“Why don’t you ask me yourself?” Cassie snapped. “I’m sitting right here.”
“Well, did you?” the blond man demanded.
“No, as a matter of fact, I didn’t. I’m still in training,” the pythia said primly.
“That’ll take a couple of years,” Erik muttered under his breath.
“Am I missing something here?” Griffin interjected hesitantly.
“I think these two are going through a period of adjustment,” Faye said mildly. “That’s all.”
Out of respect for Faye, neither one of them contradicted her. They just seethed in silence.
Ignoring the tension, Faye sliced a piece of nut loaf and handed it to Cassie, thereby redirecting the pythia’s attention.
“I’m sure you’re wondering why I called the three of you together,” she began.
“I am now,” Erik commented sotto voce.
“I should think it would be obvious, given the outcome of last night’s meeting.” The old woman glanced around the table.
The three visitors looked back at her blankly.
She smiled briefly. “Apparently not as obvious to you three as it is to me.” She took a deep breath. “My dears, I have chosen you to be the team which will retrieve the Bones of the Mother.”
They all sat thunderstruck. If she had just announced that she intended to take up a career as a professional wrestler, the trio couldn’t have been more shocked.
“I beg your pardon,” Griffin said, probably thinking he had misheard her.
“What?” Erik asked flatly.
“Huh?” was Cassie’s eloquent contribution.
Faye seemed to be enjoying their consternation. She laughed. “Oh my, this isn’t going to be easy, is it? Yes, you all heard me correctly. I don’t see why any of you should be surprised. All of you have unique skills that will prove invaluable in recovering these artifacts.”
The three of them started babbling at once, protesting their unfitness for the job. No single voice could be heard above the general rumble of discontent. Faye let them complain for a few minutes and then raised her hand for silence. “I think we might make better progress if each of you spoke in turn. Griffin, dear, why don’t you start?”
It took the scrivener several seconds to catch his breath and assemble his thoughts. He sounded panic-stricken. “Faye, surely you can’t be serious. I’ve never gone on a field mission in my entire life. My skills, as you call them, are of the bookish variety.”
“Exactly,” she concurred. “My dear, you carry an encyclopedia in your head. It’s very impressive.”
“At cocktail parties, possibly,” he admitted. “But I hardly think it will be useful out in the middle of nowhere.”
“Don’t you?” she asked gently. “On the contrary, that’s precisely where your knowledge would prove to be the most useful. This mission won’t allow the luxury of a portable library or a reliable internet connection. Thinking quickly on one’s feet is what will be required.”
“But what about the central catalog? I am its director, after all.”
“And you have a very capable staff who can fill in until you return,” the old woman suggested helpfully.
He didn’t appear convinced but was at a loss to come up with any further objections.
“And what about you, Cassie?” the old woman focused her attention on the pythia. “What is your principal concern about making the journey?”
“Me?” Cassie asked in astonishment. “I only signed on less than a month ago, and now you want to send me overseas? Even army recruits get more time in boot camp than that!”
“I never thought I’d say this,” Erik admitted ruefully. “But the kid is right.”
“I’m not a kid!” Cassie rounded on him.
“Yeah, you’re a veteran.” The blond man rolled his eyes and folded his arms across his chest.
Cassie turned her attention back to Faye. “Besides, I don’t know what help I could be. You’re expecting to find a code chiseled into stone somewhere, right? It doesn’t take a pythia to decrypt that. Griffin should be able to crack the code with no problem. He’s incredibly smart.”
“Please stop helping me, I beg you,” Griffin protested weakly.
“To tell the truth, we can’t be sure what you’ll encounter when you get to Crete,” Faye countered. “It may very well be that the skills of a pythia are exactly what is needed.”
“You really think she’s up to it?” Erik looked at Faye curiously.
“I’ve seen her telemetric abilities firsthand. I can assure you; she’s quite adept.”
“Huh, go figure.” Erik seemed genuinely amazed at Faye’s glowing endorsement of Cassie.
“I hope the shock of knowing I’m competent doesn’t kill you,” Cassie commented acidly.
“It just might,” the blond man said with an impudent smirk.
Cassie was about to go at him again, but Faye preempted her. “Erik, dear, what possible objection can you have for going on this expedition? After all, you love field work, and you’ve had plenty of experience.”
Erik let out a long sigh. “It’s not me I’m worried about. It’s these two.” He jerked his head in the direction of his companions. “I know what I’m doing, and I can handle whatever gets thrown at me. But I’d have to watch out for them every step of the way. It would be like letting toddlers loose in a mine field.” He shrugged. “I know I’m only the security guy, and I can’t actually find the artifacts. But I can think of five people in the Arkana right off the top of my head who could, and it isn’t these two. You should listen to them, Faye. They’re both telling you they’re not up to it.”
“Now just a minute, old man,” Griffin protested. Apparently, it was one thing to downplay his own experience but to hear Erik’s dismissive opinion was too much of an insult.
“You know what?” Cassie shot back at the blond man. “I’m suddenly feeling really up to it. If I don’t do anything other than make your life miserable for a couple of weeks, then I’ll die happy.”
“‘Die’ being the operative word,” Erik retorted.
Faye shook her head and laughed. “So much sound and fury signifying nothing. Please try to trust my judgment, my dears. I wish you could see yourselves as I
