And I’d just disturbed that. There was an unmade cot behind her, bolted to the floor, which she was attached to by what I assumed was a set of magical cuffs. A fact that reassured me not at all.
“She needs to stay drugged,” I told Jonas. “Until she gives back the power.”
“She is. We’re monitoring her closely.”
“Not closely enough! There should be an acolyte with her!” Hildegarde said.
“Are you volunteering?” I asked.
“You—” Her eyes widened. “You don’t have any acolytes?”
Rhea waved slightly from the bed. Abigail’s face went from worried to just slightly above horrified. Hildegarde cursed—rather inventively.
“Hilde—” Jonas began.
“Damn it, Jonas, what the hell have you been doing?”
“I didn’t know that fail-safes existed—”
“But you did know there were other acolytes! Even former initiates would have been better than nothing. Why on earth—”
“He wanted to keep control of the court,” Abigail said, softly. She looked stunned, almost hurt, like she couldn’t believe it.
I couldn’t believe that she was twenty years older than me.
It’s not the age—it’s the mileage, I told myself grimly, and walked over to the windows. “I want some answers, Lizzie.”
“I’ve told them everything I know,” she spat. “A hundred times! They keep asking the same stupid questions—”
“Maybe I can think of some new ones.”
She looked at me resentfully.
“Johanna Zirimis,” I said. “You knew her?”
“Of course I knew her. She was an acolyte!”
“But did you know her well?”
“Nobody knew her well. She was some kind of weirdo.”
“What kind?”
Lizzie rolled her eyes. “Oh, there’re kinds now?”
I nodded at the mage behind her, who allowed her to sit back down on her cot. Her rather uncomfortable-looking cot, with a lumpy mattress and a paper-thin coverlet. Which didn’t stop her from looking at it longingly.
“The sooner we do this, the sooner you go back to sleep,” I pointed out.
She scowled. “She was a loner, all right? Nobody liked her. She always had her nose in a book. And she was a PA, which sucks if you had to actually earn your spot, like I did—”
“PA?”
“Political Appointment?” She looked at me like I was slow. “When the Circle needs a favor from one of the big houses, one that happens to have a daughter at court, they pull some strings and get her an acolyte’s position. She’s never going anywhere, of course—well, not Jo, anyway. She didn’t even have a good grip on the power. But she made acolyte before I did, and my family is just as—”
“She wasn’t good with the power?” I cut in. “How do you know?”
“She wouldn’t duel us. The rest of us, we practiced all the time, but not her. Like I said, all she ever did was read—and talk to herself.”
“Talk to herself?” A chill ran through me.
“Cassie,” Rico said, and I turned to see Rhea sitting up in bed, waving at me.
“A pad of paper,” Jonas told Rico, who shot him a look. Because he didn’t take orders from mages, and because he’d already been reaching inside his coat, where he had one ready.
He handed it to Rhea, who scribbled something that Rico brought over to me.
She’s lying. I saw her and Jo together often.
I looked up at Lizzie, who was suddenly less belligerent and more worried. “What did she say?” she demanded. “And why can’t she talk?”
“Some of your friends paid us a little visit this morning,” I said, turning the pad around so Lizzie could see it. “And I don’t think she believes you.”
“Who the hell cares? Who is she? Some coven nobody! My family—”
“Nobody?” I hadn’t noticed Jonas coming up behind me, but he was suddenly there, his face white and scary. “My daughter with Lady Phemonoe is nobody?”
Lizzie stared. And then she swallowed, and looked at Rhea. And then she crumpled.
And talked—a lot.
When she was finished, I glanced at Jonas. “I’m going to need—”
He held up a hand—with something in it. “I know what you need,” he said tersely. “But there’s a price. I want to see your parents.”
“Good. So do I.”
Chapter Forty-four
“You’re positive this is necessary?” Jonas whispered as we crouched in the darkness, under a bunch of dripping leaves.
“Yes, if you want to do this—”
“I don’t want to. I have to,” he said, sounding aggrieved. “Your mother was prophesied to help us against Ares!”
“She did,” I reminded him. “She helped me kill four of the five Spartoi. I couldn’t have taken them without her—”
“Those were his sons. The prophecy was about him. And in no way have we received any assistance with him!”
“You want to complain?” I nodded at the pale blue fairy-tale cottage that my parents had called home, almost twenty-four years ago. Or right now, because we were back in time. “Go complain.”
Jonas muttered something.
“What?”
“I said, like this?” he repeated, looking down at himself with distaste.
“The price for my mother’s help with the demon council was that I never return. If we want help, we have to make sure they think I’m not here again, but still.”
“That explains the glamourie. But why am I wearing only a blanket?”
He had it wrapped around him toga-style, or maybe venerable senator–style, because the frat party vibe didn’t go so well with the expression on his face. Or Pritkin’s face, because that was who had been with me the first time I was here, and I couldn’t very well show up with a new partner. Pritkin’s features could handle anything from annoyance all the way up to incandescent rage, but pinched disapproval . . . not so much.
But my parents didn’t know that.
“It’s complicated,” I said. “But this is the only way.”
“And you think your mother is going to fall for this?” he asked, adjusting the blanket’s folds over one shoulder.
“No. Which is why we’re not talking to her.”
A light winked out in an upstairs window, leaving the little courtyard dark and silent. Except for our footsteps, as we scurried for the kitchen door. It was unlocked, of course, because we were on the estate of a psychotic vampire with a bunch of trigger-happy family members. Locks were superfluous.
Not that there were any vamps in sight. No one was, except for Daisy, slumped over the table like a very odd drunk. Or, to be more precise, like the “body” my father had constructed for her was currently empty.
Dad had developed a takeoff of the golem spell, giving his ghosts a corporeal form so they could serve as bodyguards for him and Mom. Only instead of clay, Dad’s golems appeared to have been made out of whatever junk he’d had lying around. And a bucket, which Daisy had made into a slightly lopsided head, because he hadn’t thought to give her one.
I breathed a sigh of relief. I hadn’t been sure I’d gotten the day right; fine-tuning exactly when I showed up in time had never been my strong suit. And the maybe quarter bottle of potion Jonas had found in his nightstand hadn’t helped nearly as much as it should have.