Reap the Wind (23 page)

“You know,” I said, not waiting for a break in the conversation because there probably wouldn’t be one, “I was thinking the other day that what I really need is a new design for the initiates’ uniforms.”

There was sudden silence on the other end of the phone.

“Or whatever they call their formal wear. Jeans and stuff are fine for every day, if nothing special is happening, but there are times when they’re going to have to get dressed up. And then they’re going to need something a bit better than the nightgowns they’ve been wearing. I mean, have you see them?”

“Yes, they’re appalling,” Augustine said. “Who designed them?”

“I think it was one of the Pythias, Gertrude something, back in the nineteenth century. And maybe they looked okay then, I don’t know, but—”

“You can’t have them running around like that,” he agreed, sounding suddenly reasonable.

“Well, that’s what I thought. And then, naturally, I thought of you.”

“Naturally.” He sighed, and it was long-suffering. Because he was so overworked and my request was such a burden—a burden he would shortly have plastered on every bit of ad space he could find.

Augustine found his association with the Pythia very lucrative.

He just didn’t like paying for it.

I heard some pages flipping. “I suppose I could fit it in,” he told me. “It will be difficult, mind you. I have the pre-fall show coming up on the twentieth, and then there’s the—”

“And in the meantime,” I said, because Augustine could give Rosier a run for his money in the loving-the-sound-of-his-own-voice department, “I asked Marco to pick up some everyday stuff for the girls, to tide them over. You heard about what happened to their wardrobe?”

“If the rest was anything like that nightmare, they’re well rid of it.”

“But they have to wear something, until you’re ready to show the world your masterpiece. Don’t they?”

There was another pause.

“See what I can do,” he told me curtly, and hung up.

I lay back on the bed.

“Okay, now do that with Jonas,” Tami told me, bright-eyed.

I cracked a lid at her. “I thought you didn’t want me to call him.”

“Yeah, but that was good. Call him and do that.”

Sure. Like it was that easy.

“Jonas isn’t Augustine,” I told her. “I don’t have that kind of leverage with him.”

“But you’re
Pythia
—”

“And he’s the head of the Circle. I piss Augustine off, and there’s other designers. I piss Jonas off, and I’ve damaged a relationship with a close ally.” And that would not be a great idea right now.

“And you don’t think you pissed him off the other night?” Tami demanded. Apparently, news traveled fast.

“Probably. But he was seriously out of line then. I didn’t have a choice.”

“He’s out of line now. Tell her.” Tami looked at Rhea.

“She knows,” Rhea said, watching me.

“I’m giving him a chance to cool off,” I told Tami. “I’m not trying to show him up or make an enemy. This can’t turn into some kind of . . . of pissing contest.”

“It’s already a pissing contest—”

“Not to me. And I’m going to give him some time, see if he comes around.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

I closed my eyes. “Let’s hope he does.”

“You’re more of a . . . diplomat . . . than me,” Tami said.

I wondered if that was some diplomacy on her part, to avoid saying “pushover.” If it was, I couldn’t blame her. I’d been acting like one, not intentionally, but in a we’re-all-in-this-together kind of way, because we were. And because I had enough to worry about with my enemies; I didn’t need problems with my allies, too.

But maybe they hadn’t taken it that way.

Maybe they’d taken it Tami’s way.

I sighed.

“What about housing?” I asked, keeping my eyes closed because it felt really good. “Do I need to call Casanova, too?”

“Good luck,” she said dryly.

I opened my eyes. “What does that mean?”

“It means that at least Augustine answers his phone. Casanova has gone AWOL.”

“AWOL?”

She nodded. “Like last month, when the damn electricity went haywire in my room. Looked like a horror movie in there—blink, blink, blink, about drove me nuts. But you think I could get anyone up to fix it? And when I called him to complain, and to point out that it was his hotel that was going to burn down if there was a short, you think he’d take my call?”

“He isn’t taking anyone’s,” Rhea told her. “I tried yesterday, and again this morning. They say he’s out.”

“He’s not out—he’s hiding,” Tami insisted, the light of battle in her eye. “But he can’t hide forever.”

“We’ll try again tomorrow,” I said, because I really did not feel like trying to track down an elusive vampire right now.

Tami nodded. “You look done in. Have a nap, Cassie.”

“I’m not going to nap,” I told her. “I have to take a bath. I can’t possibly sleep like this.”

“Mmhm,” she said, and closed the bedroom door.

Rhea didn’t go with her, and a second after the door shut, a silence spell clicked into place.

I
had
to learn how to do that.

“The Tears?” I asked, even knowing that would be too easy.

She shook her head.

I put mine back down onto the bed.

“I’m sorry, Lady.”

“It’s okay. If he didn’t send the money, I really didn’t think he’d send those.” I turned to the side and propped my head up on an elbow so I could see her better. “Does Jonas understand what the acolytes might want with them?”

“He was in a hurry when I spoke to him . . . and a temper,” she added, grimacing slightly. “But I did explain—”

“And what did he say?”

“Only that they would not obtain any from him. But he did not say how he knew that, or . . . much of anything else. I can try again tomorrow—”

I sighed. Because yeah, she could. And so could I. But that raised its own problem, didn’t it? “We can’t give him the idea that we’re too interested, or he’ll use them as leverage to get control of the court.”

“It isn’t the court he wants,” she said, quietly furious. “It’s you.”

“Then he’ll use them to get leverage on me. Not that it’ll do him any good.”

“Not do him any good?” Rhea looked confused.

“Jonas has been telling himself porky pies,” I told her, rolling off the bed.

“I . . . beg your pardon?”

“Lies,” I translated and went into the bathroom.

And then changed my mind, because a bath sounded awesome, but it also sounded like a lot of work right now. And like I might just fall asleep halfway through. But I had to at least wash my feet. I really couldn’t sleep like this.

I ran some hot water in the bottom of the tub, sat on the edge, and grabbed a sacrificial washcloth. God, Victorian London was
filthy.
My soles were black, I’d stubbed a toe on a higher-than-usual cobblestone, and I didn’t even want to know what was wedged in between the other ones. I loaded up on the soap and went to town.

“Lady?”

“Hm?”

“What kind of lies?”

I looked over my shoulder to see Rhea standing in the doorway, watching me.

“What? Oh. The kind where everything is going to be fine, because Cassie is going to wave a hand and save the day. I think Jonas forgets sometimes that he’s not dealing with Agnes.”

“Why do you . . .” Rhea cut herself off.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

She started picking up the bathroom, and soon had an armful of little soiled dresses. The formerly pristine white cotton was creased and sweat-stained, and, well, looked like it had been lived in for three days. But I guess it would have been hard to have them washed when the kids didn’t have anything else to put on.

I thought of Agnes’ perfect little court, so manicured and well behaved.

And then I thought of the giggling, glitter-streaked, slightly grimy one outside.

And, oh, look, I was having an effect already.

“Too bad we couldn’t have rescued more of Agnes’ stuff,” I said when Rhea noticed me watching her. “We could have outfitted the older girls, at least.”

“Most of her things were too warm for Las Vegas . . . if the court is to remain here?”

“I haven’t given it a lot of thought. Do you want to go back to London?”

“No.” It was emphatic. “The weather,” she added, grimacing.

“I can see that,” I agreed, remembering Agnes’ many coats. If I’d been her, I’d have moved the court somewhere sunny. The south of France maybe, or the coast of Spain.

Mmm, Spain. Paella and sangria and gorgeous guys . . .

Only Agnes’ gorgeous guy had been in rainy old London, hadn’t he? Well, her
guy
, anyway. I tried to imagine Jonas as a hot young stud and failed miserably. But he must have been once. Or at least she must have thought so. And they’d looked happy. . . .

I grinned, remembering the photo. The woman laughing and joking and kissing Jonas had had windblown hair and a top with half the buttons undone because it was being used as a beach cover-up. She’d had sunglasses on her head and what looked like a smear of that old white sun cream over her nose—to avoid more freckles, I guessed. She’d looked familiar in a way that her elegant rooms hadn’t. More relatable. More real.

More like the woman who had once shot me in the butt.

I wondered again where all the other pictures were. She must have had some . . . right? I mean, people did, didn’t they? Even before the era of the selfie.

But then, where were mine? If I died tomorrow and Rhea had to go through my stuff, what would she find? Some tacky old T-shirts? A few ratty tarot cards? A closet full of unsold ball gowns Augustine had foisted off on me so he could use my name in advertising, but that I’d never worn because I didn’t have a social life?

I shook my head; I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I was in the middle of a war. My lack of a social life didn’t matter.

Only, it did, somehow. Maybe because it had started to feel, especially lately, like I just jumped from one crisis to another. The idea that, sooner or later, things would calm down and I’d have time to get to the personal stuff didn’t seem to be happening. If anything, everything was speeding up, with even the thought of actually making it through to the other side getting harder to visualize.

And what if I didn’t?

Agnes hadn’t. She’d been something like eighty when she died, which might be a damn good run for a human, but not for a mage. For a mage, that was like dying at forty. And here I was at twenty-four, not at all sure I was going to make it to twenty-five, and—

And I suddenly wondered if that was how she’d felt. Like life was going by really fast, but nothing was
happening
. Not for her.

“In comparison to you?” Rhea asked suddenly.

I looked up. “What?”

“Yesterday you said something about Lady Phemonoe . . . in comparison to you?”

“Just that there isn’t much of one,” I said, grimacing.

But Rhea didn’t look like she got the joke.

“She was a very good Pythia,” she told me quietly.

“But?” I asked, because there had been one in there somewhere.

She bit her lip. But when she spoke, her voice was determined. “But she was too close to the Circle.”

“She and Jonas were lovers,” I pointed out. “Not that most people knew it.”

“They knew. Maybe not the man on the street—they kept it out of the papers. But there were rumors. And the major players, they always have spies. . . .”

The Senate sure did. I thought briefly of Kit Marlowe’s smiling face. The Senate’s chief spy had always been kind to me, charming even. I liked him.

I wondered if I still would if I knew everything he had on me.

“Enough people knew that the other groups felt excluded,” Rhea continued. “It didn’t matter so much with individuals, someone wanting a judgment on a personal matter. But if it touched the Circle . . .”

“And what doesn’t touch the Circle?” They weren’t the only magical game in town, but they were the biggest and everybody knew it.

She nodded.

“So what did groups like the Senate do when they needed a judgment? How did they approach her?”

“Most didn’t,” Rhea said quietly. “Not about the big things. It bothered her—I could tell—when they would sort things out for themselves, only to find that the solution they’d come up with didn’t work. She would have known, could have told them . . . but they hadn’t asked her.”

“You’re telling me their relationship was
that
damaging? To the point that no one listened to her afterward?”

“It wasn’t that no one listened. It was more that . . . it confirmed what everyone had always suspected. That the Circle and the Pythia worked in tandem.”

“So it started before Agnes?”

“Oh yes.” As usual, she looked slightly surprised at my ignorance. “It started with the Coven Wars.”

Damn. That sounded like more of the kind of stuff I should know about but didn’t. I sighed and womaned up. “The Coven Wars?”

“It’s the reason the Circle and the covens don’t get along. They had a huge war back in the sixteenth century over who was going to control Britain. The Circle won—barely—partly because the Pythia of the day prophesied that it would. The other groups took that as a sign that helping the covens would be a waste of time, and afterward, they couldn’t get allies anywhere.”

“A self-fulfilling prophecy.”

She nodded. “That’s what the covens said. They were furious, and many refused to allow any more of their children to go into the Pythian service. And those who did . . . didn’t do well.”

I remembered that Rhea had a cousin in the covens. It’s why she’d run to them when she found out my acolytes were rotten, and why the coven leaders had been willing to help me. But it sounded like her connections hadn’t made her too popular at court.

“The Pythias were unique in the ancient world, did you know?” she asked, sitting on the edge of the tub, hugging an armful of soiled cotton. “Every other seer, every other temple, was dominated by wealthy men or women whose families had put them in that position. Every single one. Except for Delphi. Some of the Pythias came from wealth, too, from time to time, but there were just as many who were farmers’ daughters or shepherdesses or . . . or nobodies. Just nobodies. But these days . . .”

“These days?” I prompted when she trailed off.

“They say the power goes where it will. But it almost always goes to the one best able to use it. And that means the old Pythia’s heir, the person who has received the most training.”

I was starting to see where she was going with this. “But if you only allow some people to be trained—”

“Then you decide where the power goes—or where it doesn’t go. It has become a monopoly among a few old magical families that have strong connections to the Circle’s leadership. Lady Phemonoe was from one; her predecessor from another. And on and on, back beyond the wars.”

“And the current acolytes?”

“Old families, every one. Lady Phemonoe’s parents were unusual in not wanting their child selected. Most see it as a path to power, influence, and wealth, and push their daughters to get the position at all costs.”

“And so they breed a bunch of ambitious little hellions like Myra.”

But Rhea shook her head. “Not like Myra. She was selected for her ability, yes, but also for being quiet, unassuming, seemingly humble. The others . . . were not. They wanted the power terribly, and it showed. And I think the Lady must have seen something. . . . She told me once that none of them could ever be allowed to succeed her.”

“But she didn’t see anything about Myra, because Apollo was protecting his little puppet,” I guessed.

Rhea nodded, looking troubled. “He must have been, at least enough that the Lady did not see Myra for what she was.”

“So Myra got the job, and everyone else got bupkis.”

Rhea nodded.

I started rinsing off. “Tell me about them.”

“Victoria—the redhead—is from one of the founding families who first started the Circle, the Roupells. She’s one of the Lord Protector’s distant cousins, and everyone thought she would be the heir, until Myra was unexpectedly named. She was always the leader—even as a child—and still is, it seems.”

“And the others?”

“Elizabeth—the blonde—likewise came from a founding family, but her grasp of the power isn’t as good. She’s more of a follower and . . . not as intelligent. I think she was named acolyte as a political move. The Warrenders—her family—were among the Lord Protector’s chief supporters.”

The Lord Protector seemed to have a lot to say about something that wasn’t any of his business, I thought, and grabbed a towel.

“And the brunettes?”

“Amelie de Vielles—the one with longer hair—is the best with the power. In fact, she’s the best I’ve ever seen. She clearly expected to be the heir, and was furious when it went to Myra. Jo—Johanna—Zirimis is the one who wasn’t there. I don’t know if she is acting with them or not. She was always difficult to read. Quiet, bookish, but a little . . . odd. She never seemed to really be
there
in some way.”

“And the fifth?”

“Sara Darzi, the one with short dark hair. She’s the one you . . .” Rhea abruptly cut off.

“Threw out a window?” I finished grimly.

“You’re doing what you have to do,” she said, seeing my expression. “A Pythia is responsible for her court as any coven leader is for her coven. And who else could possibly—”

“What about the covens?” I interrupted, because I didn’t want to talk about this right now. Or ever, because what was there to say? She’d been trying to kill me; I hadn’t had a choice. I already knew all that.

But it didn’t make it any easier.

Those girls might be a disaster, but they hadn’t gotten that way on their own. The Pythian position wasn’t supposed to be some kind of prize to be won, some kind of trophy for the prominent families to fight over. It was a job, and a damned hard one. And it needed somebody who
got that
, not some political appointee drawn to the glamour.

I watched about an acre of Victorian mud slush down the drain.

Not that there was a lot of that these days.

“The covens?” Rhea repeated.

“If they don’t send hardly anyone to court, they can’t think they have much chance of getting a Pythia,” I pointed out.

“They don’t believe they have much of one anyway. They haven’t had a Pythia in more than five hundred years, haven’t had anyone who might take their side—until you.”

“Except I’m not a coven witch, either, am I?” I wrung out my filthy washcloth, and decided I’d been right—it was beyond saving. I chucked it into the trash. “And I was raised by vampires.” Which never seemed to make anybody happy.

Except the vamps, of course.

But Rhea was shaking her head. “The leaders were hesitant to come to you at first. There was a huge debate on it after I asked. I think they only agreed because they were curious. They didn’t know what to expect from you, this Pythia from a vampire’s court. But then they met you and . . .”

“I can imagine.”

“They were impressed,” Rhea said, watching me.