Brave the Tempest (Cassie Palme) - Karen Chance Page 0,233

in history as soon as she showed her face.

So she showed it Lizzie’s instead.

I’d even considered the idea myself: one of my reasons for executing Lizzie had been so she couldn’t be used by Jo. I just hadn’t realized: she already had been. Jo must have cast Chimera or Lizzie sometime in the last two weeks, allowing for the creation of two Lizzies: one to stay in that cell and die, and one for Jo to shift out of there and then possess, giving her the perfect camouflage.

It was pretty smart, because no one realized how much power Jo had. As a human, she’d been limited to an acolyte’s abilities, which would leave her at a significant disadvantage next to a Pythia. And as a ghost . . . well, I’d thought she’d go begging for power, like most ghosts did. Not feasting on the Black Circle’s vast stores.

But she had, and as a ghost she didn’t have a limit. She could absorb as much as they’d allow, and they’d apparently allowed a lot. Giving her the strength to freeze time in that cell, liberate Lizzie, and not have the Circle’s guards be any the wiser. Just like she’d probably stepped out of her body tonight to cast Shards, before calling in her ghost troops.

But by dragging Lizzie into this, she’d also done something else. She’d given up some of her power to her twin. A fact she was currently regretting.

“I helped you,” Jo snapped. “And this is how you repay me?”

“Helped me?” Lizzie sneered. “You only broke me out because you needed a body! You never cared about me—”

“Cared?” Jo’s face flushed dark enough that I could see it, even in the terrible lighting. “What, did you think we were besties? Was I supposed to make you a friendship bracelet or some shit? We made a deal—”

“A terrible deal!”

“—one that got you out of prison—”

“I was only in prison because I believed you! I trusted you!”

“—and I saved your fucking life! And now you’re going to fight me for her?” She flung out an arm. “She killed you!”

They both looked at me.

I felt a little dizzy.

“She showed me more compassion than I ever got from you, or anybody, ever!” the real Lizzie snapped. And then she laughed. “Doesn’t that say everything about my life? The woman who killed me was the kindest I ever knew! It hurt her to do it, while you go around killing people left and right, because you don’t care about anybody but yourself! You bitch!”

This time, the two women’s spells met overhead, a glistening, gleaming arc of power, like a clear rainbow. Until the deadly foam started to boil along the edges. A second later the surrounding bodies had a few thousand extra holes in them, allowing tiny beams of moonlight to spear down through the ruined flesh. And to give me flashbacks to the training salle at Gertie’s.

I started furiously checking myself, but I was all right. I guessed the two Lizzies were, too, because they were back to sniping at each other. I stayed down, hugging the ground, hoping they’d forget about me, and stretched out a hand.

And remained like that for a moment, trying to follow Pritkin’s advice and feeling like an idiot, because nothing was happening!

Masters could draw blood particles, and therefore power, through the air, as easily as biting someone. But I was no master—or incubus, either. And that was the problem, I realized. Both creatures had a conduit into someone else’s power: blood or sex, it didn’t matter, as long as you had an in.

I didn’t.

Pritkin hadn’t realized: I may have drawn power from him last night, but it had been through the conduit he’d opened between us—or that his starving incubus had. I didn’t have that ability, and without it, Jo could have all the magic in the world, but I couldn’t touch it.

I needed a plan B.

I started poking Billy.

“Drugged half out of your mind, for weeks, is a great way to get some damned perspective,” Lizzie was saying. “I realized that all you ever cared about was yourself—and helping that creepy-ass mage to finish making his stupid golems—”

“Shut up!” Jo growled.

“—that’s what they’re planning, you know,” Lizzie told me, causing me to freeze halfway to my feet. “Distracting you so they can stuff a bunch of ancient demons in some big fey rock things. I don’t know what you call them—”

“Manlikans,” I said, my eyes blowing wide.

“Yeah, that’s it. They plan to trap your army