He met my eyes.
“Magical children,” I said.
“Yeah. They always surprise you.”
“Marco—”
“Do what you gotta do,” he told me bitterly. “Just come back, all right?”
I nodded and pulled Rhea into the hallway.
Chapter Thirteen
The plaster had been vacuumed up—mostly. The guys didn’t let housekeeping in when we were under siege, I guess afraid of a mage posing as a cleaning lady, so they’d taken care of it themselves. Which explained why the corners were still white and glass shards glittered here and there on the Berber.
But Rhea wasn’t looking at them.
She was looking at the bullet holes.
Yeah, she’d had a baptism by fire these last few days, hadn’t she? I knew what that was like. But I wasn’t about to make it any better.
“Would it work?” I asked.
“Lady?” Her eyes moved back to mine.
“Could the acolytes shift Ares here, from beyond the barrier?”
“I . . . What?”
“Elias said they were trying to bring back the gods, and we know they were after the Tears. I’m asking if they could be connected.”
She shook her head. “I . . . don’t think so.”
“Are you sure? Even if they all worked together?”
She shook her head, harder this time. “The power is limited to earth. Apollo made sure of that, so it couldn’t be used against him or his kind. I don’t see how it could now be used to save them.”
“I’ve used it outside of earth.”
“You are the child of Artemis, Lady; the acolytes are not.”
“But we use the same power. I just access it better—for now. But if they get their hands on enough Tears . . .”
“Lady Phemonoe had full access to the Pythian power, and she was well skilled in its use,” Rhea pointed out. “Yet she told me once that she did not dare go beyond the confines of earth. The power is chained here; it cannot leave this world.”
“But that’s what I’m telling you. It did leave. At least a few times—”
“Yet, if you think back,” she said tentatively, “were you not in places close to earth on those occasions? Places accessible through portals or the ley line system?”
“Well, yeah. But that would be everywhere!”
“Not everywhere. You may be able to access your power through a portal, if you are close enough, or even through the ley lines, if our time line and that of the world to which you have traveled are somewhat aligned. But even then, it will not be reliable. The lines fluctuate, disrupting the flow; time lines go in and out of synch; and portals are notoriously—”
“Yes, I know. My power doesn’t work well outside earth, but it can work—”
“Through a conduit. But the ouroboros is not a conduit, Lady; it is a wall. Your mother’s spell was designed to keep things out, not to let them pass through. It is the opposite of a portal.”
I started to say something, but then stopped, because she had a point. “So you’re saying they couldn’t do it.”