There followed a tussle between the mops, who clearly had orders to get the concourse back to normal, and the tiny robed guys, who didn’t see any reason why they couldn’t have the meat. It resulted in mop handles battering small robed heads and little spell bolts being thrown around, setting a couple of the mops on fire. I laughed.
“I’m glad you think this is funny!”
I looked up at her.
“I think it’s awesome,” I said, because she seemed to be waiting for something.
Her face scrunched up, maybe trying to read my thoughts, but if so, let her. I was honestly enchanted. “Is she all right?” she finally asked someone.
“Of course she’s all right!” That was Hilde, who I guessed had gotten back at some point. “She’s just had a shock, that’s all.”
“She’s had a shock?” The woman sounded furious. “She isn’t even supposed to be here—”
“It seems to have been a good thing that she was.”
“—much less with a demonic monster in tow!”
“One who saved your collective arses.”
“As if we couldn’t have handled the Svarestri!” the woman snapped.
“Are you in the habit of having to?” Hilde inquired sharply.
The woman’s face flushed red. “That’s none of your business! None of this is any of your business! You have no right—”
“I have every right. The last time I checked, I was a witch, just like you.”
“You’re nothing like us. She is nothing like us!” An arm protruded from the flowing gray robes she wore. “The Pythias have never been witches!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“They’re pawns of the Circle—”
“Or of the vampires,” someone else added.
“—everybody knows that! And now that you’ve brought her here, what do you think she’s going to do? She’ll run straight back to the Circle—”
“That’s a lie!”
“—and we’ll have to fight them off or have them crawling all over everything! Dealing with the fey would have been easier!”
“If you’d listen for a moment, instead of shouting,” Hilde shouted, “perhaps you would learn something—”
“Oh, yes. Another Circle-trained witch about to instruct me!”
“Not if I can’t get a word in edgewise!”
“I think we should hear from the Pythia,” someone said, and for the second time, everybody paused to look at me.
I looked back, too bewildered to feel intimidated this time. “I’m not a pawn of anyone,” I told them.
“Then you’d be the first Pythia I ever heard of who wasn’t!” That was from the imposing woman again.
Hilde started to blow up, probably because her sister had just been insulted as much as me, but she was cut off.
“Jury’s still out,” a familiar voice said, and I looked up to see the only three coven leaders I did know making their way through the crowd.
“Heard you were here,” Evelyn, the imposing one in front, told me. “You have some lady balls, to try this.”