“If you’re talking about the Tears, I don’t have any. I took the last—”
“Liar!” That, of course, was Agnes.
“—on the train,” I persisted. “I had a bottle; I used a bottle—”
“She lies!” Agnes yelled.
“You know,” I told her, “we heard you the first ti—” And I had to stop to grab her arm again. “You slap me,” I told her seriously, “one more time—”
“You see? You see?” Agnes was literally hopping mad. I’d never known that actually described a real thing before, but she simply couldn’t stand still. “If she’s willing to duel me, after all that—”
“I do see, and I want an explanation,” Gertie said, looking at me. “I am willing to help you, but not if you continue to lie to me. The Tears is a weapon, and a dangerous one. I will not have it misused under my roof.”
“I haven’t lied!”
“Then explain how, if you took no potion—if, as you say, you do not even possess any—you did that.” She gestured at the stairs leading down to the foyer and the ballroom.
Or what was left of it.
I looked at her a moment and licked my lips. I could explain, but if she didn’t take it well, I’d be out of a trainer almost before we started. Not that that sounded so bad, after this afternoon, but I had Jo to think about. She’d always said she wasn’t a great duelist, but she probably knew all kinds of tricks I didn’t, and she’d somehow come up with a crap ton of extra power. Not to mention that Jo lied.
I needed Gertie, but I honestly didn’t know what to tell her, when the truth would sound like the biggest lie of all.
“Well?” she demanded.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll tell you.”
Chapter Forty-eight
Several hours later, there was another knock on my door.
“What?” I demanded crabbily.
Pritkin stuck his head in. And then cocked it, curiously. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“Freezing,” I said, because it was true.
I had what might be every blanket in the house piled on top of me, to the point that I wasn’t sure I could have gotten up to answer the door even if I’d felt like it. It was like “The Princess and the Pea,” only in reverse. I was the pea. A disgruntled and grumpy little pea who just wanted to be left alone.
Of course, that didn’t happen.
“Did you enjoy your training session?” he asked, coming in. And then looked slightly alarmed when I wheezed out a laugh. And then did it some more, and some more, until I was in danger of suffocating under all those blankets.
He started pulling them off, until I stopped him, because this place was freaking freezing. I was surprised there weren’t icicles hanging off the water heater, which did exactly bubkis. I didn’t know why the whole court hadn’t died of pneumonia.
“I take that as a no,” Pritkin said, and sat down on the edge of the bed.
I laughed some more, because it was either that or cry, and I’d cried enough. “Yeah,” I finally said. “That’s a no.”
“You want to talk about it?”
I almost said no, because I always said no, at least lately. I hadn’t had anyone I could confide in through all the craziness of the last month. Only, no, that wasn’t true. I hadn’t had anyone I could confide in completely, someone who wouldn’t try to use anything he learned against me, or get freaked out and start worrying obsessively about what I told her, or start trying to fight my battles for me, even when they were ones I had to win myself.
After Pritkin left, I’d had people I could confide in about some things, but no one I could talk to about everything, and I’d missed that fiercely. It had taught me things, forced me to learn to pick my way through the minefield of the battle with Ares on my own, made me more resilient. But it had been damned lonely, and there’d been plenty of nights—
God! So many nights hugging my pillow, my eyes wet, anxiety clawing at my breast for sleepless hour after sleepless hour, because what if I was wrong? What if I made the wrong decision, did the wrong thing, out of ignorance of the magical world, or of the cultures of the different groups, or of all the politics I didn’t understand yet? There were so many things that went into a right decision, and so many ways it could go wrong. But after Pritkin was taken, I’d had no one to talk it all out with, no one to lay the options on the table with clinical efficiency and let me see things clearly.
And now he was back.