“Aye, we saw,” Lydia said as the murmuring got louder.
“Cassie—” Abigail said, looking appalled.
And yeah, I screwed up. “I—I am a necromancer,” I told them, because obviously. “But I’m Pythia, too—”
“They would never make such a creature Pythia,” the leopard-draped woman said. She wasn’t speaking English, but the spell translated her voice just fine. And it looked like everyone else was using something similar, because there was a lot of nodding suddenly.
“Please!” I said, trying to think of something that would convince them, something that wasn’t “the fey are about to bring back a god,” because that wasn’t likely to help. But what else did I have? “The fey are about to bring back a god,” I said, with a sinking feeling. “If you don’t help me—”
“I already heard that story,” Gertie said, walking toward me. “Do better.”
“How?” I spread out my hands. “How do I prove I’m Pythia? How does any—”
“She’s not a Pythia,” Jo spat. “She’s a filthy necromancer who infiltrated the court, and I formally request that you help me—”
“One more word,” Hildegarde told her, “and I swear—”
“Be silent! Both of you!”
Gertie must have done something to enhance her voice, because it echoed everywhere, enough to bring down a filtering of powder from the rafters. I looked at her through the veil of snow, and knew this was my last chance. Come up with something now, something she’d believe, or she’d take me back. Or, considering her expression, kill me where I stood.
“Well?” she demanded.
I flashed on an image of Pritkin, somewhere fighting alone. But he couldn’t do this alone. None of us could. It had been the same ever since I started this job, clinging on by my fingernails, always feeling off balance, like I was barely treading water, and then only because of the people holding me up: Jonas and Pritkin, Tami and Rhea, Marco and Caleb, Billy and Casanova, and even the consul at times—
And one I’d known long before all of them.
My eyes widened.
Gertie frowned. “What?”
“There is something that unites us,” I said. “All of us for the last six hundred years, at least. One shared experience that she doesn’t know about, but I do!”
“Don’t listen to her!” Jo said, grabbing my arm. “She’s a liar! She was always—”
I jerked away, scanning the crowd. And spied a dark, curly head and an elegant gown, but the same pair of cheap tinsel earrings. “Eudoxia!”
The head came up.
“Mircea visited court, when you were still living with Berenice—do you remember?”
She nodded.
“He helped you feed the dogs,” I said, concentrating on that fleeting memory. “He wanted to see the Lady—”
“But she was sick,” Eudoxia said, and then flushed when everyone suddenly turned to look at her. “She was sick a lot.”
“Yet he got in eventually. He always does. And then he came to see you, after you moved to Paris.” I searched my mind, trying to remember. “He brought you a—a necklace.” I tapped my throat, seeing again the lustrous chain. “Big pearls set in gold—”
“Yes.” She looked surprised. “I don’t wear it much. It’s . . . not really my style.”
“—and he asked for something, didn’t he?”
She nodded. “Yes, he wanted—”
“Don’t say it!”
She paused, her mouth still open, while I looked for—“Isabeau!”