Brave the Tempest (Cassandra Palmer #9) - Karen Chance Page 0,40

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—”

“Aren’t you?” He examined the wall and selected another picture of me torturing poor Ares, which seemed to be a theme. This one had me stabbing him in the face repeatedly. The artist had really gotten into it. There was a massive spurt of blood that momentarily obscured the image after every strike.

“That wasn’t you?”

“No!”

“Oh, Ares is still alive, then?”

“You know damned well he isn’t! But that—”

“Then that was you.” He looked at it in satisfaction. A vamp would like that much blood, I thought crossly.

“I did not stab Ares in the face!”

Fred waved it away. “Artistic license.”

He tapped another, which looked more like my mother than me. It was of the other main grouping, the goddess-y line, showing flowy dresses and flowers and castles, which I guessed the blood-crazed demon went back to when she was tired of face stabbing. “That’s not you?”

“Fred—”

“’Cause it kinda looks like you. Better hair, of course—”

“I did my hair today!” I said, snatching it away from him.

He eyed me doubtfully. “Maybe it needs a cut. You know, the salon downstairs is still open—”

“Fred!”

“Just saying. Like I’m saying that you need to look closer.” He flicked the page with a nail. “That’s this place. This is their safe space, their castle. You gave them that, and you stand guard over it, making sure nothing can hurt them. Look.”

I looked. Back across the row of pictures, some in crayon, some in colored pencil, a few in vigorous pastel. But Fred was right, they all had a theme. And it fucking broke me.

I already had a home, I realized, a castle in the clouds as some of them had drawn it, safe and secure from all attackers. And if it wasn’t, well there was a guardian, wasn’t there? Not a dragon,