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It had to be subzero out here, and if it hadn’t been for all the adrenaline pu to death—but a coat wasn’t es, the closest thing the supernatural community had to a police force, it was that they were always macho Even the women It was kind of scary

Sort of like dangling about a mile above a lot of very pointy mountains

“Your abilities will do you little good if you cannot learn to function under stress,” he continued calmly, as we slowly drifted closer to the pointy bits

“Stress?” I asked, htly “Pritkin, stress is a bad hair day Stress is gaining five pounds right before swimsuit season This is not stress!”

“Call it what you will; the point is the same Re; address—decide which of your abilities can best deal with the problem at hand; and then act—quickly and decisively Youup, and regardless of the circumstances Or you will suffer the consequences”

“I’!” I said resentfully It was barely two months since I’d been pushed off another cliff, and the fact that it had been a metaphorical one hadn’t helped at all I’d been declared—over my loud and sustained protests—Pythia, the chief seer of the supernatural world

It was a job that so to kill for, as I’d discovered the hard way For ive back the power that came with the office, only to find that it didn’t want to leave After a nuoing to have to make the best of it

As a result, I’d been workingtothe other candidates had received It would have helped if Rambo up there hadn’t dereed that I needed it, but one thing I didn’t kno to do at a tih

“Try harder,” Mr Complete Lack of Sympathy told me

“Look,” I said, trying to reason with him despite extensive experience that this rarely worked “This isn’t a great tiuration—”

“Coronation”

“—co to raise my abilities from pathetic to just sad before then so I don’t totally embarrassAnd then there’re fittings for the dress they want et a title wrong it could cause some kind of international incident—”

“I will make you a deal,?

?? he said, cutting me off

“What kind of deal?” I asked warily Wheeling and dealing was a va the other es ordered, threatened and bitched, depending on the circumstance They didn’t deal

Except for today, apparently

“We’re directly over an area used by the Corps as a training ground,” he told es “Stay ahead ofany abilities you like other than tiain for a week”

I didn’t say anything for athat cah tiht look the same to Pritkin, except that I moved from place to place instead of from era to era But they weren’t His boss at the Corps, Jonas Marsden, was the one training me in my newly acquired abilities and he’d told me so himself