Shatter the Earth (Cassandra Palmer 10)

“This isn’t the time.”

“Why not?”

He looked at me incredulously. “After the day you’ve had? And apparently the week as well? You don’t need this—”

“I also don’t need to be treated like a child.”

“That isn’t what this is.”

“Isn’t it?” Because it was kind of looking that way.

Of course, there was a reason for that. I’d changed a lot lately, but I wasn’t sure how much Pritkin knew that. He’d been cursed for the better part of a month, and then here for another one while the invasion was planned.

And two months in my life was a long time.

“Listen,” I said. “There are a few things I need to tell you—”

“Like the fact that you’ve been training with Lady Herophile?”

I blinked at him, caught off guard. “You knew?”

Pritkin had stolen an olive from my untouched salad, and was sucking the juice off a thumb. But at that, he looked up and the green eyes narrowed. “I’m not stupid, Cassie.”

“I never thought you were.”

“I suspected something for a while, but when you used Astara, I knew. According to Jonas, it’s a very advanced technique, one that even your acolytes might not know. And even if they do—”

“It would kill them to perform it.” Damn it, I’d worried about Jonas figuring that out, when there’d been another witness who knew me better and worried about me more. “How did you know it wasn’t Agnes?”

“Lady Phemonoe had a reputation for being a stickler. I didn’t think she would bend the rules so far. Lady Herophile, on the other hand—”

“Was more like me. She bent rules to the breaking point.”

“She was known for using . . . unorthodox methods,” Pritkin agreed. “And you met her in Wales and then again in London. It wasn’t hard to guess.”

“But you didn’t tell me.”

“I wanted you to tell me. I thought we trusted each other more than this.”

I fidgeted uncomfortably. Because we did. We always had. It was just . . .

“Being Pythia means playing the cards close to the chest sometimes, doesn’t it?” he asked, watching me.

“I don’t want to!” I said passionately. “But there’s just . . . so much, you know? So many decisions, and half the time, I don’t know whether I’m making the right ones. I didn’t want to keep it a secret—”

“But you didn’t know how I’d take it.”

I just looked at him, because it was the truth and we both knew it. But it felt miserable to have to admit. I trusted Pritkin, more than I’d ever trusted anybody. I knew he’d never betray me, but there were things that I was afraid he wouldn’t understand.

And that the people around him just might.

He sighed and sat back against the wall. “I had a feeling it was something like that.”

“I’m sorry—”

“Don’t apologize. You had to get

training somehow, and there weren’t many options. Jonas failed to teach you much of anything, Lady Phemonoe wouldn’t even try, and your mother . . .”