“You know why. The paper made it clear that things were not as we’d assumed. And after my talk with Jonas, it appears they are even graver than I feared. You have not managed to retrieve your last rogue.”
“No.”
“Then forgive me, but why are you here?” she demanded. “A rogue is a priority. Your power should be pulling you wherever she is—”
“My power.” I laughed suddenly, I didn’t know why. Probably because, lately, it didn’t feel like I had any. “I don’t think it knows,” I finally said. “It’s been ignoring her.”
“That’s impossible,” Hildegarde said severely. “A rogue is a priority—the priority, until she’s dealt with. A determined rogue could destroy everything!”
“And I had five,” I said, suddenly savage. I had a headache, I had too many problems to keep track of, and I didn’t have time for a critique from someone who hadn’t even been here. “I only found out about them a couple days ago. Three are now dead and one is in custody—”
“That is admirable, lady,” Abigail murmured.
“And useless without the last,” Hildegarde said, echoing something I’d thought back in the corridor.
“What do you want me to do?” I demanded. “My power doesn’t seem to know or care where she is, and I can’t find her without it! I’ve been working on something else, and it hasn’t so much as—”
“On what?”
“None of your business!”
For the first time, Hildegarde looked less than grandmotherly. “I am not asking for details,” she said curtly. “My point was that if you have been going to the same place and time as your rogue, your power wouldn’t have had to pull you anywhere.”
I shook my head. “I haven’t.”
“You must have!”
“I haven’t! An acolyte couldn’t—” I cut off, suddenly remembering the attack in the fey version of a Winnebago. But that had been Wales, the place I’d almost wrenched my guts out to reach—and that was with a potion Johanna didn’t have. No way had she managed it.
“You’ve remembered something,” Hildegarde said.
“One of the other rogues told me that Johanna Zirimis—that’s the one who’s still out there—is after the same thing I am. A . . . sort of relic. One she thinks might be powerful enough to bring back a god—”
“Then how can you say she’s not a threat?” Hildegarde demanded.
“Because she couldn’t have managed it. She’s an acolyte—”
“A determined acolyte can manage a good deal, I assure you,” she snapped.
“Fifteen hundred years?” I snapped right back.
“Fifteen . . . hundred?” Abigail looked appalled.
I nodded. “That’s why I’m exhausted. And if it almost killed me to shift back that far, do you honestly think an acolyte could manage it? Any acolyte?”
“No,” Abigail said, glancing at her friend. “It isn’t even a question.”
Hildegarde pursed her lips, looking puzzled and vaguely annoyed.
“So like I said,” I told them, “I don’t know if Johanna died on her quest, or hasn’t started it yet, or what, but—”
I broke off, because the door had just opened, and somebody was backing into the room: Jiao, carrying a tray for Rhea. It contained some sort of soup, and smelled good. He shot me a smile.
I smiled back.
And then I frowned.
“What is it?” Hildegarde asked sharply.