Reap the Wind (Cassandra Palmer 7)

“Vamps are just people,” I told her. “Good ones and bad ones and really irritating ones, just like anybody else.”

“But . . .” She looked at the door again, and then did something in the air that I really hoped was a silence spell. And I guessed so, because she was suddenly a lot less tactful after it clicked into place. “They’re not like anybody else!” she said fervently. “They can kill you—”

“A mage can kill you. A nonmagical human can kill you—”

“But they won’t . . . they don’t . . .”

“They don’t what?”

“They don’t eat you!”

I laughed. This didn’t seem to go down well, either. “I’m sorry,” I told her. “But Fred mostly eats tacos.”

“But they have to feed on us,” she hissed, in an undertone, despite the spell. “They can’t live otherwise.”

“No, they can’t.”

“So the children . . .”

I blinked. “You’re worried about—no.”

“But they’re here. And they’re so vulnerable. And I can’t protect th

em if—”

“Rhea!” She stopped, face pale, arms still grasping the pillow. And looking oddly childlike herself. It made me wonder how old she was.

So I asked.

“N-nineteen, Lady.”

“Nineteen?” I’d have guessed older. Maybe because everyone else seemed to defer to her.

“I know.” She looked chagrined. “It’s old. But they needed someone in the nursery, and I didn’t have anywhere else to go, and—”

“Since when is nineteen old?”

“For the Pythian Court it is, if you’re not selected.”

“Selected?”

“To be trained as an acolyte. They assist the Pythia, advise her, help her on her missions—”

“Good. Because I could really use some of that.” I put a hand out. “Congratulations. You can be my first acolyte.”

And, okay, that didn’t go so well, either, I thought, as Rhea jerked back, and started shaking her head violently. “No, no, no!”

“Rhea—”

“You don’t understand! It doesn’t come to me! It doesn’t! I’ve tried and tried and—”

“What doesn’t come to you?”

“Anything!” she said passionately. “That’s why I take care of the nursery! It was the only thing they found I could do. I was good with the little ones, but everything else . . . I can’t—”

“Rhea!” I put some power behind my voice, because the girl was wigging out. “Listen to me. I don’t know what else you were supposed to do, but you’ve already done the stuff I need, okay? You’ve already done it.”

“I haven’t done anything.”