“You can stop our time stream—”
“Which helps us how?” I asked, bewildered. “You know how long that lasts, and that’s against humans. I don’t even know if it would work on a god. But even if did, it would give you what? A few minutes? What kind of damage can you do in a few minutes?”
“More than you think.” It was grim.
“Not enough,” Rhea said hollowly, because she’d been the one to receive the vision of Ares’ return, not me. And even in memory, it was enough to blanch her skin, to flood her eyes. Because she hadn’t just seen Ares return.
She’d seen us fail.
More specifically, she’d seen the Circle fail, seen Ares mopping the floor with them, news that had apparently hit Jonas harder than I’d realized at the time. So, okay, if ever a man had reason to panic, he did. But I still didn’t see what he expected me to do.
It was one reason I’d been working so hard to get Pritkin back. I didn’t know how to fight gods, didn’t even know where to start. So rather than sitting around, wringing my hands over what I didn’t know how to do, I’d been concentrating on what I did. And not just for personal reasons.
Yes, I cared about him. Yes, I owed him my life many times over. But it was also a fact that he’d forgotten more magic than Jonas ever knew. He’d been hiding out under the name of John Pritkin for centuries, but it wasn’t the one he’d been born with, the one history knew him by, the one he’d desperately kept hidden because of the myth, the magic, the aura that still encircled the name of the greatest mage of them all.
Merlin.
That’s who I was after, that’s who I’d been desperately chasing through time, that’s who I’d gone to hell and back for—literally. But if Pritkin was to have any chance at a normal life after this was all said and done, I couldn’t tell anyone. I couldn’t tell Jonas that I was working on a way to deliver us from Ares, the only one likely to work: by bringing back the most dangerous mage of them all.
If anybody could come up with a way to defeat a god, it was Pritkin.
I didn’t just want him back; I needed him back.
And I didn’t have time for this.
“I’ve never refused to help you,” I reminded Jonas. “I’ve done everything you asked. I’ll help you in the future, too, however I can. But this . . .” I gestured at the mages. “This is not helping! It’s the opposite, in fact: it’s endangering the alliance between the Circle and the Senate—”
“We don’t need the Senate,” Jonas said, dismissing one of the most powerful supernatural groups on the planet with a wave of his hand. “We need you. That is what the prophecy foretold. If we are to successfully resist Ares, we need you and your mother—”
“My mother is dead.”
“But she helped you to defeat Ares’ children, did she not? Perhaps that was her part of the journey. The rest, you must walk, but not alone. The Circle will—”
“Be leaving now,” Marco said flatly. Because his eyes had never left the mages, and he must have noticed something I hadn’t. Some escalation in power that had put up a red flag to vampire senses.
“Yes, we will be,” Jonas said curtly. “With Cassie.”
I swallowed, trying to think. I had a little power saved up, thanks to some food and a couple hours’ sleep, but not enough. Not that I knew what I’d have done even at full strength. Freeze time so Marco and company could kill everyone more efficiently? Because we were supposed to be on the same side!
Something nobody else seemed to remember.
And then Rhea grabbed my hand.
And, suddenly, it felt like it had when Pritkin gave me energy. Okay, not exactly like, but there was a definite power boost. She met my eyes.
“You’re risking a lot for an old prophecy,” I told Jonas, taking the fussy child from her.
And feeling another, smaller hit of power flow through me.
“We’ve seen its worth,” he argued, because he didn’t want this to end in bloodshed, either.
“We’ve seen what could be coincidence,” I told him, pushing through the vampires toward the other girls, as if taking the fussy child back to her bed. “You said it yourself: myths have to be interpreted.”
“And how else would you interpret this one?” he demanded. “There were to be three gods, according to legend, and three champions to help you fight them. Apollo was the first, and as foretold, he was injured by contact with the ouroboros spell that hedges our world, before you finished him off.”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” I argued, handing the girl to a plump initiate with chocolate skin and ringlets. And then sitting down beside them on a cot, in the midst of several others. “Anyone coming into our world would have to get by that spell.”
“It nonetheless followed the pattern that was foretold. As did your defeat of Ares’ sons. Your mother was to be your champion there, and I think disposing of four out of the five qualifies!”