Brave the Tempest (Cassie Palme) - Karen Chance Page 0,188

once called home.

It was a small, cramped room where supplicants usually kicked their heels waiting for the current Pythia to see them. And since she had more visitors than she wanted, she hadn’t bothered to make it too pleasant: the dark, heavy furniture looked uncomfortable, and the fussy velvet drapes left it gloomy, even when it wasn’t night. But it had been working well enough as a landing pad.

At least, it had until now.

Something was wrong.

I staggered into a wall, one covered in beige wallpaper with tasteful burgundy ribbons, and also into one featuring unpainted drywall and food splatters above a plastic garbage can. My eyes kept trying to cross because I was seeing both at the same time and couldn’t seem to stop. Just as I couldn’t stop my legs from collapsing underneath me.

In my body, I hit the floor; in my head, I saw another Cassie. I had no idea what was happening, only that she seemed to have been left behind when I shifted, peeling off me like I suddenly had a twin. A very confused one.

But after a moment of standing in the middle of the drag, looking as blank as I felt, she moved toward one of the cafés. It was mostly intact, having just been clipped by the carnage. As a result, although the servers had been sent home or pressed into service elsewhere, the emergency crews had been helping themselves to refreshments all afternoon.

While I was transitioning here, the other Cassie had followed suit, slipping behind the counter and into the kitchen, only to find that all the coffeepots were empty. Since there were about a thousand people trying to clean up the mess that one vengeful adept had made, she’d decided to start some more. But that wasn’t what had happened.

She ended up on the floor, too, coffee grounds scattered around her, the pot clutched in one hand that didn’t seem to want to let it go. I watched her smash it again and again into the wall, until there was glass everywhere and her hand and arm were cut and bleeding, but she still didn’t stop. A garden of bloody fist prints bloomed like roses on the drywall, her feet made garbage angels in the trash after she kicked over the can, and—and—and—

And now we were both convulsing, her in that other time and me in this one, my back arching like it would break before slamming itself against the hardwood floor.

The two train passengers I’d brought with me just stood there, staring straight ahead, their glassy eyes making them look like mannequins. They’d been mind-wiped by members of the War Mage Corps, which had been helping with the cleanup, and that left people pretty zoned out for a while. So they weren’t going to be calling for help.

And neither was I. My teeth were clenched hard enough to hurt, but something had started foaming out of my mouth onto the floor, like I’d been chewing on soap. I stared at it in horror, and not just because of me.

But because that other Cassie had started to choke.

I was on my back, too, but with my head rolled to one side; she was staring straight upward, at the stained tiles in the kitchen ceiling that were never changed, because no guests were supposed to be back there. One was missing, giving the whole lineup a gap-toothed smile, like the universe was laughing at us. Like Jo, I thought, seeing her hateful face again.

But she wasn’t here! She was dead! Finally, completely!

Like I was about to be, I thought, despite the Pythian Court being a working anthill of people.

They were coming and going not twenty feet away, passing quickly across the large entryway that the parlor opened onto. I could see them past the male passenger’s legs: war mages with grim looks on their faces, tracking muddy footprints across the marble floor; acolytes rushing about, the hems of their long white dresses damp from the snow that swirled in every time the door was opened; dull-faced castaways standing around, looking blank, waiting to be led gently away; and Gertie—

Gertie.

My brain skidded to a halt. The current Pythia had stopped in the middle of the hall, her motherly shape more motherly than usual due to the corset she wasn’t wearing, because I’d gotten her out of bed. That had been hours ago, when I’d shifted here to ask for help, because the passengers were her people and because I desperately needed it. Like