That was the terror that had kept me up at nights, and the dread that had shadowed my feet during the day. We’d won victory after victory, but no one knew as well as I did how close most of those battles had been. One little change, one tiny alteration, and they could have gone the other way. And what had made the difference?

Not me. I’d spent most of my time running to catch up—on all the training I’d never had, on all the politics I didn’t understand, on all the things a normal Pythia would have grown up with, but which didn’t come so easily to someone plucked out of the gutter. It had been a trial by fire, and I’d spent most of my time trying not to get burned. And those victories?

They belonged to the people around me, and some very fortunate, last minute, Hail Mary passes that had somehow made it to the in-zone. I was a secretary who read Tarot in a bar; I had no right to be here, to be doing this, to be leading people to their doom, and the supernatural community off a cliff. I was a fool—

No! I cried out as all the doubts, the fears, and the inadequacies I’d fought so hard against for months, and which I’d thought I’d finally put behind me, came flooding back. No, I hadn’t done everything on my own, not even close. I wasn’t some kind of superhero, striding in to save the day. But I had helped. And these thoughts were a lie, because I knew I had—

“Yes, you fought courageously,” the voice said. “You are so frail, so small, so human. I was surprised to see you come so far. But you must have known you couldn’t win. Not alone—”

“I’m not alone!” I tried to reach out to Mircea and Pritkin through our bond. The spell that tied us together us was called Lover’s Knot, and was a powerful enchantment. It allowed me to see through their eyes, and to use their powers as my own. But right now, I couldn’t even feel them.

I couldn’t feel anything.

Except fear.

The warm glow of a second ago was gone as abruptly as it had come, replaced by a harsh chill. Like the voice, when it came again. It had lost its previous charm, and was now as warm as ice.

“Others have resisted, and known only exile, pain and loss,” it said. “I would not have you make the same mistake.”