And stopped halfway through the spell, magic stuttering around me, when the shadows froze at a word from their mistress.
“How am I finished?” Jo asked, after a beat. “From where I stand, I’d say I’m well ahead.”
I didn’t answer, too busy struggling to breathe, because an aborted spell is a bitch. And because that wasn’t what she’d meant. She’d meant “You just traveled fifteen hundred years into the past and were mugged by a ghost. How can you shift?”
Didn’t expect that, did you? I thought savagely. She’d known I was a necromancer, probably tipped off by something one of her ghosts saw. But not that I’d figured out her special way of slipping through the centuries, by just avoiding them altogether. But I had, and as a result, I wasn’t as exhausted as I should have been after a jump I’d never had to make.
I eyed the spirits warily. They just hung there, barely a haze on the darkness, just one shade of black among many. And bigger than before, because they’d wised up. They were dispersing themselves, so I’d have a harder time grabbing them next time.
And there’d be a next time, just as soon as Johanna figured out how to kill me before I brought the Pythian posse down on our heads. The posse that was mainly looking for me, but who might catch her in their net, too. And that would be inconvenient, wouldn’t it?
Like it would be for me if they missed her.
“Cat got your tongue?” she demanded, while I tried to watch both shadows at once.
And therefore wasn’t watching the fey, who were going cell by cell now, doing a systematic search and pushing people this way. One of whom elbowed me as he passed, panicked and terrified. And caused me to stumble back into a cell.
I recovered almost immediately, but it didn’t help.
The ghosts were in the doorway now.
“Give it up, Johanna!” I said, furious at myself. “When you thought you only needed the staff, you stood a chance. Grab it and run, before anyone knew you’d changed anything. But now—”
“And what about now?”
The voice came from somewhere in front of me—I thought. I couldn’t be sure because I still couldn’t see her. Because she was phased, and therefore just out of reach. Or was she?
I had a flash of Lydia, the witchy-looking Pythia, slashing through the air and almost gutting me. Instead, she pulled me partly back into real time, because Billy’s paranoia had ensured that I was almost there anyway. And so was Jo; she had to be, or else how could she talk to me?
And if she was close enough to talk, maybe she was close enough to make a mistake, too.
I resisted the urge to finger my bracelet, and concentrated on locating that voice.
“Now you need the whole suit of armor, or what’s left of it,” I said to her, my ears straining. “And every Pythia for the last fifteen hundred years is out there, just waiting for one of us to screw up. You’ll never get all four pieces before they grab you!”
“Who says I’m trying to get any of them?”
I kept searching for her in the darkness, but that threw me. Not just the words, but the tone. It said that one of us was delusional—and she didn’t think it was her.
“You’ve been chasing the staff—”
“Oh yes, all over the damn countryside, thanks to you.” The amusement was mixed with annoyance now. “The idiot fey. They had it in their hands, until they allowed some half-breed to steal it back. And the fey of our time couldn’t even tell me where it happened, since the idiots in question got themselves killed shortly thereafter! But my ghosts and I tracked it down nonetheless, painstakingly, over weeks. Just in time to see the half-breed taking it off to Faerie with you.”
I had a sudden image of that night, the unnatural explosions, the fiery forest, the trees toppling in crashes that shook the earth and sent waves of sparks skyward. And Pritkin tear-assing down a river like it was a highway, with a bunch of murderous Svarestri on his heels. He’d picked me up along the way and we dove through a portal, because we hadn’t had a lot of choice. I’d had no idea that Jo was even there, but I really wished she’d come along for the ride.
There was a good chance she wouldn’t have made it back.
“You should have joined us,” I said, and heard her snort.
“I preferred to take my chances at Nimue’s, where I knew the staff would show up eventually. The fey had told me that much, at least. But heading into that hellhole hadn’t been my idea of fun, either, until you forced it on me—”
“And you failed again.”
“I didn’t fail.” It was sharp. “I blended in perfectly, just another human slave. I might as well have been furniture! All I had to do was wait for the half-breed to bring the staff to me.”
“Because that’s what was supposed to happen,” I guessed. “Before you and I got involved. He freed Morgaine.”
I was trying to keep her talking, in order to pinpoint that voice. But it fluctuated in and out, one second a shout, the next a whisper. And sometimes sped up or down, like a kid playing with an old-fashioned turntable.
Or like an acolyte having trouble straddling the barrier.
“Who went on a tear,” Jo agreed. “And despite showing up a day late, when attacks from the covens had heightened security to a ludicrous degree, he somehow got in anyway. Both of you did. But you didn’t have the staff. I watched them search you, and later looked through your possessions, but it wasn’t there. How did you manage it?”
“Trade secret,” I said, wondering if there was a reason the ghosts were framing the doorway, instead of standing in front of it. But if I sent my knives and I was wrong . . .
I didn’t think it would be good if I was wrong.
“Don’t tell me, then,” she said spitefully. “It doesn’t matter. I already won!”
“You—” I stopped, halfway through a thought. “You don’t have the staff.”
“I don’t need the staff. Do you still not get it? Something I did—or you did—caused it to end up in Nimue’s greedy little hands after the battle, instead of disappearing like last time. Morgaine was supposed to die valiantly, and her grieving grandma to forget to look for the staff until it was too late. By the time she did, somebody else had already snatched it, and it disappeared from history, seriously screwing up Aeslinn’s plans.”
“His plans? Then . . . all this happened before.”
“Of course! What do you think I’m doing here?” It was scornful. “They tried with three last time, which was all they had, but it didn’t work. They realized they had to have four, but although they searched for the missing staff, they never found it.”
“But this time, Morgaine survived—”
“And the staff went to Nimue,” Jo agreed, “who brought it here. That’s why she wants to fight Aeslinn tonight, before Caedmon figures it out and forces her to return it. It’s also why she insisted on the ancient rules, which allow almost anything—including using two godly weapons to your opponent’s one!”