Rosier looked at me for a moment, and then sat back on his heels. And craned his neck backward to look at the vast, glittering band of the Milky Way, high above, unobscured by our nonexistent fire. The darkness hid the differences in the face, the slightly more aquiline nose, the slightly less rugged jaw, the completely different expression that separated two men who usually looked less like father and son and more like identical twins.
At least, they had once. But now . . . I’d never make that mistake now. Only I wouldn’t have to worry about it, would I? Those other Pythias would never listen, not in time, not with me dragging Rosier so far back, with the possibility for us to screw up time multiplying exponentially every year. And it wasn’t like I hadn’t thought of that, too, wasn’t like I didn’t know how dangerous this was. But did it matter? Did it matter if I screwed up the world when Ares was about to come back and set it all ablaze and I couldn’t stop him and Pritkin—
I made a sound in my throat, and Rosier looked down to stare at me. But I was too upset to care. If they caught up with us tonight, it was over. I just didn’t have anything left.
“They won’t find us,” he told me, after a moment.
“How can you possibly know that?”
He made a broad gesture that took in the whole expanse around us. “Wales.”
“That doesn’t answer anything.”
“On the contrary, it answers everything. Rome’s legions vanquished empires, their governors made kings shudder in fear, and their sprawl swallowed a good portion of the known world. Yet they took thirty years to conquer Wales, and even then, they never held it easily. The legions found it too damned hard to fight in these mountains, and far too easy to die, with bolt-holes behind every rock and tree, and wild men constantly dropping out of—”
“The Pythias aren’t Roman legions,” I told him unsteadily.
“No, but they still can’t fight what they can’t find. And they can’t find us. I laid enough false trails, did enough circling around, and hacked my way over enough mountaintops to see to that.”
“But . . . dozens . . .” The very idea was overwhelming. Dozens of Pythias. How could anyone stand against that?
“Potentially dozens,” he amended.
I looked at him. “What?”
“Well, that other one, what was her name? The one before you?”
“Agnes?”
“Yes. She didn’t show up in Amsterdam, did she?”
“I—no. But—”
“She must have felt us pass through, so to speak, but she let the Pythia of the day handle it. We only faced two Pythias in Amsterdam due to London following us out of her own era. Now, there may be more Londons out there, but it seems to me that more will likely stay where they are and let the local girl take care of it. Whoever that may be.” He glanced around.
“But . . . but you just said—”
“Yes, well, I was playing with you, girl.”
“Playing—” I stared at him.
“And giving you the worst-case scenario,” he said, a little defensively. “Technically, they could all end up here. However, I think it more likely that they will only show up if the current Pythia fails to find us. Which, with the amount of territory she has to cover, and if we refrain from putting a spotlight on us by using magic, should buy us a few—look!”
I jumped, my head whipping around, my heart in my throat. But the moon was barely a sliver above the trees, and I couldn’t see anything. And the starlight only managed to make every little hill and rut in the ground into a lurking enemy.
“What?”
“A flame!” Rosier went to his knees, hands cupped protectively around something in a pile of moss. I almost passed out.
Playing, I thought dizzily, watching him hunch protectively over a flicker in the dark. His cheeks swelled up, and he started feeding it tiny puffs of oxygen. After a moment, a glimmer of light danced in his eyes, making him look even more diabolical than usual.
I was going to kill him, I decided unsteadily.
Just not right now.
I lay back down.
After a bit, I heard him move off, probably in search of more wood for the hungry little flame. I didn’t bother opening my eyes to check. Everything hurt. Every. Thing. It felt like I’d managed to sprain my entire body and possibly my brain, too.