So, I hadn’t. I’d helped him instead. Because I understood his pain and was hoping that answers, whatever they were, would finally allow him some peace.

But no way would he return the favor.

No way would he put me first.

He loved me; I knew he did, but the family was paramount and always would be. I didn’t fault him for that; I cared about them, too. But it often felt like being part of the Borg—everything was for the collective.

Everyone outside was evaluated on what they could do for the family or what kind of threat they offered to it. And those of us inside were expected to be totally loyal, trusting the head of the clan to do what was best for us all. Being an impartial Pythia didn’t work in a situation like that, which was why I’d removed my court from his direct orbit.

And was another reason I’d removed myself from our relationship.

But Pritkin didn’t have a family, unless you counted Rosier, which I didn’t think he did. The two had made up, if grudging tolerance counted, but they weren’t close. Maybe as a result, Pritkin had never asked me to do anything for his people, or for him personally. In fact, he’d been furious any time I’d put myself in jeopardy to help him.

That didn’t make him better than Mircea; they were two different men in very different circumstances. But it made him better for me. I knew that, and I loved him, utterly and completely, but I loved Mircea, too, and it was a mess, I was a mess, and even more so lately, because there weren’t two men in my heart.

There were three.

Billy Joe had been the ghost of a riverboat gambler, who I’d managed to attract thanks to my dad’s type of necromancy. He was one of hundreds of spirits I’d interacted with through the years, only the others came and went, while Billy stuck around. To the point that it had started to feel like he was a part of me, a second, grumpy heartbeat, pounding in the middle of my chest, because that was where his necklace—a talisman that fed him power—had rested.

He’d acted like a second subconscious that piped up to offer advice, whether I wanted it or not. Or to cheer me up with one of his endless supply of terrible, dirty jokes. Or to distract me when my brain kept spinning around and around in worry, and I couldn’t turn it off.