Shatter the Earth (Cassandra Palmer 10)

“You seem to be learning a great deal more about your position,” Jonas said. “That was quite an advanced technique you used.”

I started to answer, then realized that I didn’t have one. Not one I could share, anyway. In fact, there were so many topics to avoid right now that this conversation was starting to feel like a minefield: my current trainer, who I wasn’t even supposed to know, as it broke a crap ton of Pythian rules; Jonathan and his murder of Emma and useless destruction of that spell; and Mircea, whose borrowed abilities had allowed me to take out a fey.

The first one might get me lectured on the reasons for Pythian norms, if I accidentally spilled the beans. That was especially true with Hilde on my court. She could have trained me on the Pythian power with no risk, however minimal, to the timeline.

But she’d never been Pythia, and that involved so much more than just nifty new spells. And whether she liked to admit it or not, she was old, like really old, and there were plenty of techniques that would be dangerous for her to do. Like Astara.

Which was probably why Jonas was suspicious: he knew she hadn’t taught me that spell.

But it was frankly none of his business who had taught me what, or how I got the training I’d missed out on. That was court business. Unlike the last two items on that list.

“Cassandra?”

I paused some more, despite probably looking really suspicious at this point. But I didn’t know if I had anything useful to offer about Jonathan or Lover’s Knot. While talking about them at all risked spilling the beans that I was currently tied to a master vamp who was able to bogart my power and . . . yeah, no.

I needed to get that spell off before anyone found out what Mircea was doing, or it would be a toss-up as to who would kill him first: the Circle as guardians of the Pythia, or jealous members of the vampire senate.

Maybe they’d finally be able to cooperate on something, I thought grimly.

But what I said was: “The power trains the Pythia.”

Jonas smiled at me. “So it does.”

“You could have been killed,” Pritkin said, going back to worrying that bone some more. And this time, his voice was low and seemingly calm, which was bad. Pritkin was fine as long as he was shouting; it was when he got quiet that you had to worry.

But I wasn’t willing to sit and be lectured—by either of them. I had a point to make, too, and it was a good one. “I wasn’t the target.”

“He attacked you—”

“In your chambers. Where I wasn’t supposed to be. He probably didn’t want to face two opponents, so when I showed up, he decided to take me out first, then continue to wait for you.”

But Pritkin didn’t look impressed. “A fey assassin has a chance to kill the Pythia, one of their chief opponents in the war, yet you think he was after me?”

“He was in your chambers,” I repeated.

“Could anyone have known you would be there?” Jonas asked me. “Was this a regular event?”

“Lunch, kind of. Dinner, no. I texted Pritkin to set it up.”

“I was upstairs for a meeting earlier, where the wards are minimal,” Pritkin added. “When I received the text. But my phone is secure—”

“No phone is secure,” Jonas said. “Spelled communication only, from this point on.”

Pritkin nodded.

Jonas turned his attention back to me. “You took dinner to his room?”

He already knew the answer to that. There were war mages crawling all over the tiny space right now. One of the bastards probably had my cream puff in an evidence bag.

“I picked it up at the bakery near the crossroads,” I confirmed. “I suppose someone could have seen me, and figured out that I wasn’t dining alone by how much food I had. But there was no way for them to know where I was going—”

“Wasn’t there?” Jonas asked, but he wasn’t looking at me.

Pritkin had a hand on the back of his neck, his head tucked and his forehead lined in thought. “We’ve been careful.”

“How careful?”

And suddenly, there he was: the shrewd, dangerous mage looking out from under the Santa Claus disguise. Pritkin wasn’t even looking at him, but he must have heard the switch in his voice. Because his shoulders stiffened.