Maddie was about to offer an objection when Erik added softly, “Or do you need to be reminded about your ex?”
“Don’t go there,” the operations director’s voice dropped to a low growl. She didn’t want to have that fiasco thrown in her face. She had thought about bringing her then-husband into the Arkana, but she waited seven years before opening the discussion. Just about the time she was ready to bring him in, he decided to clean out her bank account and head south of the border with a newer model.
“It was a good thing you waited to tell him,” Erik explained. “That’s all I’m saying.”
“Then you’ve said enough about it. Cassie isn’t like that.”
Erik sprang out of his chair and began to prowl around the office restlessly. “How do you know what she’s like? How do any of us know? That’s just my point. Because she’s an outsider, she’s a wild card.”
Maddie tapped her long fingernails on the desk pad. “She seems pretty level-headed to me. I think she’s stronger than even she knows, and you aren’t giving her enough credit.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Erik swung around to face her. “You didn’t spend days outside Sybil’s apartment listening to her little sister come unglued. The kid was crying all the time. What I saw…what I heard… was just a lost little girl looking for somebody to cling to because she was scared of the dark.”
“You think Faye made a mistake to trust her?” Maddie’s question was pointed. She was daring Erik to utter the unthinkable.
He looked profoundly uncomfortable and jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I trust Faye’s judgment. I always have. But this time I don’t know. Maybe she let her feelings get in the way. She felt sorry for a stray puppy and wanted to adopt it.”
“Sit down, you’re giving me a neck ache,” Maddie commanded irritably. “It’s not as simple as you make it sound. She isn’t just a stray puppy. She’s also the new pythia.”
Erik threw himself back into his chair and leaned forward. “Based on what? One psi episode? Maybe two?”
Maddie raised an eyebrow. “You think we should have a stricter testing protocol? Maybe tie her up, throw her in a lake, and see if she floats? I mean, what the hell, Erik? Can you even hear yourself?”
“She’s just a kid,” he insisted.
“A kid with special gifts. When Sybil started having visions, nobody asked whether she should be the pythia or not.”
Erik looked down at the floor. “Sybil was different.”
“How? How different could she be?” Maddie challenged. “She was Cassie’s sister for Pete’s sake!”
“She was one of us,” the young man said quietly. “We knew where her loyalties were because it took years for her to go through training. And now, we’re stuck with her baby sister who in two weeks goes from knowing zip about us to poking her nose into every corner of the operation.”
Maddie leaned back in her chair and folded her hands across her middle. “I thought you were the one who said she should be told about what Sybil was doing. Oh, don’t give me that look. I was sitting right next to you at Faye’s kitchen table when you said it.”
Erik began to kick his chair leg irritably. “Sure, she should have been told something, but I didn’t mean everybody should line up and take a number to spill the beans to her. This is insane! What’s the rush? Why is Faye pushing everybody to explain the Arkana to her in five minutes or less?”
The operations director broke eye contact for a moment. In a nearly inaudible voice, she admitted, “I don’t know. There’s something going on behind the scenes. I can feel it, but Faye isn’t talking. For now, we have to trust that she has her reasons for giving Cassie unlimited access to the Arkana.”
Erik snorted in disgust. “By the time you’re all done giving her the grand tour, she’ll know absolutely everything about the Arkana. And we don’t have a clue what she’s going to do with that information. It’s like handing a loaded gun to a two-year-old. What if she starts blabbing stuff to people outside?”
Maddie stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “And why would she do that?”
The young man shrugged, at a loss. “I don’t know. Maybe something sets her off, and she sours on the organization. She wants out because it’s harder than she thought it would be.”
The operations director was rapidly losing her temper. “You’re making an awful lot of assumptions about what she would or wouldn’t do!”
“And so are all of you!” Erik was nearly shouting now. “And don’t even get me started on what she’d be like out in the field. What a joke! I can just see her having a seizure the first time she picks up a tainted relic. And the one person who could have trained her on how to protect herself is dead.”
Maddie stood up, towering over Erik. She was out of patience and about to terminate the discussion. “Let’s just boil this down to what’s really bugging you. What’s the worst that can happen by letting Cassie in?”
The young man rose out of his chair and leaned over Maddie’s desk, staring her straight in the eye. “Someday… I don’t know when, but it won’t be long… that kid is going to bring the whole operation crashing down around our ears. And when that day comes, don’t expect me to say I told you so because there won’t be anybody left to tell. Maybe that’s what it will take for you to finally understand what I’m saying. She’s going
