The benefit of youth, or maybe the hearth-keepers' household tasks gave them more of a workout than I gave them credit for.
She continued, 'Not
'You want to be a spy?' It was hard to imagine the soft-spoken hearth-keeper as an undercover agent.
She nodded, eager now. 'I could tell them I didn't agree with you, that I missed being part of the tribe and hitched a ride back to camp. I don't think they'd suspect anything. They wouldn't think I'd be up to anything.'
Her eyes were wide and innocent and her voice held a tremor. She was right, they wouldn't. I wouldn't.
'You could tell them we forced you to come,' I added.
She smiled. 'Yeah, kidnapped. That would be cool.'
'By Bern?'
The silent warrior had just stepped onto the porch.
Tess laughed. 'They'd believe that.'
'Maybe in your escape you could have taken her down.'
'Poisoned her eggs.' The girl was grinning now.
'I like that.'
She laughed and I even managed a smile. Bern grimaced.
Kale, led by an annoyed-looking Lao, appeared in the doorway. There were circles under the warrior's eyes and a long white strip of bandage taped to her throat. She looked like something you'd see on a slasher movie poster.
I gave Tess my blessing and asked Bern to walk her as far as the highway. The girl would send any information she learned back to us through Cleo. If for some reason we decided to pull Cleo or something happened where she needed to contact us directly, she would come through the woods.
Her arms crossed over her chest and her brows pulled together, Lao watched Tess and Bern disappear down the drive.
'You okay with that?' I asked her.
'Don't see the sense in it.'
'She wants to do something.'
'There's plenty of doing here-toilets to clean and Amazons to feed.'
'You don't need her, though, do you?'
She snorted. 'No. But I still don't like it.' She shoved her hands into her pockets and whirled back toward the house.
Leaving Kale and me alone. Considering that the last time the council member had faced me with her eyes open she'd tried to kill me. . and to be fair I had pierced her in the neck with a sword. . it was natural we could only stare at each other with distrust at first.
Just as I thought the tension wouldn't pass, the mother dog tromped onto the porch. She shoved her nose into the box with her puppies. They kicked their feet and moved their snouts, vying for her attention. She pulled her head back out and stared at me-with what I interpreted as strained patience.
The stuffed cow that had been in Andres's baby seat was lying on the porch's wooden deck. It must have made its way in with our things and someone had put it in with the puppies.
I threw it out into yard; the mother gave one last glance at her puppies, then sailed off the porch after it.
Kale laughed. 'She's recovered quickly. The pups can't be what? A week or so old?'
I let my hand fall toward the pile of puppies, enjoying the feel of their pin sharp teeth on my skin. 'Less than that. I found her in Artemis's woods; maybe she's part Amazon.'
Kale nodded. 'Must be.' Then she collapsed into one of the porch's redwood chairs.
'What happened?' I asked. 'Why'd you quit calling?'
When she looked up, there was confusion in her eyes. For a moment I thought she didn't remember our conversations, but then her emotions cleared. Still, she only stared back at me, seemed to be composing her thoughts.
Lao reappeared with a glass of cloudy green liquid and shoved it into her hand. Kale lifted it, the drink inside sloshing back and forth as she did. As she drank, a bit dripped onto her leather wristband. She wiped it off with her thumb.
'Lao said your mother is dead.'
I inclined my head slightly.
'A waste.' Her gaze was steady, assessing and unnerving.
Taking her comment as a form of condolence, I nodded. 'What happened?' I asked.
She hesitated. 'I'm not supposed to tell you anything, you know. High council business. . what happens at the circle. . we don't discuss it.'
'The council is dead,' I said it as bluntly as I could. I was past wasting my time honoring tradition for tradition's sake. Or letting someone take advantage of my regard for those traditions by not questioning something that needed to be questioned. 'Ex-high priestess Saka'-I didn't use Bubbe's first name because I didn't know it, and it felt strange to call her Bubbe to a council member-'tried to find them. You know what she said?'
Kale took a drink. Her eyes quiet, her body quiet, she looked at me over the top of her glass. 'And she shouldn't have done that.'
A growl loomed inside me, misplaced loyalty was not going to save the tribe, but before my annoyance grew too big to be contained, she sighed. 'Yes, Tess told me. I don't know if I can believe it. . another goddess. We never suspected that.' She ran her thumb over her wristband, then looked up. 'What can I tell you? What did your mother tell you?'
The growl evaporated. Finally I was going to get the answers I needed. I asked her to start wherever she thought the story started, didn't explain how little I'd learned from my mother, how little time we'd had for her to tell me anything.
She seemed hesitant, but finally she spoke. 'I didn't suspect anything, not like you are saying. We disagreed on what to do about the sons, but that was nothing new. The council doesn't tend to agree on anything; unwilling compromise is about the best we can hope for.'
She took another drink.
'But this time it went past that, got more intense, quickly. Valasca brought up the idea of going back to the old ways first. I was surprised, her being a hearth-keeper, but then I figured she was older and probably hadn't really agreed with the shift when it happened. For a while she seemed to be the only person who really felt that way, and it seemed like there was no rush on deciding. We did our normal thing, what feels like arguing for argument's sake. Until your mother got pregnant. Then things changed. Padia spoke up; she was for going back to the killing too. Soon Fariba joined her, and one by one they all seemed to follow-everyone but your mother and me.'
Padia, the priestess who had called back when I'd tried to contact Kale, who had told Thea I was no longer queen. Things were beginning to fall into place.
'Mother said there were two groups, with the majority in the middle.'
Kale swallowed. 'She didn't know. They quit talking about it in front of her and I didn't want to tell her. The more determined they became, the more determined she became, and I knew she wasn't going to hand over that baby-no matter the ruling. I should have, though. They tricked her or tried to. Your mother took the baby and ran. She told me she was giving him to his father.'
'And she did. That's who we stole him from.'
'You stole him?' Her expression sharpened.
'Yes, but we lost him soon after. The sons stole him back. . ' I paused, thinking. 'How did the council know where Mateo would be?'
'Mateo?'
'Andres's father. . the baby's father.'
'Oh. . I don't know. Padia must have run some kind of spell that located him.'
