Brave the Tempest (Cassie Palme) - Karen Chance Page 0,175

. . . what?” she asked, starting slightly, because I guess she hadn’t seen me flash back in.

“That you wanted to help me?”

“What?”

“The other day!” I grabbed her by the arms and shook her a little. “Did you mean it?”

“I—yes. Yes, of course I did. But I can’t—”

“You damned well can!” I exploded, and then told myself to calm down. It was too early to be freaking out. I didn’t usually get this panicked until at least early afternoon.

“Lady,” Rhea said, looking concerned. Because despite her own distress, her natural compassion was taking over. “What is it?”

I laughed. “Oh, nothing. Except that a bunch of witches, including one who tried to kill me last night, just showed up, and now they want to give me some girls—”

“What?”

“—that we don’t have room for, so Tami’s pissed off, but we can’t refuse them or we’ll never get this chance again—”

“No, no, of course we can’t.”

“—not to mention that some war mages are trying to muscle in on an errand that they’ll only make worse, because they make everything worse—”

“I . . . they are?”

“—and Pritkin’s back, which is good, because he’s the one I really need for my errand, only I can’t leave because Augustine is hiding a little . . . creature . . . in his workroom that he stole from the witches—”

“He’s doing what?”

“—and if they find out, not only will we not get the girls, we’ll probably piss them off again, and I can’t deal with that right now!” I shook her some more. And then I stopped, because she was starting to look dizzy. “Listen,” I said, trying for calm. “I don’t pretend to understand everything you’re going through, okay? I really don’t. Your mom just died, and then you almost died, and I’m a terrible Pythia for not realizing how bad you were hurting and not taking some time to—”

“No!” She looked appalled. “No, this has nothing to do with—”

“—talk to you more and try to help you figure things out. But I suck at that and I didn’t know what to say, and I was afraid I’d just make everything worse. So I didn’t do enough and I’m sorry for that, I’m really, really sorry! And I’m not saying that just because I need you right now, although I do—”

“You . . . you need me?”

“—and I don’t give a damn if you never learn to shift! I need you for plenty of other things, for this.” I waved an arm around crazily, to indicate the general madness of my life. “And I need you now. Can you help me? Can you deal with this while I go do what I need to do?”

She just stared at me for a second, as if trying to catch up, which, yeah. I knew that feeling. But then her shoulders went back and some of the tragedy left her face. Because Rhea had a spine of pure titanium under all that sweetness, and she was never better than when helping others.

Including a clueless Pythia with far too much on her plate.

“Leave everything to me,” she said, and then she hugged me. “Do your duty. I’ve got this.”

Chapter Forty

Several hours later, I was pretty sure that Rhea had gotten the better deal.

“Holy shit!” I breathed, my heart hammering, my mitten-covered hands clutching freezing stone.

It wasn’t the view that had me gasping, despite being worth it. As far as the eye could see in all directions stretched clear blue sky, tall, snowcapped peaks, and air—a lot of it. Crystal clear and so cold that it hurt the lungs I couldn’t seem to fill properly.

It felt like being on top of the world—and that was looking ahead. I didn’t glance behind me, because if I had, I’d have seen a dizzying drop down a colossal mountain face, like looking back from the top of Everest. I hadn’t had to climb all that way, although shifting hadn’t been much less taxing, under the circumstances. But it wasn’t exertion that had left me breathless, either.

No, that was due to what was moving in the narrow pass miles ahead, across the width of a deep valley, where the piece of sky visible between two huge crags was rapidly getting smaller.

“What are they?” I whispered, watching humongous creatures breaking off pieces of stone the size of 747s and throwing them into the gap.

“Manlikans.”

“What?”

Familiar, icy green eyes turned from a pair of binoculars to look at me. The other war mages that had come to