“She’s serious,” Saffy said, and would have said more, knowing her, but Zara quieted her.
“I need adepts,” I said bluntly. “And we both know you have them. Coven girls used to come to the court, powerful seers who—”
“Who are needed to guard our enclaves from the damned Circle! Not to mention that none of the girls we sent ever had a chance of becoming Pythia! Not with the Circle’s influence pervading every inch of that place!”
I blinked at her, because for the first time, Zara had lost her famous cool. Her golden cheeks were flushed pink, and her dark eyes were giving Beatrice’s a run for their money. And that . . . wasn’t a great sign.
Zara was the most even tempered of the coven leaders I’d met so far. If she was this appalled by my request—
Well, at least I’d enjoyed the tea, I thought grimly.
But as long as I was here, I was having my say. I gulped the rest of my drink, just in case it helped, and sat the cup down with a thunk. “I’m sorry for the way you’ve been treated—”
“It’s a little late for that!”
“—but that was by my predecessors, not me. I can assure you that any girls you send me will be treated with the same respect as any other acolytes. They’ll be housed the same; they’ll be trained the same. And they’ll have the same chance at succeeding me—”
“Oh, please.” Zara looked at me for the first time with dislike. “I thought you might at least be honest with us.”
“And I’m not?”
“Hardly. You know as well as we do who will succeed you. Everyone does.”
“Maybe you’ll enlighten me?”
“Drop the act. We know who Rhea Silvanus’ true parents are. She was raised by a coven, remember? The Silver Circle has been influencing the Pythias for years, and now their leader is to have his daughter on the throne? If there was ever any question who runs things—”
“The power chooses the Pythia,” I told her. “Rhea is Jonas’ daughter, it’s true, and her mother was the former Pythia Agnes—”
“Then you admit it!”
“Didn’t I just say so?”
I glanced around because the distraction technique suddenly wasn’t working so well anymore. Our little group was starting to be hedged by unhappy faces, with enough passive power coming off them to send my hair crackling around my face. Damn, I could use another cup of tea!
But I didn’t have any, so I soldiered on regardless.
“So, yes, Rhea has a strong pedigree. But so did Myra, Agnes’ former heir, yet the power came to me—”
“Considering who your mother was?” Someone laughed. “I’d damned well hope so!”
A murmur went around the group. It seemed that some hadn’t been reading the papers, because there were a few gasps as questions were asked and answered, and a few audible snorts of derision. Yeah, I thought, that’s why I didn’t go around name-dropping.
“And,” I said, raising my voice, since that seemed to be considered normal around here, “there’s the fact that Agnes never wanted Rhea to follow in her footsteps, something she made quite clear to her daughter, who was never trained. She can’t even shift—”
The murmuring got louder.
“—and may never do so. But either way, the power chooses the Pythia—”
“Then why does it always go to a Circle girl, hm? Explain that,” someone else said.
“Because they’re the ones who are trained!” I looked around the ring of faces in exasperation. “The power chooses the best candidate possible. Are you surprised that is usually someone with the right training?”
“And you expect us to believe that there’s no politics, no Circle intervention, involved in that selection?” That was Zara again.
“No, I’m not saying that,” I told her. “Quite the contrary.”
“See! See!” Someone said.