Gertie grunted, maybe because of the cold wind that had just sliced across the hilltop, as if it would like to cut us in two. Or maybe for a different reason, I thought, as I felt a swirl of the Pythian power. One that wasn’t coming from me.

“No!” I yelled and grabbed her arm, disrupting the spell.

She hiked an eyebrow, which caused me to flash back to my childhood, when my old governess had worn that same expression, more times than I could count. It didn’t help that Gertie was in all black today, a stylish number with jet beading and ebony ribbon that looked like she was on her way to a fashionable funeral. It reminded me of the type of thing that Eugenie used to wear, accessorized by the ruler of doom, which appeared whenever I was caught doodling instead of working on my lessons.

My knuckles throbbed in memory, but I held on anyway.

“We can’t go back there,” I said. “I can’t take him on again! I barely survived last time, and—”

“Cassie.”

“—I’m not even fully healed. If we meet him again right now, I’m screwed—”

“Cassie.”

“—do you understand? Completely and utterly—”

“Cassie!” Gertie’s voice snapped like a whip. “Calm yourself. We are not going back.”

I paused with my mouth still open. “We aren’t?”

“Hardly.” Her lip curled. “I have no more desire to see that… creature… than you do.”

She looked down at the hand that still had a death grip on her arm. I tried to tell my fingers to release, but it looked like they weren’t as trusting as I was. They held on.

“Then why did you summon the power?” I asked.

Gertie eyed me while the wind tossed the ribbons on her hat around. “For a little trick you seem to have forgotten.” She looked at the sky. “What were the conditions like when you were here before?”

“Conditions?”

“For instance, the time of day.”

I blinked at her, and finally managed to remove my stubborn hand. “Late afternoon?”

The Pythian power swirled again, making me tense up. But the only thing that happened was that the sun sped up overhead, causing the stones that remained upright to throw dancing shadows on the ground. They looked like sundials gone haywire, which I guessed they sort of were.

“Like this?” Gertie asked, when they stopped.

I looked around. “Yeah. I think so.”

She nodded. “And the color?”

“What color?”

“Of the sky. Was it the same?”

I stared upward, trying to remember such a trivial detail. It was hard, since I’d mostly been looking down at the rushing river that I’d hoped not to end up in. But the pale blue dome overhead seemed about right.

“Maybe?”

“Hmmph. We’d best hedge our bets,” she decided. And a second later, we were standing somewhere else.