I stared after her for a moment, faintly surprised. I knew from experience that the Shadowland had plenty of people who would try something, given half a chance. But then, that was true of most human cities, too, wasn’t it? Was this really so different?
Okay, yeah, it was different, but—
“Are you going to order?” Pritkin asked, dragging my attention back to the menu. Where freaking everything looked good.
And then the short, squat guy in a grease-splattered apron handed Pritkin something in a paper boat that made my eyes bug out of my head. “They have Phillies?” I said, in something approaching awe.
“This street belongs to the potion sellers, and this cart has a fair amount of human traffic,” he told me, taking the greasy bundle of awesomeness. “But elsewhere . . . you have to be careful. Not everything here is safe for human consumption.”
“Yeah, but what’s in it?” Caleb asked, peering suspiciously at the towering mound of meat and melty cheese and peppers and onions and mushrooms and—
“I’ll have one of those,” I told the cook quickly. Right now I didn’t care what was in it.
“The usual.” Pritkin shrugged. “You know how hard it is to glamourize food and get everything right: looks, smells, taste . . . It’s easier and cheaper just to cook the real thing.”
“You sure?” Caleb asked, looking longingly at his buddy’s meal. “What about that old rule, eat in hell and you never leave?”
Pritkin arched an eyebrow. “I lived here for years. And I left.”
“Yeah, but you keep coming back.”
“Not by choice.”
In the end, Caleb ordered a Philly, too. Casanova eyed up the demon cook, who shot him the bird, and then we all got beers. And leaned against the front of the diner to drink them, since there was nowhere to sit.
Pritkin snared a cheese-covered mushroom off the top of his sandwich, and my stomach gave off a roar that sounded like thunder.
His lips twitched, but he ate it anyway, the bastard. Watching me as I watched him in hopeless desperation. And then licked his fingers while I salivated.
And then he handed it over.
Oh God. So good. I practically dove in face-first, and for a while, I didn’t know anything else.
When I came out of my food-induced stupor, it was to see that Pritkin had gotten what I guess was my order, and had eaten about half of it, while Caleb was just being handed his. “I’m gonna go sit on the bench,” Caleb said, nodding at one alongside the courthouse where Casanova was already slumped with his beer. I guess he was trusting Pritkin to save me from everything but cholesterol.
Pritkin nodded. Caleb took off with his food and a handful of napkins. And we ate, in my case until I was so full I thought I might pop.
I thought about undoing the top button on my jeans, but when I surreptitiously glanced around, Pritkin was watching me. And I suddenly realized what he must be seeing—hair everywhere, mouth and probably half my face shiny with grease, T-shirt dirty and sweat-stained. I swallowed the last bite I’d taken, feeling suddenly self-conscious, the way I’d been too hungry and tired to be before. I licked my lips.
And his eyes followed the movement.
My own eyes widened slightly, and then looked away, because that was what I always did when something like that happened. Not that it did often. Other than for a few bits of metaphysical lifesaving, Pritkin mostly acted like I was a boy.
Which was good. Which was how I liked it. Which was how it should be.
I drank some beer. “So, uh, how do you think it went?”
Pritkin went back to his food. “Difficult to say. But they seemed to take your mother’s warning seriously.”
“That’s good, right?” I asked. Because he had that particular crease between his eyes, the one that said he was puzzled about something.
“Perhaps. But then, they shouldn’t have needed it.”
“Come again?”
He made an unsatisfied sound, halfway between a grunt and a sigh. “The Circle might have managed to hide Apollo’s brief return to the supernatural community as a whole, but do you really think the lords didn’t know? When the battle took place at Dante’s? Where half the damned payroll are demon-possessed?”
“Well, yeah, but those are incubi. And maybe Rosier didn’t want them to say anything. Maybe he was afraid . . . I don’t know . . . that it would help your case—”
“But I didn’t have a case then,” he pointed out. “I didn’t until after you killed the Spartoi, which alone should have been enough to raise some eyebrows. It certainly caused me to start asking questions, when I woke up in my father’s court. It could hardly have done less for the council, unless the Circle covered that up, too?”
“They never had the chance,” I told him, grimacing at the memory. “The vamps were broadcasting the coronation, and the whole damned thing was seen live by a few hundred thousand people. Not to mention however many saw the newspaper articles and the photos and—”
“Then they know. And likely more than was reported. They would have investigated even without the incident with Apollo. And with it—that’s two major attempts to circumvent the ouroboros in as many months. They could not possibly have failed to notice. And yet the response to your mother’s announcement . . . it almost sounded as if most of them had no idea.”
I frowned. “Maybe the leaders are trying to keep from panicking everyone, until they can decide what to do.”
“Cassie, the council are the leaders. There is no head; each member has a single vote. It was set up that way after the wars, when no one wanted more bloodshed over who would rule. That isn’t to say that they have no factions, and of course some members’ votes carry others. But we’re not talking about a vote, we’re talking about information they simply do not seem to have had.”
I thought about that for a moment, and ate mushrooms. I was stuffed, but they had been browned on the griddle in butter, and then covered with melted cheese and crusty meat bits and, well. “But somebody has to decide what is brought up. I mean, they couldn’t talk about everything—they’d never do anything else.”
“That is what the Adramelech does.”
“The what?”
“Your mother referred to him as Adra, for short. I am not sure why.”
“I am,” I said dryly. Mom hadn’t exactly been on her best behavior in there. Or maybe she had.
At least she didn’t kill anybody this time.
“She didn’t seem pleased about the composition of the council,” Pritkin agreed. “But while not, perhaps, polite, the term was not an insult. Adramelech is a title, not a personal name. He functions as the speaker or president of the council.”
Damn. And he’d seemed like the nice one. “I thought you said the council doesn’t have a head.”
“It doesn’t, if you mean someone with more power than anyone else. He is mainly there to maintain order.”
“So he’s the one who should have maybe got around to mentioning that the old gods were about to stage a comeback?”
“Not necessarily. The Adramelech only organizes matters to be discussed and attempts to keep the debate on topic. He doesn’t usually propose topics himself.”
“Then who does?”
“Whoever has the oversight of the region in question.”
“And who has oversight of earth?” I asked, because Pritkin was sounding grim.
“You saw. That was the reason he was called forward. Asag of the Asakku.”
Great. “So, what reason does this Asag guy have for just ignoring the return of one god and the kids of another?”
Pritkin shook his head. “I don’t know. And I’m not likely to. I had difficulty even obtaining the basics on your mother. No one wants to talk about the ancient wars—or how they ended. Most go about trying to pretend they didn’t happen.”