I nodded.

"Pittsburgh."

"Pittsburgh?"

"Yes, why?"

The Pythia from Pittsburgh. "Then why did she have an English accent?"

"She was trained here. The previous Pythia was British, and had her court here. When Lady Phemonoe was identified, or Agnes Wetherby as she was known then . . ." She broke off at my expression. "Is something wrong?"

Agnes Wetherby, the Pythia from Pittsburgh. "Nothing."

Rhea gave me a little side-eye, but then she continued. "She was brought here as an initiate, at the age of six-"

"Six?"

"Yes, it was very late," Rhea said, agreeing with a point I hadn't been making. "But her parents were somewhat influential and fought the process. They managed to hold it up for more than two years."

"Fought it?" I looked down at the picture in her hand, which suddenly seemed less happy. "You mean girls like Agnes are forced to be here?"

"It's considered an honor to be selected," Rhea said carefully.

I shot her a glance. "Did you look at it that way?"

She didn't answer.

I went back to looking at the photo, trying to imagine what it would have been like to suddenly lose everything so young. To leave your family, your home, your friends. And come to a place where everything was different, from the food you ate to the clothes you wore to the people . . .

"It's better than the alternative," Rhea said, after a moment.

"The alternative?"

"The schools the Circle operates. The ones for magical humans with dangerous powers. They call them-"

"I know what they call them."

I also knew what they really were. The "education centers" were little more than prisons for people with abilities the Circle didn't like. People like my father, who had been a necromancer but had somehow managed to avoid them. People like me, because I'd inherited his power, not with dead bodies but with spirits. Which were dangerous only to my sanity, when a passel of bored ghosts wouldn't shut up already. But which would have been enough to have me locked away, possibly for life.

Only it seemed like that might have happened anyway.

"But clairvoyants aren't dangerous," I pointed out. "And I've seen plenty on the outside, hanging around, doing readings-"

"You've seen plenty of charlatans, Lady," Rhea corrected gently. "Real clairvoyants are rare, and those powerful enough for the court rarer still."

"But we're not dangerous," I repeated. "We're not firestarters or jinxes or dark mages-"

"Knowledge is always dangerous, and there are always those who fear it. The Circle worries about what we might know about them-their numbers, abilities, plans-and what we might tell others. Unless . . ."

"Unless you're brought up to think that the sun shines out of their . . ." I caught myself, but Rhea nodded, ducking her head so I wouldn't see her smile.

I didn't smile back. She didn't know it, but she'd just added another problem to my growing list. A big one. Or more accurately, a bunch of little ones that added up to a big one, because I hadn't actually planned on keeping my court.

I'd intended to talk to Casanova about getting the girls some rooms, yes, but that was temporary, so they'd have real beds to sleep in and enough bathrooms while I figured out what to do with them. And so they'd be away from me. Because shit happened to me.

Shit happened to me all the time.

But even without the safety thing, the plain fact was that I managed to screw up my own life on a regular basis; I didn't have any business being in charge of anyone else's. Especially in the middle of a freaking war. Peacetime, sure, run Cassie's school for talented tots or whatever, but now?

Uh-uh. They needed to go. They needed to go back to their families, as soon as I figured out who they all were. They also probably needed major therapy after the last couple days, but that could be dealt with once they were safely away from me.

Or that had been the plan, anyway. But now I learned that I wouldn't be sending them home, I'd be sending them to jail, and I somehow didn't think Jonas would be willing to talk parole right now. And damn it, I didn't need this!

"The initiates are free to go at sixteen if they don't choose to accept an acolyte's position," Rhea said, watching me.

"And until then? Are their families allowed to visit?"

"It's . . . thought better if they don't."

Yeah, might interfere with the brainwashing.

But at least I knew why Agnes had so many little girls hanging around. She'd probably felt bad turning any of them away, figuring they'd be better off at court than with the Circle. And she was probably right. But that had been before the war broke out and the court ended up at ground zero and, God, the Circle pissed me off!

Sure, take a bunch of little kids away from their families, treat them like some kind of freaks, lock them up where they don't want to be, and then get surprised when some of them turn on you!

Only my acolytes hadn't just turned on the Circle, had they? They hadn't ended up becoming dark mages like some of the kids who escaped those prisons. No. They'd gone for the big-time, planning to bring back the freaking gods, which, yeah, would screw the Circle over nicely but would also manage to kill off the rest of us.

So this was a problem. And I couldn't even rely on Jonas to help me with it, because he was busy. Trying to lock up another clairvoyant who was out of his control!

And who was going to stay that way.

"Lady, is . . . is something wrong?" Rhea asked, and she was back to that meek voice again, the one I was really starting to hate. But just because right now I hated everything.

"No. So that's how they met," I said, looking down at the photo. "Agnes was at court, and Jonas was Lord Protector."

Rhea shook her head. "He wasn't Lord Protector then. And they didn't meet here. They met-"

"Yes?"

"I-I'm not sure. It was a long time ago."

And yet the only picture of him had been crumpled in an old drawer. There weren't any others that I'd seen-of him or anyone else. And I suddenly realized what was bugging me about this place.

Where were the snapshots? The napkins with silly doodles on them? The theatre ticket stubs? Where were the stupid stuffed animals he'd won for her at a fair, the crappy "silver" rings bought from a vendor that turned her finger green, the postcards, the tacky souvenir shot glasses, the love notes? This place looked like it was already up for sale and somebody had cleared all the personal stuff away so a buyer would be able to see themselves in it.

And maybe they could have, but I couldn't see her.

I couldn't see Agnes.

"Did you find any more photos?" I asked, because maybe she kept the private stuff back here. But Rhea shook her head.

"She . . . wasn't usually sentimental." Her fist clenched tight enough to wrinkle the photo for a moment, but then she held it out to me.

"Keep it," I told her. "You knew her better than I did."

Her look of gratitude was swift, but it lit up her whole face. She'd be really pretty, I thought, if she ever got out of grandma's nightgown. I wondered if she even had other clothes.

"And take whatever else you want," I added. "If anything fits . . ." I broke off at her look of alarm. "What?"

"I-this is what we wear," she told me. "The ini-the acolytes," she corrected. "It's tradition."

It's ugly, I didn't say, because she was clutching the neck of the thing like I planned to rip it off her. "Agnes didn't wear that," I pointed out.

"The Pythia wears what she chooses, of course."

"But you don't."

"I-it's part of the discipline-"

"You're not in the marines."

"-and tradition," she repeated. Like maybe I hadn't gotten it the first time.

"But somebody changed the tradition at some point, right? That's old, not ancient."

She looked down at the nightgown. "Lady Herophile VI designed it. In 1840-"

"It looks it."

Rhea's lip twitched; I saw it. "It's better than the previous one."

"Do I want to know about the previous one?"

"Grecian robes. They weren't at all practical-Lady Herophile said," she added, before I got the idea that she might have an opinion on something. "She wrote that she felt like she was in a costume all the time, and when she went out, she either had to wear an all-enveloping cape, or sneak out in normal street wear and break the rules. She was always breaking the rules-until she became Pythia, of course."

"Of course."

"Afterward, she was quite a proper Pythia," she added quickly.

Why did I doubt that? "Her name wouldn't happen to have been Gertie, would it?"

"Gertrude, yes," Rhea said, looking surprised that I'd know that.

Cherries. Figured-she'd looked like someone who liked clothes. I got a sudden image of her sneaking out of a window of the Pythian mansion in a Grecian gown, with a pack of normal clothes thrown over her back. I could totally see it.

And I didn't blame her one bit.

"The 1840s was a long time ago," I pointed out.

"I-yes. Yes."

"That looks scratchy," I added, looking at the lace around the high neckline.

"Sometimes . . ."

I glanced around. There was everything from fringed flapper dresses to buttoned up forties-era coats to wide-legged sixties trousers to even wider-shouldered eighties power suits. And everything in between. Too bad it was all going up in smoke in a week or so.

"Did Agnes have heirs?" I asked, and then wished I hadn't. Because Rhea had just reached out a hand to touch a glittering purple and gold evening dress, which was brushing the floor beside her.

She abruptly snatched it back.

"It's yours. Everything is yours," she told me hurriedly.

I looked at her, a little exasperated. "Would you please stop doing that?"

"Doing . . . what?" Her eyes started darting around, like maybe her body was doing something she wasn't aware of.

"That," I told her. "Stop acting like I'm a cross between Attila the Hun and the Second Coming! Or you're going to be in for a real disappointment."

"I-I'm not-"

"Because I'm not Agnes, okay? I'm not perfect. I make mistakes-"

"Perfect?"

"-I make a lot of them. And if you keep on jumping every time I do, you're going to get whiplash or some-"

"Agnes wasn't perfect," she blurted out. And then looked appalled, although whether because she'd dared to use a Pythia's first name or because she'd said something less than complimentary, I didn't know.

"I meant, in comparison to me," I clarified.

"In-in comparison to-"

"And if I'm her heir, then you can have whatever you want. So, what do you want?"

Rhea looked like she was trying to keep up, which was crazy since we were only talking about clothes.

"If you could wear whatever you want, what would it be?" I asked impatiently. It was an easy question. Although maybe not for her. She glanced around again, at the bewildering mass of colors and materials and choice. And then her eyes focused on a prim little skirted suit that might as well have been the updated version of the nightgown.

"Don't lie to the Pythia," I reminded her sternly.

She bit her lip and looked at me. "Jeans?" she finally whispered.

"Good answer," I told her, and threw her one of Agnes' spare pairs.