“Why, because the eyes are off center?”
“No, because it’s not about the surface.” He picked it up. “Come on,” he said suddenly, getting to his feet.
“What?”
“I got something to show you. You can take your pie.” He looked enviously at the thick slice of lemon meringue waiting for me on my tray.
I took the pie.
Around here, you guarded your desserts or you didn’t have them for long.
Fred led the way out of the main lounge and through the secondary one with the moon-shaped couches, which provided a sort of hub where various wide hallways met. But he didn’t go down any of them. He veered off into the formal dining room, where I’d rarely been. But that obviously wasn’t true for the girls, and they’d made it their own.
The consul hadn’t been able to decide what era or style she wanted, and had kept changing her mind between rooms. This was British colonial, with dark wood everywhere, which Tami fussed about because it showed dust so easily; genuine Persian rugs on the floor, complete with frayed spots for authenticity; and paintings showing bewildered Englishmen in exotic settings. Or, at least, they had, until somebody’d covered them with drawings.
I guessed when you had a couple dozen kids, a fridge just didn’t cut it. So somebody had started scotch-taping the girls’ drawings up in here. Like, all the drawings. Some were quite good and I guess done by the older initiates, while others were just cheerful squiggles done by the youngest, which Tami—at a guess—had nonetheless proudly displayed alongside all the rest. Including some that . . .
Oh.
That looked like me.
My attention had been caught by a Cassie with a lot of blond curls and a massive head—seriously, I had more head than body—who was lurching around, chasing what I assumed were tiny dark mages in black trench coats. They were moving because the drawing had been animated—it looked like Saffy had been in here—and because the creature chasing them was terrifying. The neck supporting the giant head was just two tiny marks and totally insufficient. Meaning that it flopped about as I ran, with a large, grinning rictus of a mouth that never changed expression and little stick arms that swatted at the mages, who were running for their lives, their mouths open and screaming in silent horror.
Which, yeah.
I’d be running if that thing was after me, too.
There was another one nearby, this time featuring a slightly less wild-haired Cassie sprinting through a forest, dodging painted bombs that exploded and set painted trees on fire. And then another who was busy bopping a giant red dude who I guessed was meant to be Ares on the head with a wand I don’t have. And another . . .
They were almost all me, I realized. I found myself looking at a cartoon version of my life of the last summer. It was surreal.
“Hilde’s been telling them stories,” Fred said.
Yeah, I guessed, I thought, looking at another girl’s efforts. Judging by the level of the artwork, I was assuming that she was one of the younger initiates, although she’d unknowingly re-created one of the great masterpieces of the nineteenth century: Saturn Devouring His Son. Only I was Saturn. And was busy stuffing down my enemies, my working cheeks distended by tiny flailing arms and legs, but an otherwise cheerful expression on my face as I chewed.
I stared at it for a while, and then at some of the others, which were mostly more pics of me raining down my wrath in various ways. Was that how they saw me? As some kind of monster?
No wonder Augustine thought they feared me!
I must have said that last bit aloud, because Fred turned from taping up the latest masterpiece, which in retrospect was one of the least disturbing, and looked at me. “Is that what he said?”
I nodded, still a little stunned.
Fred snorted. “Augustine should stick to designing dresses. He’d make a lousy shrink.”
“It doesn’t look that way to me.”
Fred scowled and gestured at the latest glowing goddess. “Then you’re not looking at it right. It’s all about inner emotions, see? That’s how Rita feels when she looks at you, like she has a guardian angel or something. What could possibly hurt her with someone like that in the way?” He chuckled. “All you need is a flaming sword.”
Yeah, and a lot more power.
Fred was helping my anxiety exactly none at all.
This was why I didn’t want to get to know my court, I thought, biting my lip. This was why I hid away in my room. Because all those little girls who were idolizing me as their protector hadn’t seen just how close some of those events had been. I hadn’t been striding across the landscape, throwing thunderbolts amid cheerful slaughter. I’d been running on fumes, trusting to luck and perseverance and a shitload of other people’s help to survive, and had somehow come out on top, maybe because people kept underestimating me. But that sort of thing didn’t last forever, and the biggest challenges lay ahead.
“You’re still looking at it wrong,” Fred said, eyeing me.
“How am I supposed to look at it? I’m not that person—”