Reap the Wind (Cassandra Palmer 7)

“We have a double oven?”

“I know, right?” He munched cucumber. “Who knew?”

“So she sent you to the grocery store,” I said slowly, because I was trying to imagine a girl who’d just narrowly escaped death deciding that what she really needed right then was a stuffed chicken.

And because of something else.

Rhea wasn’t just some teenager. She was a member of the Pythian Court, and one who’d been handling the weirdness a lot longer than I had. If there was a way for me to go back fifteen centuries without turning inside out, she ought to know.

Well, maybe. I’d gotten the idea that she’d mostly worked in the nursery, taking care of the little kids we seemed to have a bunch of for some reason, instead of doing crazy time leaps. In fact, I seemed to remember her saying that she wasn’t really an acolyte at all, just an initiate, although I wasn’t totally clear on the difference.

But still, she might know something.

“—lettuce. Spinach. Bean sprouts,” Fred was saying, with the air of someone pronouncing unfamiliar curse words.

“Is she awake?”

He looked up from corralling an unholy mix of masala and wasabi with some naan, and blinked. “Who? Rhea?”

I nodded.

“No, she’s asleep. They all are. You were out almos

t two hours. Why?”

I thought about waking her up, but then I’d have to explain why. And I couldn’t explain why. I couldn’t risk anybody else finding out that I was planning a jump like that. Jonas would have a fit, and Marco . . . well, then I really would be getting drugged.

I shrugged. “She said something about wanting to talk to me.”

“Probably about Jonas.” That was Marco’s voice, from the doorway. I looked up to find him lounging against the jamb, eyeing the spread on the bed.

“What about Jonas?” I asked, as he strolled over and snared a piece of the roll Fred had lined up for a chaser.

And promptly turned white.

“What the hell?” he gasped, teary-eyed.

Fred grinned. “Teach you to steal a man’s food.”

“You don’t need food! And what the fuck is in there?”

“Ghost pepper,” Fred said, looking satisfied. “It’s called a roulette roll. All the pieces are pretty normal, except for the one that has—hey!” That last was in response to Marco stealing his beer. “I’m drinking that!”

“Not anymore,” Marco told him, and downed it in a couple of gulps.

I grabbed my bottle protectively. “What about Jonas?” I repeated.

“Just that they really got into it when he called earlier,” Marco said, and went to the bathroom for some water.

“Got into it . . . about what?” I called after him.

He came back in carrying both courtesy glasses filled to the brim, and downed them before answering. And then went back for a refill. “Don’t know.”

Wuss, Fred mouthed.

“I heard that.”

“You don’t know?” I asked skeptically, because of course he did.