Reap the Wind (24 page)

I snorted. “At what? My ability to play pool?” Because that’s what we’d spent half the night doing. And the rest . . . well, I hadn’t exactly been much help there. Shifting five people back in time, even a short distance, had all but wiped me out. If the witches hadn’t taken up the slack, we wouldn’t have made it out of there.

I was kind of surprised that we had anyway.

“No,” Rhea said. “At the fact that you passed the Gauntlet.”

I just looked at her, hoping for more information. I did not want to have to admit to yet another thing I didn’t know. But I guess the idea got through, because her eyes went round.

“The
Gauntlet
!” For the first time, she looked genuinely shocked at my ignorance.

I sighed. She might as well get used to it. “I’m afraid I don’t know what that is, either.”

“Of course!” She suddenly looked angry. “The Circle doesn’t make teaching Coven lore a priority!”

“Maybe not, but they didn’t oversee my education; a vampire did. And his only priority was making himself money.”

“Maybe it’s just as well,” she said bitterly. “When the Circle does teach something about the covens, it’s usually not . . . complimentary.”

“But this Gauntlet thing is important?”

“It’s not just important. It’s what gives a Coven leader her legitimacy. It varies from coven to coven, but the basic premise is the same: a prospective leader must pass a test, a physically and emotionally grueling, possibly deadly test, if she wants to prove herself fit to lead. If she doesn’t have the courage to go through with it, she won’t be selected, no matter how good she may be otherwise.”

“That sounds a little . . . barbaric,” I admitted, not wanting to offend her. But damn.

But she didn’t look surprised that time; I guessed she got that a lot. “It isn’t!” she insisted.

“Okay. I understand people have different traditions. . . .”

“It’s not just about tradition! A leader has to prove herself. Why should anyone lend her their power if they don’t know what she’ll do with it? If they don’t know that she’ll fight for them, die for them, if she must? You fought for us. You fought for us when Jonas wouldn’t. To the covens, that means you
earned
your court; someone didn’t give it to you—you bought it with blood and pain. To them, you have a legitimacy the other Pythias didn’t have—that they’ve never had! And then you defied him. . . .”

She broke off, but I kind of got the idea. “And Jonas . . . knows about all this?”

She nodded.

Well, that explained a few things. Like why he went ballistic the other night. I’d thought it was because I’d broken a rule to save my court.

But maybe it had more to do with who I’d broken it with.

Typical. I managed to stumble over one of the Circle’s biggest hot-button issues without even knowing it. I needed a crash course in Magical History 101, like, now. But I wasn’t going to get it now.

Because I’d just realized that, for the first time since taking this job, I finally had someone to ask about things—a lot of things. And who sounded like she might actually know what she was talking about. And I had a question, oh yes, I did.

“Rhea.” She looked up. “You seem to know a lot about the Pythias.”

She smiled. “I like to read the histories.”

“Good. I could use some information.”

She hugged her armful of soiled cotton and nodded. “Yes, Lady?”

“About . . . changing time.”

“You were right to rescue your court,” she told me quickly. “The Lord Protector should not have—”

“No, not about that.” That had been all of a fifteen-minute jump, to rescue kids who hadn’t been doing anything but sleeping before I showed up. I didn’t think I could have screwed things up too badly there. “Not about that,” I repeated.

She nodded.

“But say a Pythia did something . . . or caused something to happen . . . or helped something to happen . . . that changed time. How . . . bad is it?”

“That is difficult to say,” Rhea told me, looking a lot calmer than I’d expected. Like maybe that wasn’t as unthinkable a question as I’d believed. “It would depend on the circumstance.”

“Say it was something . . . kind of big.”

She still wasn’t looking freaked out. “I was always trained that time is malleable,” she told me. “And can heal itself to a large degree. An invention or discovery not made by one person can be made by another; a chance meeting, if missed, may happen at another time—”

“Yes, but say we’re not talking about chance meetings,” I broke in, because she still wasn’t getting this. “Say we’re talking about something serious. Something . . . like a death. That’s got to change things, right?”

“There are certainly things that can be done that the time line cannot compensate for,” she agreed serenely. “But your power should warn you of those instances, Lady.”

“But what if it doesn’t?” I asked, getting worried. “Because I haven’t heard anything. I never hear anything!”

For the first time, Rhea frowned. “You never hear—”

“And I should, shouldn’t I?” I cut her off, because I wasn’t feeling serene. I wasn’t feeling serene at all. “If I’m supposed to get a warning when I change something, then my power should be going off like a fire alarm right now! Because there
was
a death. A . . . a man . . . died who wasn’t supposed to, and it was my fault. But not a peep!”

Rhea thought for a moment. “The acolytes—the real ones—would be able to answer your question better—”

“You
are
a real acolyte. You’re my acolyte.”

She smiled suddenly, a small expression, but it lit her whole face. “Thank you, Lady. But the fact remains that they received training that I did not. However, I am certain I was told that a Pythia will know if the time stream is being disturbed. That she will receive an unmistakable warning. If you received none . . . then perhaps you did not change anything, after all.”

“But a man is
dead
—”

“He might have died soon afterward in any case.”

“Of what? A heart attack?” Because I didn’t think—no, I
knew—
that Pritkin wouldn’t have been fighting those fey if I hadn’t been there. He’d have probably gone into hiding as soon as they showed up and, based on what I’d seen, done a damned good job of it.

But with me in the picture, he’d have had to hide two, which didn’t seem like it would be a big deal. But then, people thought the same thing about shifting. Like, what’s one extra person when you’re already going somewhere anyway?

But it made a big difference—just huge—and maybe making someone else invisible wasn’t any easier. Not and keep it up for however long the fey might stick around, anyway. So he’d grabbed his stick and he’d grabbed me and he’d started booking it for the nearest highway—or, since it was medieval Wales, the nearest sheep trail—out of there.

But he hadn’t made it.

And now a fey was dead who shouldn’t have been.

But Rhea didn’t seem to agree.

“If you were given no warning, this man could not have survived,” she insisted. “By whatever means, he must have been fated to expire before he could do anything for which the time line could not compensate.”

Unless I was too out of it to notice the warning, I thought grimly. Or unless I didn’t know what a warning was supposed to sound like. Or unless whatever he was supposed to do, he did back in faerie, where my power didn’t work, so who knew what I’d just screwed up?

God, it was supposed to be so easy! Find Pritkin, have Rosier say a few words, done. But we’d missed him three times now, and I didn’t even have a way to get back for a fourth, and even if I found one—

“Lady,” Rhea said, and it brought my head up, because it sounded unusually stern.

I blinked at her.

Gray eyes searched my face, and the frown on her forehead grew. “You are tired,” she told me. “And have been working far too hard. You have had too many people depending on you and too little support. You are, if I may say so, badly in need of rest.”

“I know. I can’t shift again if I don’t get some sleep. But first I need to—”

But Rhea was shaking her head. “Not sleep.
Rest.
You need some time free from stress and worry. You need to relax. You need a—”

I burst out in half-hysterical laughter before she could say it.

“I’m sorry,” I told her after a minute. And I meant it, because she didn’t deserve to be laughed at. But a vacation was
not
in my near future.

Probably not in my far one, either.

“Then some kind of stress reliever,” she said determinedly. “I could make you . . . a drink?”

I shook my head. I could still taste the wine from the Bollocks. Which meant I might never taste anything ever again.

“It’s okay,” I told her.

“Then let me run you a bath.”

I thought about it. And suddenly, all the aches and pains of a very long few days, of sleeping on a tree root in Wales, of climbing up and down, up and down, more hills than I could count, of being so sure we had him . . . only to have him slip through our fingers again, hit me.

“A bath sounds good,” I told her fervently, and got out of the tub.

I went to get some nightclothes, and by the time I got back, a bath pillow had been put in place, the dirt had been washed away from around the drain, and hot, frothy bubbles were taking its place. Rhea bustled out, and I eased my aching body into the hot, hot, almost-too-hot water, wincing because it caused every scratch and bruise to stand out in sharp relief. But it felt good, too, soothing away the pain almost as fast as it caused it. And in a minute, Rhea was back with that drink I hadn’t wanted but suddenly did.

Because it was milk and there was a plate of still-warm chocolate chip cookies to go with it.

A bubble bath and chocolate chips, I thought, slightly in awe. I might have just died and failed to notice. I dug in, and they were as good as ever, soft and melty and perfect. Tami always had been the best cook, and most of her stuff was homemade, because it was cheaper.

And better, I thought, looking up halfway through.

And caught Rhea watching me with a strange expression.

“Did you want some?” I asked indistinctly, because I had a cheek full of happiness.

“No,” she whispered. She sat on the vanity stool.

For a while, she just watched me eat cookies.

“You said your power doesn’t communicate with you?” she finally asked.

I nodded.

“At all?”

I thought back to my early days in this job, before I had completed the ritual to get the top spot, and was just another heir in competition with Myra. My power had jerked me around all over the place, like some kind of wild, time-traveling puppet, trying to stop whatever she was about to mess up. I’d really resented it at the time. Now . . . well, it wasn’t like I
wanted
to meet my acolytes again, but I preferred it to meeting Ares. But I wasn’t meeting them, because my power wasn’t taking me anywhere. Or telling me anything.

I swallowed milk. “No. Agnes told me once that I didn’t have to worry about learning how to be Pythia, that my power would train me. Like it did for the early Pythias who had to figure things out for themselves. But it hasn’t.”

She frowned. “It ignores you?”

“Well, it does what I want . . . if I’m not too tired. So I don’t think you can say ‘ignore.’”

“But when you talk to it, it doesn’t answer back?”

“What?”

“When you ask it a question. You don’t get an answer?”

“Ask it . . . a question?”

It was her turn to look at me.

And then to keep on doing it, longer than was comfortable.

“You . . . have never . . . asked your power . . .
anything
?” she finally said, in a tone that could only be described as “appalled.”

Poor Rhea. I kept freaking her out and I wasn’t even trying.

I sighed. “Asked it how?”

“I . . .” She stopped. And then just sat there some more, blinking. “I’m . . . not sure.”

“That would make two of us.”

“But you
can
do it,” she insisted. “Lady Phemonoe said many times that she had to ask the power about this or that. And you are her heir, and a Pythia of great ability—”

I choked back a laugh.

“You are! You have done more already than some ever did! And you have done it alone!”

“Not alone,” I corrected. “I’ve had help—”

“I have yet to see any!”

Rhea seemed to be getting a little upset, for some reason.

“I
have
had help,” I repeated, because it was true. “It’s just that, right now, people are a little freaked out about the war. Like I am about this.”

She shook her head. “But you shouldn’t be. The power is your partner, your helper, your . . .” She threw her hands up. “I do not understand how you have done so well without it. I truly do not!”

“Well, that’s what I’m saying. Today
didn’t
go so well. And I really need to know if I screwed something up.” And how badly, and if I was supposed to fix it, and God, I hoped I wasn’t supposed to fix it!

“I cannot help you,” Rhea said, looking upset. “The lady . . . she never said . . . merely that she had to ask.”

“Like you would a person?” I asked. “Because Apollo’s dead—”

“But the power isn’t Apollo. It came from him, long ago, but since coming to us, it . . .” She stopped, and thought for a minute. And then started speaking slowly, as if trying to remember some long ago conversation. “The Lady said that we don’t know what it is, exactly, or what it’s become since Apollo released it. But we know what it isn’t. It isn’t human and doesn’t think like a human. But it isn’t a mindless energy source, either. Those who try to exploit it find that it actively works against them.”

I nodded, thinking of Myra. Every time she’d shown up to cause trouble, the power had thrown me at her, ruining her day. It might not have been able to stop her from using it to travel around, but it could make sure she regretted the trip. “So . . . I work for it, basically?”

But Rhea shook her head. “No. Some people have thought that the Pythias are merely the power’s avatar, a body for it to inhabit. But that’s not the case. Nor are you subject to it. You are partners.”

Which was great, but that didn’t do me a lot of good if we couldn’t communicate.

“Partners how?” I persisted, because any information was more than I had.

“The power uses your clairvoyant abilities to look into the past, into the future, and provide you with information,” she told me. “And options. The Pythias have to do the actual work, and make the final decisions. But the power gives you information that no one else could have. It is why all Pythias have to be powerful seers.”

I blinked as something finally made sense. “So you’re saying I almost never have visions anymore . . . because my power is using up all the bandwidth?”

Rhea nodded. “The more you use it, the fewer visions you will have, as it needs your abilities to see where to take you in the past. That is one reason for the court—our clairvoyance compensates in the times when yours is . . . busy.”

“Like when you saw Ares’ return,” I said, and immediately wished I hadn’t. Rhea blanched, whatever details she was remembering haunting her eyes. I wasn’t sure whether that had been her first vision, but since she’d said the power didn’t come to her, it was a possibility. And what a way to start!

But a moment later she swallowed and recovered. “Yes. The power may have tried to show you as well—I am sure it did—but the amount that you have been using your gifts . . . and for so long . . . and it couldn’t risk exhausting your abilities when you might need them again at any time . . .”

“And it couldn’t give a heads-up to the acolytes, since they’d have just thrown a party,” I said sourly.

She nodded again. And then frowned. “Are you
sure
it has not been helping you, Lady?”

I thought about it while I washed off more Victorian-era grime. Maybe it had been, in some ways. Like maybe Rosier and I hadn’t ended up in the middle of the Welsh countryside by accident. Maybe we’d gone there because I hadn’t been thinking about a particular place when I shifted; I’d been thinking about Pritkin. And he hadn’t been at court.

It was possible, now that I thought about it, that we’d originally landed somewhere pretty close by. But I’d been unconscious and Rosier had been trying to get away from the entry point as fast as possible, and we’d missed him. Only to meet up again later, because we were still in the same general area.

My power had known where he was, even though I hadn’t, and it had taken me to him.

That sounded like help to me.

But, on the other hand, if my power
was
trying to help me, it had seriously bad timing! It had taken me to a Pritkin in the middle of a crisis. He must have thought he’d lost his pursuers—he wouldn’t have been stopping for a swim otherwise—but he hadn’t. And I hadn’t been with him for more than a few minutes when they showed up. So why take me back
then
?

I mean, honestly, wouldn’t a week earlier or later have been a whole lot better? Some day when his biggest problem was deciding what to have for dinner? Or that he spent washing his socks? Or was sick in bed with a head cold and didn’t do
anything
? Basically any day when I wouldn’t be at risk of changing time, because absolutely nothing dangerous was happening?