And look, it seemed like I could sit up, after all, I thought, as I was jerked back to the perpendicular. I would have protested, but Marco was busy relieving me of some of the god-awful wool, so I didn't. "I don't suppose this could wait?" I asked as he stripped off the high-necked jacket.

"You know, that's funny," he told me, slinging it across the room, where it squelched wetly against the wall. "That's what I said to myself, just this morning. 'She's sleeping. Let the kid get some rest. There's plenty of time to find out what the hell happened last night!'"

"Last night?" I was fuzzy on last night. Maybe because, for me, it had been several nights ago. Or days. Or . . .

Time travel was hard.

"I can take my own skirt off," I told him, although not for modesty's sake. Being undressed by Marco was akin to being stripped by a rabid wolverine.

Might as well have saved my breath. But at least I had on four layers of petticoats, or crinolines or whatever the right term was, under there. Hell, I could outfit a whole house.

Which might be just as well, since I didn't see any luggage.

"Where'd you put the girls' stuff?" I asked, after Marco rolled me out of the skirt and almost off the bed.

"They didn't have any."

"They didn't have-"

"They said," he told me viciously, "that it was blown up!"

Oh, right.

That last night.

"Um. Well, see-"

"No," he said, crouching down beside the bed, getting on my level.

"No?"

"No." Dark brown eyes stared humorlessly into mine. "No lies. Not this time."

"I don't lie."

"Or evasions. Or tricky answers. I swear you're as bad as the master."

Considering who his master was, I decided to take that as a compliment. "Thank you?"

"Damn it, Cassie! I want to know what the hell is going on."

"Yes, well-"

"And when I want to know, is now!"

I licked my lips.

It wasn't that I liked keeping things from Marco. He was actually a very good bodyguard. Or he would have been for anybody else. I sometimes felt pretty bad for him, since he was the type who liked to think he was on top of things, that he had everything under control, that the world was sane and all was in its proper place.

Boy, had he gotten the wrong job.

But even if I'd been willing to spill secrets that weren't really mine, the fact was that Marco didn't want to know what was going on.

He didn't want to know that the reason he had a living room full of Pythian initiates was because a handful of their number had just tried to kill them by blowing up the old Pythian Court. Not because they hated them, but in order to set a trap for me. One that had almost worked.

He didn't want to know that the acolytes responsible were still out there somewhere. Or that the abilities they'd received from the old Pythia before she died had never been rescinded. Meaning that they could technically pop in here at any moment.

I didn't actually think they would. I was a lot more vulnerable elsewhere, and it was me they were after. But still. I didn't think Marco wanted to know that all the wards, guns, and vampire skills in the world might not be enough to deal with those girls' power if they decided to risk it.

"Well?" he demanded.

"I'm thinking."

"Damn it, Cassie!"

"Can you help . . . with this thing?" I asked, gesturing at the corset, which was the kind that laced up the back.

I wasn't stalling for time; I really was having trouble breathing. All that water had tautened the strings, as Marco found out when he flipped me over and tried to loosen them.

He muttered something and pulled out the knife again. "I can't keep you safe if I don't know where you are!" he told me, hacking away. "Or who you're with. Or what the hell you've been up to!"

"Exactly," I muttered into the mattress.

Marco also didn't want to know that I'd been hanging out with Satan's good buddy, only no. Satan, assuming he existed, probably had better taste. So did I, but I was stuck, at least for the moment.

And damn it, we'd been so close!

"You're not going to tell me a damned thing, are you?" Marco asked, flipping me over again.

The corset was in shreds, allowing me to take my first deep breath in what felt like days. For a moment, I just lay there, exploring the wonder that was oxygen. And staring up at Marco, who, despite current appearances, was a good person and a good friend. He deserved better than the insanity that was my life these days.

Of course, for that matter, so did I.

"You ought to ask for a transfer," I told him honestly.

Thick brows drew together into a frown. "It's that bad?"

"Isn't it always?"

He sat on the edge of the damp bed. "With you? Pretty much."

"I don't try to be a disaster," I told him, feeling my throat tighten up.

He sighed and took my hand, interlacing his fingers with my own. Since his were the size of sausages, that left mine spread uncomfortably wide, but I decided I could live with it. "You don't have to try," he told me. "It's a gift."

"You could always shoot me," I offered weakly.

"I've considered it. But then I'd have a few dozen time-traveling little girls on my ass."

"They can't all time-travel." At least, I really hoped not. "When did they get here?"

"You don't remember?"

I shook my head.

"You missed quite the scene," Marco said, letting go of my hand so he could lean back against the bedpost. And level exasperated dark eyes at me.

"Do I want to know?"

"No. But I'm going to tell you anyway," he said pleasantly.

I threw my arm over my face.

"So, you come back from hell. Big swirly portal thing coughs you up onto the rug after all but wrecking the living room. But okay. At least you're back.

"Only no. A couple minutes later, you're gone again. No explanation, no good-bye, no nothing. One second you're there, watching the news about that old house in London blowing up, and the next you're not. For a minute, I thought you'd jumped back through the damned portal!

"But then I realized that the witches were gone, too."

"The witches" in this case were a group of coven leaders who had volunteered to help me rescue mine. My coven, that is, since that's what the Pythian Court apparently was. Since I'd never considered myself a witch, the idea of having a coven took a little getting used to.

Not as much as the concept of changing time, though.

But I hadn't had a choice. I'd returned from my rescue attempt gone wrong only to find out that Agnes' mansion in London had just been bombed. I'd sat around on the living room sofa for a few minutes, watching a magical news feed showing mountains of still-burning rubble and rows of tiny body bags and clumps of stunned-looking war mages. And tried to absorb that.

And then I'd taken the witches and gone back in time to fix things.

I wasn't supposed to. The whole point of having a Pythia in the first place was to keep people from mucking about in the time stream, not to do it myself. But those little girls were my court now, even if I hadn't had a chance to meet them yet. And they'd died because of me. And it had only been fifteen minutes. . . .

Anyway, I'd done it. It probably made me a lousy Pythia, but then, what else was new? And I wasn't sorry, I thought defiantly.

Guilty, yes; sorry, no.

"And, uh, then what happened?" I asked, because I didn't know.

I guessed the witches had gotten my court out, since it was here now. And that the demons had done the same for me, after I'd stayed behind to cover everyone's retreat. And passed out from the strain of slowing down the battleground's worth of spells that my acolyte's dark mage friends had been throwing.

Because one had been waiting on me when I woke up, back here in my bed.

Not a spell-a demon. His name was Adra, head of the demon council, and incidentally, also the person who had cursed Pritkin. But he'd had a change of heart, or so he said, after seeing me risk my life to save my court.

I didn't know why that should matter to the council, but maybe they weren't as bad as I'd been told. Or maybe that had belatedly decided they might need some help with the gods, and I'd do. If, you know, they hadn't just wiped my friend out of existence!

But I'd had no chance to find out before Rosier was throwing a pack at me filled with old-fashioned clothes, and we'd left right afterward, with my head still spinning.

Marco narrowed his eyes. "You tell me. The next thing I know, the windows start shaking and the floor starts moving, and it feels like about a six on the Richter scale. And then that damned portal activates again and there you are, stumbling out along with three battered witches and a couple dozen freaked-out little girls!"

I bit my lip. "Sorry?"

"And then you take two steps and fall over, and I think you're dead. But no, turns out you're just exhausted. So I carry you off to bed. And the next morning, when I think I'm finally going to get a damned explanation, what happens?"

I didn't say anything that time.

"So I've had a day," Marco said grimly. "You were gone and the girls wouldn't tell me shit, and that damned mage kept calling-"

"You mean Jonas?" I asked worriedly.

"Who else?"

We were talking about Jonas Marsden, the head of the Silver Circle, the world's chief magical authority and my . . . well, colleague, technically, although he acted more like my boss. And of course, he'd been there to see all of this. My luck practically demanded it.

"What did he want?" I asked, pretty sure I already knew.

"To talk to you. He had a fit when you disappeared last night, and a worse one when you came back. He wanted to carry you and the girls off somewhere, but Rhea wouldn't budge until she talked to you, and he didn't have enough mages with him to force the issue. Not with the witches yelling about 'Pythian sovereignty,' whatever the hell that is, and me threatening him with a couple dozen masters-"

I winced. And was suddenly profoundly grateful that I'd been unconscious.

"-but it wasn't pretty. For a while there, I thought I was going to have to call for reinforcements. But he finally agreed to go if I promised to have you call him as soon as you got up. But, of course, by this morning you'd skipped out-again-with no explanation-again. And I had to tell him you'd gone on an errand!"

"I owe you," I said fervently.

"Oh no. No, we're not even there yet."

I swallowed.

"So every half hour: is she back yet, is she back yet?" Marco gave Jonas' voice a high-pitched whine it in no way possessed. "And then the girls needed food and a place to stay-"

"I'll see if I can-"

"And then the press got word about your court blowing up, and they somehow got our number-"

"Not again. How do they keep-"

"-and then the boss called."

I swallowed. And, once again, everything else suddenly felt trivial. Manageable. Easy, by comparison. "The . . . boss?"

"Yeah, you know." Marco smiled evilly. "Your husband?"

Chapter Four.