“Oh, but we are. We have to. The covens are obviously not giving us any girls, and even if they did, it would take ages to train them properly—”
“Whereas the old acolytes are already trained. Yes, so you’ve said. Many times.”
“And am saying again! You have to face facts, Cassie! We need competent help—”
I slammed the drawer. “And I need to know that I’m not bringing more Jo’s in here! Or Lizzie’s, or any of the rest of them!”
“Cassie—”
“Every single one,” I said, stalking over to her. “Every. Single. One. Of Agnes’ acolytes went bad—”
“Every one of the current crop,” Hilde said stubbornly. “The ones the gods were targeting. She had plenty of other acolytes through the years, sturdy, well-trained girls—well, women now—not to mention a few
of us old bats from my sister’s court—”
“And how do we know they haven’t been turned as well?” I demanded. “Or that they’d even want to join a wartime court in the first place?”
Hilde brightened. “I’m glad you asked.”
“Oh God.”
“I’ve been in touch with a few old friends—”
“Hilde!”
“—who I have since spoken to some more. So far, I have three from Gertie’s court and two from Lady Phemonoe’s—we’d have more there, but many of them are married now and—”
“I didn’t tell you to speak to anybody!”
“You also didn’t tell me not to. And in any case, we need them—”
“We need to be safe!”
“And here we are, back to it again,” Hilde said.
“Back to what again?”
“The same argument I’ve been having with Rhea. As counterintuitive as it may seem, sometimes the only path to safety is to take a risk. Otherwise, one day, you are going to be away on Circle business, or helping those vampires, or tracking some miscreant through time. And I am going to be here, alone—”
I started to interrupt, but she just raised her voice.
“—except for those guards of yours, who are good for many things, but who can’t handle some of the challenges we face. And what do you think is going to happen then, hm?”
I started to respond, and then I saw that . . . thing . . . that had been at the consul’s again. I’d had plenty of help there, and it almost hadn’t been enough. What if something similar was sent against my court? Against my girls?
The very idea made my stomach clench painfully. No! That couldn’t happen!
But it could. That thing had walked right into the middle of a vampire army, right through every checkpoint and security measure put in place to keep something like that from happening. And it had just started slaughtering people. It had killed over a hundred in its assault on the consul’s home: a quarter in the initial attack and three times that many in the battle in the hallway.
Maybe more, since they’d still been trying to pick up the pieces when I left.
Literally, I thought, remembering a servant hurrying by with a basket of squirming body parts.
I sat down on my bed, my legs like jelly.
It could happen here, and I couldn’t stop it. I’d barely stopped it there, and only because I’d had some of the most powerful creatures on earth battling alongside me. My guys were good, and against any normal danger, they’d be deadly. But today?
They would have been shredded right alongside everyone else.