"It's a clown!"

"Oh, demonic clown. Great choice."

The little girl started sobbing softly.

"Hang on a minute," I said, rooting through a side table and pulling out a pack of battered old tarot cards.

They were grubby and creased and kind of pathetic-looking, and I should have replaced them years ago. But they'd been a gift from someone I cared about, so I just never had. Plus, they had a charm on them I thought the girls might like. It had proven oddly accurate at reading the atmosphere around a situation and giving advice in the form of a pertinent card.

And sure enough, practically as soon as I touched them, one popped up.

A black one.

A black one with a leering devil on it.

Well, shit.

I tried to stuff it back in the pack before it made a bad matter worse, but it was slick and my hands were fumbling and it got a good start on its speech first: The devil card signifies that the querent feels stuck or restricted in life, bound like the figures in chains on the card's surface. But while these bonds may seem unbreakable, a closer look shows that the chains are in fact quite loose, and that the querent therefore has it in his power to slip free of them whenever he chooses. The people on the card are not bound by real chains, but by fear, lack of hope, and lack of belief in their own abilities. The devil card teaches that, as long as you are willing to allow others to exploit and restrain you, they can and will. But no one has power over you unless you give it to them. And what you give, you can take back again."

The card went on, burbling happily about the history of the tarot and the card's reverse meaning and God knew what else. I wasn't listening anymore. I was staring at the devilish figure on the front, and feeling like the clue bat had just smacked me across the head.

"Cassie?" someone said, and I looked up to see Rhea staring worriedly at me. Along with the vamps. And the kids, except for the one who was still sobbing quietly, because I hadn't done jack about that, had I?

And I still didn't. Because a moment later, Fred was being muscled aside, and Marco knelt in front of the crying child. And pulled a playing card out from behind her ear.

She blinked at it, and then at him, and then went back to crying. But she was still watching through her fingers when it suddenly went up in flames. Several of the vamps took a rapid step back, causing Marco to sneer at them. And to let it burn down almost to his fingertips before he threw it into the air, where it disintegrated into powder.

Only to pull it out from behind the girl's ear again, whole and new and not even singed.

Her mouth made a perfect O of astonishment as she looked from him to the air and back again. Marco sat back on his heels, looking satisfied. Until she reached over and pulled the original card out of the pocket of his shirt.

He met my eyes.

"Magical children," I said.

"Yeah. They always surprise you."

"Marco-"

"Do what you gotta do," he told me bitterly. "Just come back, all right?"

I nodded and pulled Rhea into the hallway.

Chapter Thirteen.

The plaster had been vacuumed up-mostly. The guys didn't let housekeeping in when we were under siege, I guess afraid of a mage posing as a cleaning lady, so they'd taken care of it themselves. Which explained why the corners were still white and glass shards glittered here and there on the Berber.

But Rhea wasn't looking at them.

She was looking at the bullet holes.

Yeah, she'd had a baptism by fire these last few days, hadn't she? I knew what that was like. But I wasn't about to make it any better.

"Would it work?" I asked.

"Lady?" Her eyes moved back to mine.

"Could the acolytes shift Ares here, from beyond the barrier?"

"I . . . What?"

"Elias said they were trying to bring back the gods, and we know they were after the Tears. I'm asking if they could be connected."

She shook her head. "I . . . don't think so."

"Are you sure? Even if they all worked together?"

She shook her head, harder this time. "The power is limited to earth. Apollo made sure of that, so it couldn't be used against him or his kind. I don't see how it could now be used to save them."

"I've used it outside of earth."

"You are the child of Artemis, Lady; the acolytes are not."

"But we use the same power. I just access it better-for now. But if they get their hands on enough Tears . . ."

"Lady Phemonoe had full access to the Pythian power, and she was well skilled in its use," Rhea pointed out. "Yet she told me once that she did not dare go beyond the confines of earth. The power is chained here; it cannot leave this world."

"But that's what I'm telling you. It did leave. At least a few times-"

"Yet, if you think back," she said tentatively, "were you not in places close to earth on those occasions? Places accessible through portals or the ley line system?"

"Well, yeah. But that would be everywhere!"

"Not everywhere. You may be able to access your power through a portal, if you are close enough, or even through the ley lines, if our time line and that of the world to which you have traveled are somewhat aligned. But even then, it will not be reliable. The lines fluctuate, disrupting the flow; time lines go in and out of synch; and portals are notoriously-"

"Yes, I know. My power doesn't work well outside earth, but it can work-"

"Through a conduit. But the ouroboros is not a conduit, Lady; it is a wall. Your mother's spell was designed to keep things out, not to let them pass through. It is the opposite of a portal."

I started to say something, but then stopped, because she had a point. "So you're saying they couldn't do it."

"I am saying . . ." She licked her lips. "I am saying that I do not think they can. It seems to me, if such a thing were possible, Myra would have already done it for Apollo."

And, okay, I couldn't argue with that. Apollo had tried to bypass the barrier my mother put in place by overloading a ley line, and had ended up barbecued. I didn't think he'd have chosen that option if he could have just had his pet acolyte shift him here.

"So what do they want this for?" I held out the bloody bottle.

Rhea just stared at it. She still looked stunned, pale, and more than a little freaked out. So much for an easy first assignment.

We don't get the easy jobs. . . .

I'd said it to Pritkin once, and it had never felt more true. The Pythia's position sounded so powerful, so invincible. What couldn't be fixed with the ability to manipulate time?

A lot of things, as it turned out.

But maybe one of them could be fixed another way.

I went back to the bedroom and started rummaging around under the bed for my sneakers.

"I need you to talk to Casanova," I told Rhea, when she followed me in. "Tell him I want rooms for the girls and I want them now. This place is too dangerous for kids."

"I-yes. Yes, of course."

"And make it a suite-or three. We don't need the littler ones figuring out how to turn a doorknob and wandering around the damned hotel."

"Yes, that sounds like a very good-"

"And get them some clothes; they haven't changed in days."

"I will, of course, but-"

"And make them normal ones. The less they look like initiates, the safer they'll be!"

"Of course. I mean, I will, that is, I would, but-"

"But what?"

"It's just that . . ."

"It's just that what?" I asked, coming up with two sneakers, but they were both for the left foot.

"It's just that there's a problem with the money," she admitted.

"What problem?"

"The . . . fact that we don't have any?"

I looked up at her, one arm still under the bed, trying to snare another shoe. "You're telling me the Pythian Court is broke?"

"No." She looked shocked. "The court has plenty of money; we just can't access it."

"Why not?"

"The Circle locked the accounts. I had to borrow money from your chief bodyguard for groceries-"

"From Marco?"

She nodded. "I didn't know what else to do. The accounts were accessible to the Pythia and her heir. But the Lady is dead, and Myra is-"

"Also dead."

"-and Mage Marsden, that is, the Lord Protector, said the accounts were frozen until a new Pythia was proclaimed-"

"Which I have been."

"-but he hasn't released the accounts yet."

"Why does he even have them?" I asked, finally coming up with matching shoes. "That's court business!"

"It's supposed to be," Rhea agreed. "But because of the unsettled state of affairs at the time of the Lady's death, she left him the pass codes to give to her successor-"

"And instead, he decided to use them as blackmail, to get the court back where he wants it."

"I-don't know," Rhea said, but she was frowning. Because yeah, that's the way it looked.

"So test a theory," I told her, jerking on the sneakers. "Ask him for them and see what he says." She nodded. "In the meantime, surely the court has some money? It's been running on something for the last three months!"

"Our main bills were automatically paid by an arrangement with the banks-electricity, water, that sort of thing-"

"And food?"

"We had accounts with local grocers-"

"And incidentals? There had to be some cash on hand!"

"Yes, there is. Was. Until it went up in-"

"Smoke, along with everything else."

She nodded.

I closed my eyes. I wasn't getting a headache so much as realizing that I already had one, a pounding, pulse-hammering explosion behind my eyes. "Then tell Casanova to give them rooms anyway. If he has a problem with that, he can take it up with me. Tell him he'll get his money as soon as we get ours."

"Yes, Lady."

"And call Jonas and explain what happened." She grabbed a pad and pencil off the nightstand and started scribbling. "Tell him what Elias said, and have him send us whatever Tears he may have on hand. We're best suited for guarding them."

"I-yes. We are. But he may not agree after-"

"No, because that would be too easy," I snarled.