was no mirror in sight, so I don’t know what was on my face, but I felt Gertie’s arm go around my shoulder in a motherly embrace. “It has been difficult, hasn’t it?”
I didn’t trust myself to speak; I only nodded.
“And now you’ve dealt with the old acolytes, except for Jo. But that’s left you with what? A court full of little girls and half-trained initiates?”
I nodded again.
“And you’ve been compensating by using this?”
She picked up the little bottle, and for a moment, I thought she was going to relent, that she was actually going to give it to me.
But then it went in the pocket of her dressing gown, and she looked at me sternly. “I understand the temptation. Likely not as well as you, but we’ve all felt it. It makes you feel indomitable, able to take on the world—for a while. But it exerts a terrible price.”
“So does dying!” I snarled, because she still didn’t get it. “I told you—I don’t have a choice!”
“Oh, but you do, dear girl. Most emphatically.”
“What?” I looked at her in confusion.
“I’ve broken a dozen rules in the last little while; why not one more?” She pulled me to my feet. “Your problem isn’t a lack of power, Cassie. It’s the opposite. You’ve been using raw power to compensate for a lack of technique. We’re going to fix that.”
“How?” I stared at her. “Don’t you think I’ve tried?”
“Yes, but I haven’t.”
“And what does that mean?”
Her head tilted, like a curious bird. “Why, it means I’m going to train you, of course.”
Chapter Forty-five
There was a claw-footed bathtub in my bedroom. It was just sitting there, in between the bed and the door, getting in the way. But I’d never been so happy to see anything in my life.
I filled that sucker almost to the brim with water so hot it would make a sauna envious and climbed in. It was the weirdest sensation. I knew it was hot; the amount of steam coming off the surface, which had already fogged up the full-length mirror on the side of a wardrobe, was enough to show that. But it didn’t feel that way.
Or, rather, it did, but it didn’t matter. The cold refused to budge. To the point that I was sitting there with my skin rosy and about to slough off, yet I was shivering and shaking like I was in the middle of the storm outside.
Even worse, I’d forgotten about my wound, which a kind medic had bandaged up for me that morning but which was now stinging like a bitch. But it was just going to have to deal with it, because I wasn’t getting out. Not until I warmed up, if I ever did.
The soggy bandage had partly peeled off, so I finished pulling it away and examined my stiches. I couldn’t see them too well. Electric lights were everywhere downstairs, but the reno hadn’t yet extended up here. The only light was a kerosene lantern on the bedside table that the initiate who’d led me up here had brought. It made the water look almost black, with little yellow-tipped waves. I couldn’t see much past it, and finally gave up.
It didn’t feel like I was bleeding to death.
I lay back against the porcelain and shut my eyes, letting waves of shivers run through me. I didn’t understand what was going on. It wasn’t withdrawal; there hadn’t been time for that. And besides, I knew exactly what that felt like.
In the aftermath of the whole thing in Wales, I’d had nausea, trembling, muscle aches, and a whole host of other symptoms, none of which I’d understood. I just thought I’d caught a sixth-century case of the flu. Until I took a hit of the Tears, because I had things to do and I felt so damned bad.
And, suddenly, I didn’t anymore.
It hadn’t been hard to figure out after that. But breaking the habit had been a lot more difficult. Not because I liked having to use a crutch, but because there just wasn’t enough of me to go around these days. And now . . .
God, now.
I opened my eyes to watch the lamplight flicker on the ceiling, but I wasn’t seeing it. I was seeing Jo. I’d never seen anyone wield so much power, not even my mother. And that was while using Chimera, a spell that should have halved her ability to channel the Pythian energy!
It was like she’d died, but instead of becoming a ghost, she’d become