“Uh-huh.” She didn’t look convinced. “Oh, and one other thing.” She tapped a black box beside the bed with a long fingernail. “The Consul left this for you. And she’s getting snippy.”
I almost asked what it was, before I remembered: Mircea. Sal was right. I wasn’t done yet. We might have won the battle, but my personal war remained to be fought.
I nodded and Sal left, or tried to. She’d barely opened the door when Pritkin barged past her. He didn’t look like he’d bathed or changed, but his hair was once again an independent entity. “They said you destroyed it!”
“I’m fine,” I said, checking under the covers to see that I actually had clothes on. I did, although it was a T-shirt and sweatpants, not the ruined evening dress. I sat up again. “Thanks for asking.”
Pritkin waved it away. “I spoke with the doctor who attended you earlier. I knew you were well. Did you destroy it?”
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
I sighed. “No, I left out the important bits. Yes, all of it! There wasn’t so much as a cinder left after Jesse torched it. Relax. It’s over.”
“It will never be over. Another Pythia could go back, find it again—”
I burst out laughing, but quit because it hurt. “Yeah, because it was so damn easy.”
“It could happen,” he said stubbornly.
“And all I can say is, good luck to her. She’ll need it.” I looked at him more seriously. “I’d like to ask a question—and get an honest answer. For a change.”
“You want to know why I kept you in the dark.”
“That would be the one. Why not just tell me what was going on?”
He looked at me in disbelief. “What reason did I have to assume that you would choose the Circle’s side over Apollo’s? He could give you everything: security, the knowledge you need about your power, wealth…whereas the Circle—”
“Has been trying its best to kill me.” I took a moment to absorb that. I didn’t like to admit it, but I kind of saw his point. With so much at stake, even if he’d wanted to tell me, he couldn’t have risked it. I wasn’t sure I’d have risked it.
“They were afraid of what an untrained Pythia might do,” he continued, “given what Myra already had done. She was brought up knowing how dangerous that creature was, being warned against him, yet she still fell in line with his plans. As many others have done.”
“It does explain a lot,” I agreed. “I’ve been wondering why Tony, who pretty much defines ‘paranoid,’ would join a risky rebellion. But I guess he didn’t think it would be much of a risk with a god on his side.”
“Which was what the Circle assumed you would think. And once their attempts to remove you failed, they were even more certain that you would side against them as soon as you realized that you had such an ally.” He looked at me curiously. “In truth, I am not entirely sure why you did not.”
I shot him a look. “I’ve read the old legends, part of them anyway. Enough to guess what things would be like with his group here again.”
“Is that all?” Pritkin looked skeptical. “Because you would have been his favorite, a pampered pet, a—”
“Slave,” I finished flatly. “I would have been his slave.” I’d already had one master, and that had been more than enough. “I said that no one would ever control me again like Tony did. I meant it.”
Pritkin’s jaw tightened. “That kind of power would be very attractive to many. Regardless of the price they had to pay for it.”
“I’m sorry about Nick,” I said, knowing what he had to be thinking.
He didn’t flinch, but his eyes were shadowed. “It was necessary,” he said tersely. “He’d seen the spell; he could have told others.”
“He would have told others. He spent half an hour telling me all about what’s wrong with the Circle, how it’s a big bureaucratic mess that just needs a firm hand to straighten out. His hand, I assume.”
“He was feeling you out, trying to discover if you would support his position.”
“Yeah. He didn’t seem too happy when I laughed at him.”
Pritkin regarded me for a long moment. “You are an unusual person…Lady Cassandra.”
I blinked, sure for a moment that I’d heard wrong. “What did you call me?”