“No, no I could not,” Zeus said. “Nor could I talk to you properly. And once you use up the rest of my power, that will be true again.”

“You managed it well enough in my suite—”

“No, I managed it in transition. I absorbed a little goddess, some years ago, who had power in the byways, as she put it. It gives me some control over the spaces in between—worlds, moments, what have you.” He waved a hand, as if he hadn’t just admitted to cannibalism. “When you gatecrashed Aeslinn’s party, we were able to follow you into your—shift, I believe you call it? But not to land.”

“Aeslinn didn’t seem to have that trouble,” I said tightly. He’d run like a whipped dog through that portal of his.

“Aeslinn forgot what I’d said,” Zeus corrected. “That if we tried to leave transition, the time stream would wash us back to where we started. You could have escaped us at any point today, merely by shifting back into real time.”

“Good to know.”

He smiled. “You managed well enough, as it happens.”

“And you’re lying,” I said, getting tired of the pretense of civility. We intended to kill each other; this whole thing was obscene. “If you were telling the truth, Aeslinn would be the one from the past, who had no reason to attack me. He didn’t even know me then!”

Zeus let out a breath of smoke. “Impressive. Most people would not be clear minded enough to fish for information in your current situation.”

“I’m not fishing—”

“Of course, you are.” Sharp blue eyes found mine through gaps in the smoke. “You already suspect the truth—you destroyed his court, but didn’t find him there. What better place to hide than back in time? And in a world where the Pythian power doesn’t work and cannot spy on you.”

I blinked; I hadn’t expected him to just come out with it like that. Candor from him worried me, made me doubt myself. Not that I wasn’t doing that already.

“You’re saying he can time travel.” It came out harshly. I didn’t care. If Aeslinn could travel in time, and channel the power of a god while he did it? Yeah, my life was about to infinitely suck.

Which considering how it was already going, was saying something.

But Zeus shook his head. “No. His servant, that disgusting necromancer—Jonathan, I think he was called?”

I nodded tersely.

“He took us back in time before he died. He harvested part of that girl’s soul—what was her name?”

“Jo.”

It came out calmly enough, I’m not sure how. Jo featured in my nightmares on a regular basis, although not just because of what she’d done. But because of what had been done to her.