“I’m okay,” I said, my voice muffled. “I’m all right.”
“And you’re damned well going to stay that way!”
I pulled back enough to look at him. “What does that mean?”
“It means you’re Pythia, not a damned foot soldier! You shouldn’t have even been there, battling that thing—”
“If she hadn’t been, the senate would have lost,” Adra said mildly.
“Stay out of this!” Pritkin hissed, and Adra raised a brow. He used to have trouble with that. He must be getting better with the glamourie, I thought, before Pritkin started shaking me. “Listen to me! These insane risks you’ve been taking have to stop, do you understand?”
My forehead wrinkled, because it wasn’t like I had asked for any of this. “We’re at war—”
“This wasn’t about the war! Any more than risking your neck to save me was!”
I stared at him. “That wasn’t about the war? Did you somehow miss the huge freaking god—”
“Who you didn’t know would be there when you went after me! You had no business going after me—”
“I beg your pardon?”
“—like you had no business doing what you did today! Leave dangerous magical artifacts alone! Let the damned vampires fight their own battles! None of that is your job!”
“I’m Pythia—”
“Yes! You are! And did you see Lady Phemonoe running about, taking on monsters? She stayed in her goddamned court!”
* * *
* * *
Annnnnd that was about the time I got pissed, because Pritkin didn’t know Lady Phemonoe. He’d met her, and clearly had respect for her, but he didn’t know her. Any more than Rhea had seemed to.
Agnes didn’t stay home and knit, or whatever the hell they thought she was doing with her time. She was a warrior—they all were—all those crazy, quirky, pow
erful Pythias I’d recently met, ironically enough, on the search for Pritkin. But he didn’t know that, he didn’t know them, any more than the rest of the Circle did.
They saw the parties and the receptions, the formalities and the audiences, maybe even some of the training. But they didn’t see what really went on, because Agnes had usually left her guards behind when she shifted, and I was betting the others had done the same. That was probably why the Corpsmen thought she was in her court so much. She wasn’t; she just didn’t want them causing even more trouble by shooting up the timeline!
“Hey, girl, are you—oops, sorry!” Tami said, coming in the door, and probably seeing the pale moons rising over the balcony.
I raised my head. “It’s okay. I needed some sun. You wanna join me?”
She brightened, and then her face fell. “I have to start dinner, and there’s some laundry on, and the accounts have to be brought up to date—”
“Serve leftovers, the hotel has a laundry, and tell Fred to do the books. That’s what he used to be—an accountant.”
“Is that what he told you?” She laughed. “He can’t even add in his head. He had to ask me what to tip the pizza guy the other day.”
“Well, maybe he was head of the accounting department or something.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “He still can’t add!” And then she left, I assumed to get a suit.
I got up and put on a bikini, in case anybody else popped in, fished out an old tube of sunscreen and slathered it on, and went back to slow roasting. The sun was better than a masseuse, and I gradually began to feel some of the stress of the day fall away, despite having no reason for it. Like, none at all.
“The Ancient Horrors were locked away for thousands of years, and yet two show up in one day?” Pritkin said, finally resuming his seat.
“They do get loose from time to time,” Adra conceded. “However, two at once is cause for concern. Particularly the second.”