Just blank, as he crashed lifeless to the floor.
And, as suddenly as they’d gone, all of my emotions came flooding back. “You killed him!”
“And you brought him back. You are your mother’s daughter, Cassie Palmer, but our ally. Your strength is now our strength. I would not deprive you of any part of that.” He glanced at the door that Pritkin had just passed through. “Whatever form it may take.”
“I hope not,” I said viciously—foolishly—but at that moment, I didn’t care. “I consider you an ally as well. I would hate to have to kill you!”
He smiled faintly, but for the first time, it looked genuine.
“More like her every day . . .”
* * *
* * *
“I wasn’t talking about appearance,” Rhea said, pulling me back to the present.
I’d been staring sightlessly over the rail, down to where the usual Vegas traffic was snarling the street, but at that I turned to look at her. “What?”
“When I said that you reminded me of my mother—I didn’t mean physically. But that look, the one that says you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. I’ve seen it before, and I—” She stopped, biting her lip. “If I can help . . .”
I hesitated, because Rhea had enough on her plate. But she was right; I didn’t have anybody to talk to, not anyone who would get it. I had Pritkin back, but while he understood a lot of things, he didn’t understand how it was to be Pythia. And I didn’t know how to get through to him.
He’d railed at me for taking chances, yet there he was, off in who knew what kind of black hell, with a creature who had killed him the last time they met, and that w
as somehow perfectly all right. I was supposed to be fine with that. Because to Pritkin, his life didn’t matter, only mine did, and that made me so furious that honestly—
Beer spurted everywhere, and I realized that I’d crushed the can.
“Crap!”
“I’ll get some napkins,” Rhea said, and rushed off to fetch them. She got me another beer, too, bless her. I preferred bottles, but they didn’t fit as nicely in the little fridge under the cart. Just as well. I’d have probably sliced my hand open.
I cleaned up and we popped the tops and got to drinking. It had come as a surprise that Rhea could drink. I guess it was the British in her. Didn’t they start them over there at five or six or something?
She laughed when I asked, and a little beer might have come out of her nose. “I think that’s the Germans,” she said, grinning.
“Ah. Good to know.”
We stood there with the sun on our faces for a while, and I slowly began to feel better. Not good—I wouldn’t be good until Pritkin was back in one piece. But better.
Which I guess was why I decided to unburden myself on poor Rhea. Not the part about Pritkin; I couldn’t afford for anyone to know about that, not after what had just happened at the consul’s. He wasn’t one of those terrible things, but the senate was no more trusting than the council, so they could stay in the damned dark. It was none of their business anyway!
But other things . . . maybe she would understand those.
“It feels like nobody sees me,” I blurted out. “Not like I really am.”
“Sees you?”
I searched for words, because it was hard to explain. “When I started this job, people mostly saw me as either evil or a complete idiot who was going to doom us all. When in reality, I was just bumbling around, trying to figure things out and not get killed. I didn’t have any training, I didn’t know anything about the Pythian Court—hell, for a while, I didn’t even know there was one! Not to mention that I’d landed in the middle of a war—”
“You’ve done a brilliant job,” Rhea told me fervently. “Absolutely brilliant—”
I shook my head at her, because Rhea had a habit of only seeing the good in people. It was nice, but it wasn’t true. Not this time.
“I haven’t, though. I’ve made mistakes—a lot of them. But I thought . . . I guess I thought people would understand, that they’d realize it would take anyone time to find her feet. But instead . . . they saw what they wanted to see.”
Rhea frowned. “They usually do.”