Shatter the Earth (Cassandra Palmer 10)

But it didn’t look all that familiar at the moment.

A horse drawn carriage clip-clopped by, threatening to squash us, and I pulled Rhea off the sidewalk and onto the front steps. It was night in London, with a typical Edwardian fog obscuring the landscape and making the streetlights halos of brightness that illuminated pretty much nothing. So, I doubted that the cabbie could see very far.

But I pulled up the hood on my cloak anyway, because I wasn’t supposed to be here.

“You aren’t supposed to be here!” a crabby voice informed me, after the front door was abruptly jerked open.

The woman who was silhouetted in a flood of newfangled electric light was a bit of a surprise, because she wasn’t supposed to be here, either. At least not answering doors. And because she was unusually disheveled, with her long brown hair everywhere, her cheeks flushed, and her usually perfectly pressed white lace gown dirty and torn down one side.

It flashed a glimpse of thigh that would have outraged her delicate sensibilities if she’d noticed—and if she’d had any. But Agnes had always been as tough as nails. As she demonstrated by trying to close the door on me.

But I had her number and had already put a foot in it.

I heard a small sound from my companion, and thought it was sympathy for my mangled foot before I glanced over my shoulder.

Crap, I thought, seeing Rhea’s expression.

Because I’d forgotten; there was one familiar item at the old Pythian Court, wasn’t there?

Agnes Weatherby, the girl in the doorway, was a tiny thing with a big attitude. Which was fair, since she was the current heir to the throne and future Pythia, and thus a fairly important person. Or self-important, I thought, as she glared at me.

“I know I’m early for my appointment—” I began, trying diplomacy while still looking worriedly back at Rhea.

“Three days early!” Agnes snapped.

“—and I know I’m not supposed to be outside. But I didn’t want to risk materializing inside of someone.” I turned back to Agnes. “You really need to establish a landing area.”

“We don’t need a landing area!” she told me furiously. “We know how to project the future out in front of us to avoid running into people!”

“Bully for you,” I said, and pushed past her.

Rhea followed me inside, looking more than a little gob smacked. Yeah. I probably should have mentioned that we might be meeting her mother. Her very dead mother who was, in this period, quite alive and fuming.

You could really see the resemblance, I thought, looking at them side by side. One had blue eyes and one brown, and Rhea was slightly taller, but they both had long brown hair that rippled down their backs, English rose complexions, and sweet faces. At least, Agnes’s would have been sweet if she hadn’t been looking at me.

I didn’t know what her problem was, but she clearly had one.

I also didn’t care right now, because I’d just made a mistake, the kind that happens when you have too much to do and way too much to think about. Things fall through the cracks, even important things.

Like Rhea’s feelings, which I had accidentally just crapped all over.

“I need a second,” I told Agnes, and pulled my acolyte into a small, side parlor.

It was the same one where I’d almost choked to death once, because my experiences at the old Pythian Court hadn’t always been stellar. But it had the advantage of a door that shut in Agnes’ face, and a green velvet settee that I pulled Rhea onto. And green velvet drapes that shut out the world except for a small amount of street light leaking in through the window.

Enough to show me that, yep, I was a dick.

“Are you all right?” I asked, since that’s what you ask in these cases, but the answer was clearly no. Rhea looked like, well, like she’d just seen a ghost. One who was currently pounding on the door, goddamnit!

I opened it again and stuck my head out. “What part of ‘I need a second’ did you not understand?”

“What part of ‘get the hell out’ did you not?”

“You didn’t tell me that,” I said.

“Consider yourself told!” And the bitch shifted me into the street.

She didn’t shift Rhea—fortunately. Because the Pythian Court seemed to be on some kind of nightly delivery route, judging by all the traffic passing outside. And which resulted in me almost getting run down—again!