Curse the Dawn Read Free

jeans and had black stuff all over my arms. I held my wrist up to my nose and smelled it.
    She hadn’t been kidding.
    “You’re playing hide-and-seek in a cellar full of gunpowder?” I demanded incredulously, desperately brushing at myself.
    “A cellar full of gunpowder that an idiot is trying to blow up,” she corrected. “So I’m a little tense right now. Who are you and why are you here?”
    Now that the moment had arrived, I didn’t quite know where to start. “It’s complicated,” I finally said.
    “It always is.” She headed for the door where the mage had disappeared, gun in hand. “You aren’t Guild.”
    “I don’t even know what that is,” I said, jogging to keep up. “Is that who we’re hunting?”
    “That’s who I’m hunting. I don’t know who—or what—you are.” She snagged the abandoned lantern and shoved it at me.
    I took it gingerly, worried about powder residue near an open flame. It was a weird little thing, shaped like a large beer stein, with a black metal body and a door that could be opened or closed to control the light. I opened it all the way, but it didn’t help much. “I’m Cassie. And, uh . . . I’m sort of Pythia.”
    That stopped her. Her sharp blue gaze swept over me again. “Don’t think so,” she said curtly.
    The Pythia was the supernatural community’s chief Seer and, as a bonus, also the person charged with maintaining the integrity of the time line. It would have been a crappy job even if I’d had the faintest idea what I was doing. Since I didn’t, it was also really dangerous.
    My assailant was named Agnes, AKA Lady Phemonoe, the former Pythia. She was the one who had stuck me with this mess and then died before she could give me any training. As a result, I’d spent the first half of my first month in office trying to get out of the deal and the rest of it running for my life. So it had taken me a while to realize the obvious: I was a time traveler now, whether I liked it or not. Agnes’ death didn’t necessarily mean she couldn’t train me. She just had to do it in the past.
    I hadn’t intended for it to be quite this far in the past, but she was always surrounded by people in her own time. And most of them were the types who might recognize and resent another time traveler. Getting her alone had been tough.
    Probably not as tough as talking her into this though.
    “Then how did I get here?” I demanded.
    “My best guess is that you’re some Pythia’s newly appointed heir on a joyride, testing out the power,” she said, stopping beside the black hole of the doorway. “Ooh, look. I can travel through time. Isn’t that cool?” she mimicked.
    “I’m not joyriding! And I don’t find being shot at and almost blown up cool!”
    “I did the same thing myself a few times when young and stupid,” she said, ignoring me. “And almost got killed. Take some advice: go home.”
    “Not until we talk,” I said flatly. “And we can’t do that here. The explosion was loud enough to wake the dead. Someone is probably on their way to investigate right now!”
    “I wouldn’t worry too much about that,” she said, slipping off little champagne-colored heels. “These cellars date back to the eleventh century. And when they built something back then, they intended it to last. The walls are seven feet thick.”
    I felt the muscles along my spine start to relax just as a barrel came bouncing at us out of the dark. Agnes slammed the door and scrambled back while I ducked behind another support column. I’d barely made it when a second explosion deafened me and a hail of former door parts exploded through the room, impaling everything in sight.
    A jagged piece of iron from one of the hinges hit the floor beside me, burying itself into the stone an inch from my right foot. I jerked back and stared at it wide-eyed. “Why is it that everywhere I go, someone is shooting at me?” I demanded hysterically.
    “Your winning personality?” Agnes offered.