Ignite the Fire: Incendiary by Karen Chance

 

 

Chapter Eighteen

 

 

Another knock woke me up, which was good, since I appeared to be drowning.

I grabbed for the side of the tub I’d fallen asleep in and held on, while coughing and retching and bringing up half a lungful of soapy water. I had more in my eyes, and—disturbingly—was blowing bubbles out of my nose. Which probably explained why I now had burning sinuses.

Great.

The knock came again, a little more forcefully this time, enough to rattle the door. I thought about ignoring it, but that was a good way to get it blown off its hinges by someone who was afraid that I’d died or something. So, grumbling audibly, I got out of the bath, wrapped myself in my towel, and went to answer it.

And found the same acolyte as before on the other side.

She seemed surprised to see me standing there, dripping at her, why I didn’t know. What had she thought I was going to do with that hour? Paint my nails?

I saw her eyes flicker to the trail of wet footprints I’d left across the boards, and at least she had the grace to blush. But she didn’t retract the stack of towels she was holding out, or the basket of toiletries, which I already had. I took them anyway, since it seemed the easiest way to get rid of her.

It wasn’t.

“Yes?” I said impatiently, when she just stood there.

She looked nervous, but determined. “I’m . . . I wanted to make sure that you have everything you need. I would have brought a new dress, too, but I didn’t think that one of mine would fit.”

No, I didn’t suppose so. She was tall and had a shape that her doppelganger would have envied. Meanwhile I was short and skinny, and getting skinnier by the minute because she hadn’t brought any food.

But I wasn’t going to ask, because there was something weird about this one.

“Yep. All set.” I tried to close the door.

“I’m glad to hear it,” she burst out. “I—that is, we—but mostly I—” she stopped, and collected herself. “That is, I really don’t mind about the coat—”

“Great.” I pushed against the shoe she’d inserted over the threshold.

“I’m just glad you’re all right. I realize we’re not supposed to know anything, about what you’re doing here, that is, but I couldn’t help overhearing—”

“What?” I said sharply.

“Nothing!” She looked alarmed, probably afraid that I’d rat her out to Gertie. “Merely that, I understand things of importance are happening, of grave importance, and that you . . . that the risks you’re taking . . . well, I just wanted to say, we’re all very grateful and proud—”

“Yeah, you’re welcome.” I tried to shut the door again, but again, it went nowhere.

Damn, she must have arches of steel.

“—and I was wondering—”

“What?”

“—if you could, perhaps?” She held something out.

I looked at it. It appeared to be a small book. I shifted some stuff around in my arms and took it.

There was nothing in it except for blank pages, like a diary or something. I didn’t get it. Then I looked up and found her holding out a pen.

Gray eyes gazed into mine hopefully. “If you could sign to my good friend Iris . . .?”

I stared at her in disbelief.

Oh, my God.

I had a groupie.

I took the pen and scribbled something, I’m not even sure what, thrust it back at her and finally got the door closed. I waited to hear her footsteps walk away, but the thick old oak muffled sound too well and she’d had on soft little slippers. I couldn’t tell if she’d left, or if she was waiting outside the door like some sort of glamorous stalker.

After a moment, I started to feel ridiculous. I found the smallest towel in the bunch and draped it around the door knob, knotting it so that it would stay. It covered the keyhole, and the door was so well fitted that there were no cracks around the jamb.

I stood back to survey my handiwork, and decided it would do. Screw you, Grace, I thought. Screw everything about today.

Including my bathwater, which had gone tepid, damn it!

I’d intended to soak up whatever heat was left, only to discover that there wasn’t any. I stood by the bath, clutching my armful of towels and feeling cheated. But I didn’t turn the heating element back on. I’d already tried my luck twice; three times was just asking for trouble. I let out the water instead, went over to the dressing table to put down all my stuff—and got a happy surprise.

Because the basket wasn’t toiletries, after all, it was food! A large linen napkin had covered it all up, but it slid partly off when I put everything down. And allowed a hearty ham sandwich to peek out at me, leaking some of that awesome hot English mustard down the sides.

I quickly pulled the rest of the napkin away to find that the sandwich had plenty of company. It was nestled next to another with some weird sort of—oh. It was cold cow’s tongue. I felt myself shiver slightly and pushed it aside. But there were also some fried oyster patties, a couple of sausages, a slice off some sort of terrine that was mostly meat and boiled eggs—because the Edwardians were basically carnivores—and a vol-a-vent, a small, puff pastry stuffed with creamy chicken, although there did appear to be a few peas in there, too.

Why everybody in this era hadn’t died of heart disease, I’d never know. Their meals consisted of multiple courses, but that mostly translated into fish, fish, some other type of seafood, meat, meat, meat, and sweets, with lots of wine accompanying every course. Not that I was complaining. Except about the missing sweet, that was, which I found after plowing through everything else, in its own little pot at the bottom of the basket: a Cassie-sized trifle made with ratafia biscuits and sherry.

Score!

I ate it all, washed down by a good English beer, except for the tongue, although I eyed even that. After all, it was just beef, right? But I couldn’t do it. Tasting something that might be tasting me back freaked me out.

But everything else was marvelous.

Damn—it was good to have a groupie!

I left the bedroom a short while later, stuffed and happy and looking for Iris to thank her. Only she appeared to have left, and everybody else was in bed. Well, at least I wouldn’t get any disapproving glances for once, because despite her attitude, most of the court seemed to find me a bit of an embarrassment.

That might have had something to do with the fact that they came back from training sessions without so much as dusty outerwear, and I . . . did not. I’d seen their looks when I schlepped in, covered in mud or blood or chicken feathers. I’d seen them watching me from the foyer or the courtyard as I clumped upstairs with my hair a mess and my makeup gone and sans a shoe.

Those had not been admiring glances.

But I might not have garnered too much disapproval tonight, with my hair freshly combed and my dressing gown as respectable as I could make it. Which wasn’t very, since the robe had absorbed a lot of salve, leaving me with more polka dots. Only these were greasy instead of burnt edged, and smelled of ten-day old fish instead of ashes.

I sniffed myself. I did not want to face Gertie like this. That trip today hadn’t been my idea, but freaked out people tended not to remember things like that. And if I was going to get a dressing down, I’d like to do it dressed up for once, or “properly attired,” as Agnes had put it.

I needed the Edwardian version of a power suit, only I didn’t have one.

Luckily, I knew someone who did.

I headed for Rhea’s room down the hall.

She somehow kept her wardrobe spotless, despite wrestling around on the floor with Agnes half the time. I suspected magic, not that any amount of it would save what I’d been wearing today. But we were close enough in size that maybe I could borrow—

Or not, I thought, glancing in her partly open door.

Rhea wasn’t alone, which on its own was not surprising. Unlike me, she was popular among the acolytes, who were pleased to have someone else to take the position of Agnes’ chew toy. Whenever we visited, two or three of them could usually be found in Rhea’s room, sipping tea, playing whist, or gossiping about court affairs. Sometimes, I also suspected them of giving her pointers, because seeing Agnes dumped on her ass was some of the girls’ fondest dream.

So, it was a little odd that, tonight, the girl sitting on the bed behind Rhea and combing out my acolyte’s long, dark hair was . . . Agnes herself.

Okay.

Hadn’t seen that one coming.

They looked like another painting, maybe “Sweet Sisterhood” this time, although they were mother and daughter. But they were also more or less the same age at the moment, and the resemblance was striking when you saw them together. Especially when they weren’t yelling at each other for once.

Instead, Rhea had her eyes closed, with the lamplight gilding her pale skin. Her hair was gilded, too, only it was too dark to reflect much light, just rippling down her back like a brown river. But it was the expression on her face that stopped me, halting my hand on the way to the door and making me pause in the hallway like some voyeur.

Yet the only thing happening inside the room was what looked like an Edwardian slumber party. Both girls were in robes, with high necked, frilly nightgowns peeking out of the top. Your neck just never got a break in this era, did it?

But I didn’t laugh at my own joke, because there was nothing funny about the look on Rhea’s face. It was heartbreaking, although I couldn’t have said why. But there was something so incredibly vulnerable about it, so raw, so expressive even with her eyes closed, that it made me gasp in sympathy.

Which is why they saw me before I could beat a retreat.

Rhea’s eyes flew open and she jumped up, so fast that the comb stayed in place.

“Lady!” She curtsied, which she almost never did anymore, as I’d finally managed to talk her out of it. Then I almost had a heart attack when Agnes rose slowly off the bed . . . and did likewise.

Okaaaaay, weirded out now.

The world righted itself when she stood back up, eyed me critically up and down, and frowned. “You look terrible.”

Okay. Abuse. That was more like it.

“Are you all right?” Rhea burst out. “I’m sorry; I should have been there when you woke—”

“For what? To watch me take a bath?” I came in. “I was hoping to borrow a gown, if you have a spare.”

“Of course.” She immediately went to the wardrobe and started sorting through what looked like a whole dress shop.

“Have they been giving you extra?” I asked, eyeing all the bounty.

She blinked at me over her shoulder, a delicate number in her hands. “No?”

“Then why do you have so many?” The wardrobe was all but bursting at the seams.

“She doesn’t destroy one every time she wears it?” Agnes said dryly, as Rhea passed over another sacrificial lamb.

I would have had a reply to that, but Agnes had a point. And sliding my greased up, fish-smelling body into this one wasn’t going to do it any good. I stood there for a second in indecision, admiring the handmade lace, before handing it back.

“Maybe a different robe instead?”

Rhea nodded, and knelt to paw through an equally well stocked drawer on the bottom of the wardrobe. She came up with an almost identical robe to the one I was wearing, except this one was dark blue instead of gray and looked like it had been ironed. I felt almost guilty despoiling its perfection.

But not enough to turn it down. “Thanks.”

I peeled off the old, sticky version, which had all but welded itself to my skin, because that damned salve just didn’t come off. I grabbed the new one, turned toward the mirror, and heard twin gasps from behind me. I looked over my shoulder.

“What?”

“You’re—you’re still hurt,” Rhea said indistinctly, her hand over her mouth.

“Not like before,” I said, vividly recalling the sight of half of my face about to slide off. I repressed a shudder. “I’m better now—”

“Yes, but they told me—that, is, I thought you were healed.”

“You, uh, weren’t the one who tended to me?” I asked, trying for casual. “Afterwards, I mean?”

“No, they wouldn’t let me. They locked me up—”

“Locked you up where?”

“We put her in timeout,” Agnes said, and I was pretty sure she meant that literally.

“You put her in one of those cells, outside time?” I was instantly furious. “She was helping me!”

“But we didn’t know that, did we? You didn’t bother to tell anyone anything—”

“I was dying—”

“Exactly so, and we were trying to get a healer to you. But it appears that you didn’t need one.” Agnes’ frown tipped into a scowl as she looked me over. “You should be dead.”

“Sorry to disappoint—”

Suddenly, she was beside me, as quickly as if she’d shifted. And maybe she had. I’d been looking down, knotting the belt on the robe, and hadn’t seen her move. But when I looked up, she was right behind me.

And I wasn’t the only one who was furious.

“You didn’t disappoint,” she hissed, meeting my eyes in the mirror. “You should be dead. But after all that banging around and screaming, when we finally broke in, what did we find?”

I had no idea. I wasn’t even sure I wanted one. But Agnes was intent on telling me anyway.

“Just you. Bruised and battered and tangled in the sheets, but alive. When you should have been a blackened, smoking corpse! And Rhea won’t say why you’re not—”

“You’re not supposed to be asking her,” I said, trying not to look relieved. “You know that—”

“Like it matters, after today. With gods haunting the byways—”

“It matters! You could change time—”

“—and demigods opposing them!”

I stopped and stared at her for a moment in the mirror. I did not look at Rhea, because that would have been a dead giveaway, and because I didn’t need to. I could see her vaguely over Agnes’ shoulder, violently shaking her head.

So, Agnes didn’t know.

But she damned well looked like she did.

“I’m not a fool, Cassie,” she sneered, as I turned around. “No one could have done what you did today, no human, at least. But no god would have looked like that when we dragged you back.”

“She’s hurt,” Rhea said, coming forward. “You saw—”

“Yes, and you would have seen worse, had Lady Herophile not thrown you out.”

Rhea opened her mouth, then closed it again quickly. She didn’t mention that she’d run back in later, when they were arguing with the mages downstairs, and that she’d seen plenty. She was learning discretion a lot faster than I had.

“The Lady shouldn’t have done that,” she said instead. “I should have been the one to tend her—”

“And watch your Pythia die?” Agnes glanced over her shoulder. “No one should have to live through that, not when half choked themselves. You inhaled too much smoke rescuing her—”

“I’m fine,” Rhea said staunchly, and for the first time, I saw Agnes smile at someone, and actually look like she meant it.

“Yes, you are. You’re strong. But you will see enough in this profession that you would wish to erase. No need to add one thing more.”

“I didn’t die,” I pointed out—which was a mistake, because it drew Agnes’ attention back to me.

“No, but you should have done,” she said. “But what do we have instead? Half healed wounds instead of bubbled flesh, scars that look weeks old instead of new and livid.” She grabbed my arm and pushed up the sleeve of the robe, displaying a heavily bruised expanse of flesh with an ugly ridge down the middle, like an inverted seam. Her eyes met mine, and hers narrowed. “When we brought you back, we could see bone.”

I jerked my arm back and scowled at her. “How would you know? You were half dead yourself, so tired you could barely stand, yet here you are—”

“Yes, dosed up on half a bottle of the Tears of Apollo, and still exhausted. But then, I’m only human.”

I started to retort, but paused, because anything I said could be dangerous. Agnes had been trained by Gertie to notice everything, to extrapolate from what she knew, and to goad others into revealing what she didn’t. Giving her anything to work with would be stupid.

“Believe what you like,” I finally said. “We’re not supposed to be talking—about any of this.”

“We are now. The restrictions have been lifted.”

“What?” I looked from her to Rhea, who was just standing there, biting her lip. “What do you mean? Gertie told you not to ask us anything—”

“She changed her mind. That’s how I discovered that I have a daughter—”

“Rhea!”

“—and, apparently, that I am the reason you are here at all. I save your life someday.” She looked like she found that as hard to believe as I often did.

I ignored her and glared at my acolyte, who had apparently lost her damned mind. “Did you get hit on the head?”

“Lady?” Rhea, who tended to be the literal type, looked confused.

“A brain bleed? A concussion? A seizure—”

She flushed.

“Rhea is fine,” Agnes said. “She had to tell me. We had things to discuss—”

“You absolutely did not!”

“—as you do, with Gertie.”

That was a dismissal if ever I’d heard one, which right now, was fine by me. Forget what I looked like; I needed answers. I spun on my heel and started for the door, but Agnes grabbed my arm.

“Wait. I understand that I owe you something.”

“For what?” I asked, pissed.

“For saving my daughter’s life.”

My eyes went back to Rhea, who flushed a darker shade. Looked like she’d decided to spill her entire guts. What the hell?

“I saved you,” Agnes said. “You returned the favor and saved her, along with the rest of my court. There is symmetry there, don’t you think?”

I transferred my gaze to her. The woman I’d seen this morning had been her normal self—haughty, competent, sure of her abilities, and annoyed at the rest of us who weren’t on her level. And just now, she’d been her usual argumentative, clever, and infuriating self. But all that was suddenly gone. Her blue eyes, normally as hard and cold as twin sapphires, were warm and sincere.

It threw me more than anything else she’d done so far.

“I . . . owe you more,” I said, not sure how to take this new version of Agnes.

She shook her head. “I did my job, that was all. Whereas you . . . saved a part of me. I may not have the chance to say this later, so I wanted to do it now. Thank you.”

I thought of all the times she’d thrown me on my ass—or shot me in it. And then I thought of how brave she’d been this morning, taking on a god all by herself. And of how absolutely kick ass of a Pythia she’d been, fighting the war all alone before most people even realized we were in one.

She’d been flawed, but she’d also been the best of us.

“You’re welcome,” I whispered, and left.