Page 122 of Fortune's Blade

I hurried along, getting out of the creature’s way, and Marlowe gave a speech.

“We’ve been seeing signs that Aeslinn and his godly backer may be falling out. I get reports, just whispers so far, but indicators that perhaps the King of the Svarestri is regretting the deal he made. And if you don’t think he’s clever enough to realize that he’ll need help someday, if he wants to shed his terrible master—”

“I didn’t speak . . . to Aeslinn!” Cassie huffed, because she was on her way up yet another incline and not enjoying it. “He almost died in battle . . . when on Faerie’s advice . . . I took on him and his master. He wouldn’t send me . . . after himself!”

“He might have had a plan and things got out of control—”

“Oh, they got . . . out of control, all right,” Cassie said, laughing, only it did not sound amused. “Way out. The furthest out . . . they’ve ever been, and he was . . . right in the middle of it. It wasn’t him.”

That last was said as flatly as I’d ever heard it, and was a clear dismissal. She had learned to use her voice well since coming to her position, it seemed. Only things like that rarely worked on Marlowe.

I was starting to wonder what would work on Marlowe, and had the impression that beating him repeatedly in the head might be the only one.

Perhaps that was why father’s fist kept flexing.

“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t somebody else with their own agenda,” the chief spy pointed out. “Or let’s give you that much, and say that you really have been communing with the soul of a damned planet. Do you really think she’s on our side? The enemy of my enemy isn’t always a friend, as people have been finding out for centuries once the battle is over and their ‘friend’ turns on them!”

“I’ll take my chances with her . . . over that bastard Zeus . . . any day,” Cassie panted, finally reaching the top of the latest mountain of rubble.

Only to curse, because it was evidently not the last one.

“I can’t believe you,” Marlowe said, looking between the two of them and sounding genuinely bewildered. “I thought you were smarter than this.”

“Smart won’t win this war,” Mircea told him, helping Cassie down the other side of the heap. “Smart merely leaves us dying a little later. There are times for prudence and careful planning, and there are times for taking risks, Kit. Had you ever been a battlefield commander, you would know that.”

“A risk, yes, maybe, but this isn’t one! It’s . . . it’s . . ..” Words finally seemed to fail him, and he just floundered for a moment.

“Kit,” Cassie said, reaching over and taking his hand until he snatched it away. She sighed. “We need help. So does Faerie. She’s tired of seeing her creation destroyed, or warped out of all recognition. All she wants is the gods gone and some peace for a change. And, sure, she could be lying, but right now, she’s also helping. And she has information that we don’t and could never get—”

“Like Mircea’s wife jumping into a lake leading to another world?” Marlowe said sourly.

“To try to find us allies, yes. She was made by the gods; she knew them better than we ever will. She understood what we were facing long before the rest of us, and went to seek help. Maybe she found it—”

“Five hundred years. She’s been missing for five hundred years. If she found anyone, you know damned well—”

“Careful,” Mircea rasped.

“—they killed her ages ago! And no, I won’t be careful! You’re talking about following your dead wife off a cliff and I should be careful?”

“Faerie told us to find her,” Cassie said, getting in between the two men, and likely just in time. “She said it was urgent, along with two other tasks that might decide the outcome of the war. But if you want to sit this one out, Kit, please feel free—”

“Two other tasks? What two?”

“None of your business!” Mircea snapped.

But the consul’s chief spy was like a bloodhound on a scent, now that he had one to follow, and was not about to drop it. “Stymying Zeus’s plans in Romania was job one, I presume?” he said, referencing a trip Cassie had taken recently, along with her entire court, that had thwarted some scheme that the head of the gods had had, back in time.

I had heard about it during a meeting of the World Senate, the body handling the war for the world’s vampires, which Dory had slept through. She didn’t like politics, and normally, neither did I, but this story had been . . .. Well, if even part of it was true, I understood why the Pythian Court was often seen as an equal power in the supernatural world to the Senate or the Circle.

They had foiled Zeus’s plans and sent him back to the present, where he had run off into Faerie with his proverbial tail between his legs. I had wondered, however: what happens to a god who has been humiliated by a dainty woman who was now hopping about, cursing softly, because she had a rock in her shoe? She had made the war personal, and that did not bode well for her or for us if he got his way.

Marlowe must have been thinking along the same lines, as his dark eyes were intense on the ground as he followed them down the hill, working it out as he went. “That would take a Pythia to do, wouldn’t it,” he asked, “as it was in the past. Like this requires Mircea, since his wife would be unlikely to trust anyone else. So, the third mission must also require something that only a specific person could do . . ..” He looked up sharply. “Where is Mage Pritkin? No one has seen him for a while. Is he working on the third task?”

I said nothing, but for the first time, I gained a measure of respect for Marlowe, and understood why the consul valued him so highly. He might have certain unfortunate qualities, but he was sharp. Sharp enough to have Mircea scowling again.

But before anyone could answer, there was a sudden shout from ahead, where a group of pixies had been sent as scouts. I didn’t understand what they said, but Radella did. She turned back to us and waved her small sword.

“Stop arguing and hurry up. They found it!”

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