Brave the Tempest (Cassie Palme) - Karen Chance Page 0,82

vamps, who’d been trying to refine my look in order to butter up Mircea. She’d hoped that he’d take her on since her boss had gone screwy and joined the other side in the war. Mircea was Tony’s master, so technically he could appropriate any of his vassal’s vamps if he wanted, although since Tony was emancipated, that was seen as bad form. But then, so was turning traitor.

But the changeover had never happened. Sal had ended up being used against us by her master, and I had been left with a bunch of slutty nightwear I couldn’t have used in this case anyway, for obvious reasons. Not that it mattered. It had been tossed, along with everything else that reminded me of Mircea, in the post-breakup fury. Leaving me with . . . this.

I sighed.

“That’s the point!” Hilde said sternly. “She isn’t dealing with it. With her background, and having grown up at the Pythian Court, seeing the power being used on a daily basis—”

“But not trained in it,” I pointed out. “Agnes didn’t allow that.”

“Not formerly trained, perhaps. But she saw it, and as you know perfectly well, a good deal of the Pythian power is instinctive. At the very least, she should be picking up some of the simpler spells, refining her spatial shifts, perhaps even attempting a short time hop by now. But instead—”

“She isn’t even trying?” I guessed.

“It’s ludicrous!” Hilde plopped down into a chair with the air of someone who planned to be there awhile. “It isn’t as if she’s a lightweight magically. She can switch between normal magic and the coven variety with ease, and has enough power for a war mage! But ask her to do the simplest of time spells and she falls apart!”

I frowned, and then remembered Rhea’s panic when I had first made her an acolyte. I’d expected her to be pleased, intending it as a reward for all the help she’d given me, and as a way of making up for the fact that the position had been unfairly denied her in the past. But instead, she’d looked like someone headed for the gallows with a noose around her neck. She’d calmed down after a while, and I hadn’t thought about it again, but now . . .

“What’s wrong with her?” I asked, and Hilde threw her hands up.

“Who knows? She won’t talk to me. Acts evasive, sometimes even snappy or annoyed.”

“Rhea?” I frowned some more. “That doesn’t sound like her.”

“She doesn’t like me,” Hilde said flatly. “Thinks I’m pushing too hard—and not only her. She wants to wrap the girls in cotton wool instead of teaching them self-defense. That would be dangerous at the best of times, but in the middle of a war—”

“Most of them aren’t old enough to learn that much anyway,” I pointed out. “And they’ve been through a lot of trauma lately.”

“They’ll be through a good deal more if our enemies get to them!”

“They’re not going to get to them.”

“Of course not.” Hilde’s shrewd old-lady eyes met mine. “You’re going to be here every moment of every day.”

I crossed my arms at her. “We’re not doing this again.”

“Oh, but we are. We have to. The covens are obviously not giving us any girls, and even if they did, it would take ages to train them properly—”

“Whereas the old acolytes are already trained. Yes, so you’ve said. Many times.”

“And am saying again! You have to face facts, Cassie! We need competent help—”

I slammed the drawer. “And I need to know that I’m not bringing more Jo’s in here! Or Lizzie’s, or any of the rest of them!”

“Cassie—”

“Every single one,” I said, stalking over to her. “Every. Single. One. Of Agnes’ acolytes went bad—”

“Every one of the current crop,” Hilde said stubbornly. “The ones the gods were targeting. She had plenty of other acolytes through the years, sturdy, well-trained girls—well, women now—not to mention a few of us old bats from my sister’s court—”

“And how do we know they haven’t been turned as well?” I demanded. “Or that they’d even want to join a wartime court in the first place?”

Hilde brightened. “I’m glad you asked.”

“Oh God.”

“I’ve been in touch with a few old friends—”

“Hilde!”

“—who I have since spoken to some more. So far, I have three from Gertie’s court and two from Lady Phemonoe’s—we’d have more there, but many of them are married now and—”

“I didn’t tell you to speak to anybody!”

“You also didn’t tell me not to. And in any case, we need them—”

“We