“Someone with artisan skills, but they’d have to have priestess powers too. The web was pure priestess.”
“No one is that strong in more than one area, except…” The anger in her eyes changed to suspicion. “You got me out when even your grandmother couldn’t. You got past both spells. And in the gym, the way you leapt, and the other day when Pisto went for you…?” She leaned closer; her next words were a low growl. “How many skills do you have, Mel? What have you been doing while hiding up here? Did you really leave because of your son, or did you have some other agenda all along?”
The distrust on her face hurt. It shouldn’t have. We hadn’t trusted each other for a long time, but just as I was ready to forgive her, admit I’d been wrong, she was accusing me of…what?
“I wouldn’t hurt you, Zery.” I expected her to laugh at the very idea. Me be able to hurt her, the Amazon queen? It was ridiculous. But she didn’t. Instead, she stared at some spot beyond me.
“Why would I save you, if I had lured you out there?” I added.
She kept her face turned for another second, then covered it with one hand. When she looked back at me, the wear of everything she’d been through last night, with the dead girls, all of it showed on her face.
“If not you, who?”
I didn’t let my relief that she was willing to let her suspicions go, at least for now, show. “I don’t know. It could be a priestess. Bubbe doesn’t think so, but it could be.”
“Don’t accuse Alcippe.”
Her vehemence startled me.
“I didn’t, but why-”
“If you even make a hint of accusing her, it will backfire on you. I told you, the tribe already suspects you. If it looks like all of this is an opportunity for you to get Alcippe…” She drummed the table with her fingers. “Don’t do it.”
“Even if I think she’s guilty?”
“If you think she’s guilty and you get some real proof, come to me.”
It was a fair answer, but not what I wanted to hear-not now or ten years ago, but this time I swallowed my ire.
“It did kind of ache yesterday.” Zery rubbed her chest, where her givnomai lay hidden under her tee. “I hadn’t thought about it a lot, but now that you mentioned it…”
“How about your back? Your telios? Did you feel anything there?”
A line formed between her eyes. “Maybe a twinge, in the afternoon, but I’d been working out pretty hard that morning.”
I took a breath, pressed my hands flat on the table, and used my best coaxing voice. “Can you go through your day again…with a little more detail?”
“Really, nothing special happened. I told you: breakfast, exercise, spar, lunch, spar some more, then…” She looked at me sideways. “I’ve had a team watching the bar-the one the girls were going to. I had a meeting with them in the afternoon. I had to pull them off. They were…they weren’t getting along with the locals. I needed a new plan. I was thinking of going myself or sending Pisto, but I don’t know that either of us would pass for a twenty-year-old human.”
Like it mattered. Zery could look sixty and college-age men would still flock to her.
“After that meeting, I needed air and went for a walk. That’s where I was when you got back.”
I’d wondered but hadn’t asked. To be honest, I hadn’t wanted to see Zery yesterday. I’d wanted time to sort out my day by myself. If I had searched her out, would I have stopped what happened later?
She interrupted my guilty thoughts by sliding her cup to the side and tacking on, “Oh, and there was the dog too. Maybe he did it.”
I frowned. “Dog?”
“A hound, black and tan-kind of skinny. He followed me home from my walk. I offered him some of the mix we feed our dogs, but he wouldn’t take it. He liked fries, though.” She smiled.
Just a dog. Sounded like the stray I’d fed chips to earlier in the week. He’d run off that day. Curious what had happened to him, I asked, “How long did he stay?”
She held up one hand. “A while. He followed me into the shower. I thought he was going to stay for good, but after I toweled off, he asked to go out and he hasn’t been back. Not that I know of.”
I nodded. Probably out hunting for his next meal. Maybe he’d come back again-if someone didn’t call the city on him.
“So, the dog saw your givnomai. Anyone else?”
She arched a brow. “What are you thinking?”
I explained my theory that the killer was using the power of the givnomai to control the victims. “Who else knows your givnomai, Zery?”
Her expression was guarded. “You.”
I didn’t bother protesting my innocence again. I’d said it. She was either going to accept it or she wasn’t.
“No one else here,” she added.
She was leaving someone out-Alcippe, I guessed.
“Anyone who knows priestess and artisan skills?” I asked.
She didn’t answer, which was answer enough. I didn’t think she was protecting Alcippe, just asserting her power as queen. Her next statement sealed that opinion.
“Let me worry about who has seen my givnomai, but thanks for the tip.”
Sensing this line of discussion was going nowhere else, I turned the conversation to my day at the camp, filled her in on what Dana and the others had told me, which really wasn’t anything Zery didn’t already know. I could have been annoyed that she hadn’t volunteered the information herself, but I was the one who had asked to go to the camp in exchange for talking with Reynolds. Zery had kept her deal with me without betraying any trusts. Plus, from her point of view, there was always the chance I would learn something she didn’t know. It just hadn’t worked out that way.
What I didn’t tell her was that I’d had a run-in with Alcippe. I could have told her the high priestess had questioned her authority, challenged it almost, but after Zery’s warning, I knew anything else I said would just be seen as attacking the high priestess. If Alcippe was involved in any of this, I’d figure out a way to nail her myself.
We were pretty much done and just waiting for the other to realize it when the outside door opened-the one that led to the sidewalk between the gym/cafeteria and the school building.
Peter stepped inside. I knew instantly it was him, by the breadth of shoulders that blocked the outside light.
“Oh, hi.” He smiled that high-watt smile, and my toes curled in my shoes. I needed to see Bubbe about something for my hormones. They seemed to be running rampant lately.
“I heard there was coffee.” He held out a stainless-steel travel mug. “The pot in the shop’s toast.”
“That’s a hundred-dollar coffeemaker.” I pushed myself to a stand.
“Not anymore.” He grinned and headed to the coffeepot. I’d only left about an inch in the carafe. I thought he’d see that and move on, but to my surprise he dumped out the grounds and began making fresh.
“Little hearth-keeper in that one,” Zery murmured. “Not a bad thing, if you’re really going to do this human thing.” She waggled her brows.
I rolled my eyes, but then turned them back toward Peter. He was wearing jeans and a sweater-a close-fitting sweater. And his back was turned to us-my favorite view.
“Looks like he has other assets too,” Zery teased. I chose to ignore the interplay this time.
“He’s a very good tattoo artist.”
“There you go…hearth-keeper, artisan, and an ass to kill for. What more could an Amazon want?” She rapped the table with her knuckles, then shoved her cup toward me and stood. “I’ll leave this with you. Give him a reason to come closer. Maybe he’ll wash up for you too.”
As she left, Peter turned. He should have watched Zery, any other Y-chromosome-carrying human would have, but he didn’t. His chocolate gaze locked on me.