Reap the Wind (Cassandra Palmer 7)

“Everyone else does.”

“Everyone else didn’t spend weeks getting chased by them all over creation,” I said, kneeling in front of the behemoth. “They spent the first few months of my reign attempting to kill me.”

“But they failed.”

“Not from lack of trying.”

“And then you helped Mage Marsden retake control and become Lord Protector again,” she said, as if reciting.

“It seemed the best way to get the bounty off my head.” And to get Saunders, his corrupt, homicidal, son-of-a-bitch predecessor out of office.

And goddamn, there were a lot of drawers!

“But he couldn’t have done it without you.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“He couldn’t have!” she said, suddenly vehement. “He didn’t move until he had the Pythia on his side. He wouldn’t have done half the things he’s known for without the Lady’s help, and yet he treats her successor like—” She stopped abruptly and pressed her lips together.

And then she went back to furiously sorting coats.

I looked at her for a minute but didn’t say anything. It felt weird to be defended, to have someone else act like maybe there was something wrong in how I was treated. I’d thought that way myself at times, but everyone else acted like things were fine and I was the one with the problem. Everyone except Rhea.

She actually sounded more offended for me than I was for myself, hence the weird.

But it was a nice weird.

I got busy, too, but the only interesting thing I found was a strip of paper tucked into the lining of a drawer. It was a group of pictures, actually, old and black-and-white and all in a row, the kind photo booths give. And while the faces staring back at me were familiar, they were so changed from the ones I knew that I barely recognized them.

Agnes had freckles; I’d never noticed them before under the war paint. And Jonas . . . I grinned in spite of everything, even in spite of last night. Because who could be furious with that?

He was standing behind Agnes, as if they had both barely fit in the little booth. And while she was trying to look prim and proper and posed for the camera, he was making a face behind her head. And with his shock of crazy hair even crazier than usual and his Coke-bottle glasses making his already large eyes huge . . . it was pretty damned funny.

Agnes caught him in the second pic, and grabbed him by the towel he had slung around his neck, as if threatening to strangle him.

Or not, I thought, grinning. Because the third image showed that his face had been dragged down to hers, abruptly enough that his glasses were half askew. And yet he didn’t seem to mind.

“Who knew the old guy could kiss like that?” I asked Rhea, passing her the picture.

She stared at it, as if needing to adjust her mental image. I didn’t have the same problem, since there hadn’t been much there to start with, at least not about Agnes. All I really knew for sure was that she’d been the perfect Pythia and had dated Jonas for decades.

It suddenly occurred to me that maybe I ought to know more than that.

“Where was she from?” I asked.

Rhea looked up. “Lady Phemonoe?”

I nodded.

“Pittsburgh.”

“Pittsburgh?”

“Yes, why?”

The Pythia from Pittsburgh. “Then why did she have an English accent?”

“She was trained here. The previous Pythia was British, and had her court here. When Lady Phemonoe was identified, or Agnes Wetherby as she was known then . . .” She broke off at my expression. “Is something wrong?”