What was Jonathan working on?
“This is speculation,” Pritkin said. “Can we discuss more pressing matters?”
“Such as?” Gertie inquired pleasantly.
“Such as Chimera! You can’t go around splitting souls! It opens you up to possession, to disintegration, to something gaining access to your power—and in this case, possibly the Pythian power as well—and draining you dry!” He turned from Gertie to glare at me. “A whole soul has a certain amount of protection, but damage can allow inroads even with shields, which you don’t have in any case!”
“I didn’t do it on purpose—”
“Exactly my point,” he interrupted. “We still have the majority of the passengers to ferry back. What if your power decides to ?
?help’ you again?”
“It won’t.”
“And if you’re wrong? You don’t know what it might do. That damned spell almost killed you!”
“Pritkin, just drop it, all right?”
He didn’t drop it.
“Not to mention,” he added, turning on Gertie, who had been giving me the evil eye the whole time, “that a technique so dangerous to the user is hardly what I would call helpful! There was clearly something wrong with the ‘body’ the Pythian power somehow formed—something you never explained, by the way—which affected Cassie’s real one as well! We have to find out—”
“Three things,” Gertie said, abruptly putting her cup down and standing up, and thereby forcing Pritkin to his feet as well. “First, the Pythian power came from the gods originally, energy beings who form themselves bodies whenever they wish to interact on the physical plane and reabsorb them when they are finished. The power can do the same for a Pythia, although with a caveat: it cannot duplicate a soul—”
“So you rip it apart?”
“Shh,” she told him, taking his arm and walking him toward the door. “Second, the soul isn’t ripped apart, it is pulled into two pieces, as if you grasped a balloon in the middle, causing it to bulge at both ends. Its integrity remains; it is simply somewhat divided now, you understand?”
“Yes, but—”
“Good. Now, both of these pieces are still tethered together, and are connected to each other across time. That tether is what I used to pull the two parts of Cassie back into one, by the way. The technique is not harmful, but it is dangerous in combat, as a halved soul has half the power. Now, if you will excuse me,” Gertie said, as they paused by the door, “it is getting very late, and I need my sleep, or what little is left of it.”
“Wait.” Pritkin looked confused, maybe because I hadn’t gotten up yet. “You said three.”
“What?”
“You said three things. You’ve only discussed two.”
“So I have,” Gertie agreed, and closed the door in his face.
Chapter Forty-four
There was, of course, an immediate scuffle from the hall, probably involving the two hulking war mages that Gertie had guarding the door. I started to get up, because I knew how that was likely to go, and we didn’t need any more enemies. But she raised a hand.
“Is there a problem?”
“He tends to be . . . overly protective,” I told her.
“Ah. Thank you for telling me.” The scuffling sounds abruptly stopped.
I stared from her to the door, then I ran over and flung it open. One of the war mages was looking perplexed, maybe because Pritkin was nowhere to be seen. The other was plastered to the wall by some weird, white, sticky filaments and cussing up a storm.
I shut the door again and whirled on Gertie.
“Where did you send him?”
“To the depot,” she said, referring to the converted train station that the Circle had set up as temporary housing, because even the Pythian Court couldn’t hold so many people. “He’s fine, if somewhat chilly. I believe he forgot his . . . coat?” She looked with distaste at the snow suit jacket lying on the back of the sofa.