“This place isn’t as dangerous as you seem to think,” Pritkin told Caleb, trying again.
Caleb transferred the glare to him. “Did you get hit over the head?”
“Yes, several times—”
“Thought so.”
“—but that doesn’t change the facts. The Shadowland exists for trade. The proprietors have a vested interest in keeping some kind of order—”
“Yeah. I’ve felt really secure so far!”
“Most people are not being chased by an irate demon lord when they come here,” Pritkin said dryly. “The council finds it a useful meeting place because of its being neutral ground. But they’re a very small part of local life. I am not saying the place is without its dangers, but they can be navigated, even by humans. Mages come here fairly often to buy potion supplies, for example—”
“No sane ones!”
“Jonas gets most of his here—”
“You’re not helping your case,” Caleb muttered.
“—and Cassie is easily more powerful than him. If Jonas can navigate these streets on a semiregular basis, bargain for supplies, and get back out again safely, I think she can manage to go to the bathroom by herself!”
For some reason, Caleb was looking at him as if he’d lost his mind. His voice sounded like it, too. “Cassie is more powerful than Jonas,” he repeated.
Pritkin frowned. “Of course. She’s Pythia.”
“She’s—” Caleb seemed momentarily at a loss for words, so I seized the opportunity.
“I couldn’t shift before, because Mother was rerouting most of my power for . . . well, whatever she did in there. But I feel better now—”
“Yeah, you look it!”
“I didn’t say I’m a hundred percent,” I told him impatiently. “But I can defend myself—”
“Good. But it’s my job to see that you don’t have to.”
“If Agnes had told you to stay here, you’d stay here,” I said angrily.
“Lady Phemonoe wouldn’t be here! She’d be at court, surrounded by a crack security team! Meeting with dignitaries and mediating disputes and—and doing anything but running around almost getting herself blown up!”
“Did you ever meet Agnes?” I asked, but Caleb wasn’t listening.
“Did you see her today?” he asked John. “Those witches were right; she doesn’t even have shields, and I couldn’t reach her and all she had for protection was a damned vampire—”
“Hey, fuc’ you, too, buddy,” Casanova slurred, from behind us.
“—and she almost got killed! I almost let her get—” Caleb broke off, fuming.
“You didn’t let me do anything,” I told him. “We got in trouble, but it wasn’t your fault—”
“I can see me explaining that to the old man,” Caleb snapped. “See, sir, she ended up incinerated, but it wasn’t my fault!”
“It wasn’t! I wanted to come here—”
“Yeah, and I should have had the sense to say no. Just like I should have the other day!”
“You should have said no?” I repeated. “I thought war mages did what the Pythia wanted.”
“Pythias don’t want this!” Caleb said, suddenly furious. “Pythias don’t do this! They don’t invade hell and fight demons and battle gods—”
“They also didn’t live in these times,” Pritkin said, cutting in. “They didn’t have to face anything remotely like this. Do you think Lady Phemonoe could have done what Cassie did today? What she did yesterday? Do you think she would have dared?”
“I think she’d have found another way!” Caleb said, like a man who had been standing by that pillar for the last two hours, thinking. And coming to the conclusion that maybe Casanova’s drunken ramblings hadn’t been so far off the mark. And panicking, after all, because he’d had all this dumped in his lap at one time, literally overnight. And he didn’t know what to do with it.
And I didn’t think he’d felt like that too often in his life.
“I had no idea—” He looked at me accusingly. “You made it sound like we were just going to sneak into some palace. Just grab John and hightail it out—”
“Which is what we did.”
“That is not what we did! We—” Caleb stopped and stared around again, but the bland, beige lobby didn’t seem to give him anything back. “This place, the hells, the size—” He broke off, staring from me to Pritkin, half in anger, half in wonder. “There’s whole worlds down here.”
Pritkin gazed at his friend, and his face changed. From exasperation working on pissed, to . . . understanding. Because maybe he’d felt like that once, too. Overwhelmed and inadequate, faced with a suddenly huge universe that he didn’t understand at all.
“Yes,” he said simply.
Caleb stared at him for a minute longer and then turned away abruptly, leather coat swinging.
And I finally got it.
I’d been dealing with stuff like this for more than three months now. And it had been hard. And scary. To the point that, most days, I’d felt like hiding under the bed, or just running and never stopping. And the truth was, if there’d been anybody else to stick with this job, I probably would have.
Like Caleb would probably love to run out of here. But he hadn’t. And he wouldn’t, because he was a decent guy. And because a lifetime of duty and discipline stood in the way. And because there was nowhere for him to go, either.
But right now he needed something to ground him. Something familiar. Something he knew how to do. Even if it was just something stupid.
Even if it was just escorting me to the bathroom.
“Come on,” I told him, sliding a hand on his shoulder. “If there’s nobody else in there, I’ll leave the door open.”
Chapter Thirty-two
“Are you really going to eat here?” Caleb demanded, fifteen minutes later.
“Damned straight,” I said, my mouth watering.
The restaurant wasn’t a cart, although it was about the size of one. It was a small rectangle wedged between the courthouse and a bunch of shops. The shops appeared to be closed, although there were some across the street that were open. Cars passed on the still-busy highway, zipping along with headlights that blurred slightly in my tired vision and doubled in the mirrorlike sheen of the street.
I looked up, and some rain hit me in the face. That might have been an illusion, too, for all I knew, but it felt real. Everything did. Just a dark blue, rainy street, closer to winter than summer, with people bundled up and hurrying along their way.
And a brightly lit slab of Formica in front of me, with a two-page menu taped to the top. And a bunch of smells emanating from a griddle in back that had me ready to crawl over the counter. Hot damn, I thought in wonder, I was actually going to get dinner.
Maybe.
I glanced around furtively, waiting for the hammer to drop. For someone or something to prevent me from getting any food. And it wasn’t like there weren’t plenty of candidates.
I couldn’t tell what time of day it was, since it always seemed to be dark here. But there were plenty of people on the streets. And I knew where I was; I knew what they were, or most of them, anyway. But none looked all that sinister to me.
A mostly human-looking woman came by, with a shock of pale purple hair that could have come as easily from a trendy boutique as genetics. She was carrying a bag of groceries and talking on a cell phone with the preoccupied, slightly annoyed look of someone running late who is also getting rained on. She passed within a few feet of me and never gave me a second glance. She also didn’t attack me.