Page 34 of Time's Fool

“Well, how could we?” Rhea said, frowning.

“How could you?” he sat there for a moment, as if lost for words. Which considering how glib he could be was a feat.

“The Pythian power alerted us to the danger and pulled us back here,” she went on. “But it doesn’t give exact instructions.”

“The Pythian power?” I asked, because Mircea was just sitting there.

“It’s what fuels us, allows us to time travel easily, without the dangerous spells others have to use,” Rhea explained. “But you don’t need to know about that.”

“I . . . am fairly sure I do,” I said. “You sounded like it has a mind—”

“It does. Of a sort—”

“It developed sentience after it was carved off of Apollo’s power,” Hilde added.

“Did you say Apollo?” I stared at her.

“It belonged to a god once,” Rhea snapped, as if my questions were annoying her. “It doesn’t anymore, and it doesn’t take orders from him—”

“He’s dead anyway,” Hilde said. “In our time, I mean.”

“—and all of this is beside the point! I only mentioned it to explain why we probably know less than you do! We only know who she is because we tussled with her before—”

“And lost, clearly,” Mircea said, recovering.

Rhea’s eyes narrowed. It seemed that she hadn’t liked his tone. I went back to eating while sparks snapped and sizzled over the table.

Young she might be, but she was powerful.

Of course, so was he, and he’d had a day. Most vampires would have reared back from even the hint of fire, but he’d just been on a bridge full of it, so instead, he leaned in. And not only were the dark eyes showing glints of amber gold in their depths, but a hint of fang could be seen when he smiled.

“That is a problem, isn’t it?” he asked. “Like the two of you, running about this era, knowing little to nothing about how things work here, not even to the ordering of beer! Nor having a clue as to what this witch has in mind. And yet you confronted her when she might have killed all of us—”

“She almost did,” I reminded him.

“—do you have any idea what her powers are? Who her allies may be? What weapons she might possess that we haven’t yet seen? You talk of gods and demons as if they are nothing, yet they seem less unbelievable to me than this . . . this travesty of a plan of yours!”

Hilde looked slightly abashed for once, but Rhea’s color was up and her eyes flashed. “You would prefer us to leave, then?”

“I would prefer for this to be about some madwoman making revenants!” Mircea said, loudly enough that the other tables would have likely been staring, except for the witches’ muffling spell. “This . . . my God . . .”

He sat back against his seat, his face more shocked than angry, and Hilde regarded him with some sympathy. “It is a bit much to take in all at once,” she said, and then stole my oysters. “No chili sauce,” she commented, sounding sad, and ate them anyway.

“This is why we are not supposed to have these conversations,” Rhea said severely. “This is highly improper, as I’ve said all along. We need to go—”

She started to get up, but Hilde put a hand on her arm, pushing her back down.

“So, to recap,” the older woman said, swallowing an oyster. “We police the timeline. Morgan is threatening it. We’re here to subdue her and take her back. But in order to make a plan which might succeed, we need information. And I do not think you have given us all that you possess. For instance, you keep bringing up these revenants.”

Mircea regarded her searchingly for a moment, as if trying to read her mind. But he either failed or received confirmation that she was sincere. Because sighed and rubbed his eyes.

“The revenants are how I became involved in this. I was tasked by the Senate with finding and stopping whoever is responsible for making them, which appears to be her.”

“But why would she wipe out a village?” I asked. “And in such a fashion, which was bound to bring her to the notice of the Senate? Shouldn’t she be doing all that she can to stay hidden until her task is fulfilled?”

“What village?” Hilde asked.

This time, Mircea told her.

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