Marsden shrugged. “Yes, but let me worry about that. All I want Cassandra to do is get me to him. And in return, I will personally see to it that she is confirmed as Pythia.”

“And you’re going to get the Circle to accept me. Just like that,” I said.

He shrugged. “It really isn’t up to them to accept or reject you.”

“They seem to think otherwise!”

“Hmm. Yes. But it is difficult to support that case when they have nothing to do with the actual selection.The power chooses the Pythia. It has always been so, and I have yet to see it choose poorly.” He flipped the edge of the scandal rag with a finger. “Your background notwithstanding, it did come to you. And there it ends.”

“No. It ends when they kill me and hope that it goes to a nice, docile initiate Saunders can control.”

“Something that will not happen once I return to power,” he said calmly.

He slid a plate in front of me a moment later, and it actually looked pretty good. The potatoes were browned to a perfect crisp and the sausages were still sizzling. I dug in.

“What do you think I can do?” I asked between mouthfuls.

“Saunders rarely goes anywhere in public,” he told me, filling a plate and joining us. “And when he does, he’s so well guarded I can’t get near him. But you can.” He stopped to sip some deadly coffee. “Security has been maximized due to the war, and his location is a well-guarded secret.”

Not tomorrow, I thought, shoveling in potatoes. Saunders would be at the reception for the consuls, waiting to meet with me. And I could get Marsden in. The question was, should I?

I knew Mircea was plotting something, or he wouldn’t have agreed to another meeting with Saunders. But it seemed more than likely that Saunders was planning something, too, and I didn’t think it was anything I’d like. If someone had told me yesterday that I’d seriously be considering a coup against the leader of the Circle, I’d have laughed. I wasn’t laughing now.

But I also wasn’t ready to join a coup. The problem wasn’t just that it was insane. A much bigger obstacle was those damn visions. They had me so freaked out that I was hesitant to do anything in case I made the wrong decision. It wasn’t a new feeling.

I’d spent the last month terrified of my position, sure that no human should have this kind of power. It had been reserved for a god, and even he hadn’t done so great with it. It had felt like a choking noose of responsibility, in which one wrong decision could destroy a world. But the catch was, if I didn’t act, I might destroy it anyway.

Maybe that was what the visions were trying to say: that if I didn’t use my power, it was the same as if I didn’t have it at all. And we couldn’t win this war without a Pythia. Unfortunately for our side, I wasn’t much of one.

I concentrated on eating for a few minutes, knowing that the draw Billy needed would wipe me out if I didn’t. Everything was good, except for the sausage. It coated my tongue with grease and just seemed to get bigger the longer I chewed. I’d have spit it into a napkin if the cook hadn’t been sitting right there.

“What is this?” I finally asked Marsden.

“My mother’s recipe,” he said absently. “Black pudding.”

I poked at the remainder on my plate. It didn’t look like pudding. It looked like a dark-colored sausage. “What’s in it?”

“The usual,” he said with a shrug. “Fat, onions, oatmeal—and pig’s blood, of course.”

I swallowed hard. Damn it, I knew I should have had toast. I drank tea until the queasiness passed and stared down at my likeness again. It really was pretty close. I guess a few of the mages I’d battled in the last month had paid attention. At least I made the front page, I thought dismally, flipping over to page two, where the story continued. And stopped dead at the first line.

Even more disturbing are rumors about Palmer’s father.

Pritkin said something, but I didn’t hear him. My brain had frozen in its tracks, fixated on the word “father.” Because I’d never known mine.

Tony had seen to that, engineering my parents’ deaths when I was four so he could monopolize my talents. As a result, I’d grown up knowing almost nothing about them. I’d recently discovered a little about my mother, but my knowledge about my father had been confined to the single fact that he had once been Tony’s “favorite human.”

My ignorance wasn’t from a lack of trying. I’d asked everyone I could think of, but they hadn’t known much or had been under Tony’s orders to say nothing. And since most of them were his vampires, those orders were extremely hard to disobey. I wondered now how hard they’d tried. Maybe there was something that even those who were friendly toward me hadn’t wanted me to know.

Our source inside the Circle confirms that Roger Palmer was actually Ragnar Palmer, the infamous necromancer who was long thought to be part of the Black Circle’s ruling elite. His sudden disappearance thirty years ago is attributed to infighting within the dark hierarchy, possibly due to an attempt by Palmer to take control of the whole for himself. It appears that Palmer did not die as supposed but instead went underground, changed his name and took service with another dark creature until such a time as his plans could come to fruition. Plans such as his daughter becoming Pythia?

When asked what steps the Circle was taking to ensure that such an obviously unsuitable and dangerous candidate never be allowed to gain the Pythia’s throne, our source would only say that they are investigating their options. Meanwhile, they have offered a substantial reward for information concerning Cassandra Palmer’s whereabouts. Anyone seeing her is urged to call the Circle at once. Names can be held confidentially.

I threw the paper down in disgust. Crystal Gazing wasn’t exactly known for factual reporting, but this was stretching things, even for them. The mages that Tony hired weren’t Black Circle. Most of them were barely competent to create a protection ward or to construct a basic glamourie. The Black Circle were the elite of the magical underworld; they had better things to do than run errands for a vampire.

“If they’re going to spread rumors,” I said angrily, “they could at least think up decent ones.”

“You didn’t know.” I’d been looking at Marsden, but the comment hadn’t come from him. I glanced at Pritkin and did a double take. Despite the weirdness of seeing his expressions on my face, the truth was pretty hard to miss.

“Ah, Crystal Gazing. Always stirring up trouble of some kind. I take it for the crosswords,” Marsden said as Pritkin and I stared at one another. “Excellent double acrostic.”

I saw when it hit home, when Pritkin realized that he’d done what the article never could have and made me believe it.With a single look he’d shaken my entire foundation. He rearranged his features, but it was too late. Compared to the vampires I knew, he was a lousy liar.

“You told me once that my line was tainted,” I said, my voice sounding oddly wooden, even to me. “But I thought you meant my mother.”

“Yes, your mother. Charming girl,” Marsden said. “You remind me of her.” I stared at him as he calmly spread marmalade on his toast.

“You knew her?”

“Of course. She was always at the Pythian Court, whenever I had reason to visit.”

“And my father?” The word tasted strange in my mouth. “Is it true?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes. We had reason to believe that he was a leading member of the Black Circle for years. Part of their governing council, as it were.”

“We don’t know that!” Pritkin said. “The Black Circle doesn’t publicize its inner workings! The people who spread those stories were criminals hoping for a deal. They’d have said anything—”

“John.” Marsden looked at him severely over his glasses. “You aren’t going to protect her by denying it. It isn’t pleasant, I know, but if she’s strong enough to be Pythia, she’s strong enough to hear the truth.”

I wanted to know and I didn’t. Because some gossip rag’s allegations would be a lot easier to shrug off than anything Marsden had to say. He’d headed the Circle for years, had their intelligence reports at his fingertips. But he was right: I needed to know. And it wasn’t like anyone else had volunteered to tell me.

“What truth?” I asked, pushing away the sickness uncurling in my stomach.

“That your father was a powerful necromancer, capable of commanding ghosts to do his will,” Marsden said matter-of-factly. “It’s said he had a massive army of them, listening, prying, reporting to him about our activities. It’s how the Black Circle always knew when we were planning a raid. His ghostly spies acted as a counterpart to the Pythian Court, giving the dark eyes and ears everywhere.”

He munched toast, giving me a chance to absorb that. It was surprisingly easy. Mircea had told me once that my father had done something similar for Tony, although on a much smaller scale. I should have realized then—anyone with that kind of ability wasn’t likely to be content as Tony’s stooge. Information was power, even in the supernatural world. Maybe especially in our world, where glamouries and illusions so often helped to hide the truth.

Except from ghosts.

There had never been a ward invented that could keep a ghost out, not even that could detect one. Not to mention that Billy could slip inside people’s skin for a little short-term possession whenever the urge struck. He didn’t do it often, because it drained his power too quickly, and even when he did, he couldn’t go sorting through people’s thoughts, cherry-picking memories. But if they happened to think about a subject of interest when he was in residence, he would hear it. He’d done it before and reported back to me. And if someone had a hundred Billy Joes? A thousand?

But something didn’t make sense. “How would they have met?” I demanded. “A dark mage and the Pythia’s heir? It’s crazy!”