not unless you want to wait another fifty years. Your mother is dead and cannot access the Pythian power. All she had to work with was the excess charge built up in the orb over the last five decades and her own residual power. But two trips through time, one to get Tony there and one to return all of you, has expended it. She was so exhausted, she couldn’t even talk when they returned.”

“I am not staying here for another fifty goddamned years!” Alphonse roared.

“I’d worry more about surviving the next few minutes,” Billy said, as the whole room suddenly shook like—well, like there were a bunch of gods at the door.

“Saferoom,” Tony snapped. “Now!”

“What saferoom?” I said, but Rhea was already moving. Out of the living room and into the hub beyond, where a bunch of corridors met. She took the one to the audience chamber at a run, before looking back at the rest of us. “Come on! The wards won’t hold!”

“Why are they bothering with that?” Alphonse asked, as the entire suite quaked with the ferocity of the assault. “Don’t they have the password?”

“No, Zeus set the spells himself,” Rhea told him as we rushed after her. “No one gets in but him.”

“That… must have been fun,” I panted.

“He’s a monster,” she said fervently. “But he was useful. I think he was trying to suborn me in the early years, to get me on his side—”

“He’s good at that.”

“Not good enough,” it was vicious. “But he was willing to provide some comforts, including books, in the early days. I told him I was bored, with nothing to do here—”

“And how are books supposed to help us?” Gray Curls demanded.

“It’s not the books. It’s what they came in.”

And then she threw open the great outer doors to my audience hall, only… it wasn’t the hall anymore. Instead of a sunlit space with an expansive row of floor-to-ceiling windows on one side, a ridiculous throne I’d never liked, and a lot of honey-colored wooden floors so shiny that they looked more like petrified stone, there was… a library. The Pythian library, or so I guessed.

It was kind of hard to tell as it was looking the worse for wear.

That wasn’t too shocking since the last time I’d seen it, it had been carrying a furious Zeus off on a trip through time, including a visit to every major disaster, metaphysical or otherwise, in the last four centuries. The idea had been to kill him, which hadn’t worked, but it must have been a hell of a ride. When the remains of my library finally came to rest in the Vegas desert, he ran off into Faerie without so much as a peep, instead of coming after me or my court.

Of course, that had been the tiny rump of a god that was the only thing left of the All-Father in my time. Zeus had ripped off part of his soul to possess a demon lord, allowing him to follow her into the Hells on one of her hunting expeditions. He had become suspicious about what she was doing with the power she was taking from all those demon lords, but didn’t want to accuse her until he found evidence, hence the disguise.

And hence his survival when she went on her rampage and killed the rest of him, along with a number of other gods, before banishing those who remained. That small piece had endured, but small or not, it had still been too much for me to overcome. Even with the sacrifice of my library, which had been spelled to move about as the Pythian Court did.

Or it had been. It looked like a burned-out mess now, with the big rotunda where Zeus had been briefly held prisoner now destroyed, its ceiling collapsed, the priceless treasures it had once held unrecognizable trash, and the busted columns and wonky walls looking likely to collapse on us at any moment. But I hoped not, because Rhea was already leading the way across it.

“Hurry!” she said unnecessarily, because it sounded like the gods had just broken through. “In here!”

We ran across the ruined mess and inside one of the oddest features of the library, the series of rooms that were the repositories of each Pythia’s personal papers. There was a main library for general reference, or there had been, but every Pythia also decorated a personal space to hold the records of her reign. And to ensure that said records never decayed, a time loop was placed on each of them, repeating the same short period over and over, forever.

I had been in a handful of them with Rhea once, and they reflected the taste and temperament of their Pythia. Most were quite comfy, with plush places to sit and read, lovely surroundings, and occasionally refreshments. The snacks replenished themselves every time the loop began again, so the tea was always hot, and the pastries were always fresh and unbitten, no matter how many Pythias had been noshing on them through the years.

This was not one of those rooms.

Instead, we ran inside a small, cramped space with rough stone walls, a shelf full of scrolls, and a single oil lamp swinging on a chain overhead. And a scribe from the old temple at Delphi, getting a scroll off a shelf and then turning, his eyes widening in shock as our motley crew muscled in. And then he started to scream bloody murder and to whack people with the rounded wooden end of the scroll, but almost nobody noticed because we were too busy noticing something worse.

Namely, the crew of gods that had just appeared in the doorway on the other side of the atrium. And who immediately started toward us, boiling across the ash-covered floor fast enough to kick up black dust everywhere. Only to almost reach us before we could even react, while Topknot was cursing, Billy was yelling, and Alphonse was trying to pop Tony’s head off, because he was damned if he was going to die first.

And then the furious mass vanished, between one blink and the next, just blipping out of existence.

“What the—”

“Is this a trick?”

“Are they in the Paths again?”

“Will somebody get this oaf off of me? ”

That last was Tony, who managed to shove Alphonse away while I was noticing something interesting. The clouds of black soot were no longer billowing, but lying in heaps on the floor as quiet and unbroken as they’d been when we arrived, without even our footprints to disturb them. Likewise, the remains of the once pristine museum cases holding the many valuable gifts given to Pythias over the centuries were not crushed underfoot, but lay in heaps where they’d been when we’d crossed between them.

And then I remembered what was different about this particular room.

“We’re back in time,” I said.

“Whaddya mean, back in time? She said the power don’t work!” Alphonse snarled, looking at Rhea.

“It doesn’t, but the spell on this room does.”

“What spell?”

Rhea started explaining how the room worked, and I realized what she’d done. My God, she’d just bought us all the time in the world. Or all the time until we starved to death, but still.

I’d take it.

“This particular archive had something go wrong with the time loop,” she finished. “No one knows why, but instead of providing several hours for a Pythia or her acolytes to consult the manuscripts as all the others do before looping, this one starts over every few minutes.”

“But the gods weren’t in here. They were outside the room,” Mircea said, his forehead wrinkling. That was unusual for him, as he was normally lightningly quick. But time travel tended to be hard for everybody.

“Yes, and they still are,” I said. “But the time loop on the room started over, taking us along with it. They didn’t move, we did—to the beginning of the loop. And a few minutes ago, they weren’t here yet.”

Rhea nodded. “They’ll show up again near the end, but for now, they are still hunting for you through the hotel. But the loop will almost be finished when they find you.”

“And will then start over again before they can reach us?” Mircea asked a little sharply.

Because yeah, that had been close.

“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.