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Smoke, skies, entrails. Lamia’s knowledge history begins and ends with the fall of Camelot but it doesn’t escape her attention that the same items in which ancient prophets used to see the future, Cassandra uses to predict dragon attacks.
“There are patterns. I just read them,” Cassandra explains, wearily. Cassandra is always tired now, but achingly careful to pretend otherwise in front of everyone else. “It’s not… lottery numbers.”
There are no such things as lotteries now.
(The civilians Cassandra dragged out of the ashes and into their small haven, they divide their lives neatly into a time Before and After dragons circled overhead. Lamia doesn’t bother: there have always been dragons, of different sorts, and there has always been someone else to plan, to direct, to point Lamia towards their enemies and trust that she will handle them.
She likes it that way.)
Lamia just nods, although she thinks that Cassandra would never be so crass as to rely on lottery numbers to take any amount of money she wants. There are more elegant solutions, and Cassandra’s churning mind has a direct line into the very fabric of the universe; the slightest nudge and she could bring kings and presidents to their knees – even if, even if wealth was her concern, Cassandra would have no need of grubby little bank accounts.
Anything she asks for, Lamia gets; which is why Cassandra is much more careful about asking now.
“You know when the dragons will attack,” Lamia reminds her. Cassandra knows everything, almost. Given time enough, she could map out every spin of every subatomic particle that ever existed, pare down all of human history and beyond in a string of variables.
And Lamia used to believe she understood what power was.
“I know math. I don’t see the future.” She retreats into her cloak, staring absently at the fireplace. “There’s a pattern behind them. I’m good at patterns.”
Privately, Lamia thinks that it’s close enough to prophecy for their purposes. One of the few things about people that someone like Cassandra, someone brave and bold and clever in a straightforward sort of way will never understand is that when you square it down to a cats-in-boxes, mice-in-foxholes level, the only future which really matters is whether or not you’ll live to see tomorrow.
She moves to throw some more wood on the fire but as she leans down, Cassandra reaches out to take her wrist, hold her in place.
“You don’t need to do that,” Cassandra says, and then she looks past Lamia. Instantly, the room fills with a thick, choking heat that dies down as suddenly as it had started. “I don’t need you to do that.”
Cassandra is only ever as cruel as she needs to be so Lamia relaxes into her touch, imagining that she can feel the pull of her magic like a compass which points due Cassandra.
“I know,” she says, finally.
“You aren’t scared.” Cassandra doesn’t add Not like Eve but it's impossible not to hear it.
They don’t talk about Eve, much. Cassandra is measured, careful, offering short pieces of information without context: When Eve and I were in Paris. We found the lamp at a yard sale.
Eve never was comfortable with magic.
Lamia likes magic, or at least the possibility of magic very much. Admittedly, she’s not so keen on the dragons but Lamia was a Serpent before she was ever Cassandra’s – she isn’t going to jump every time Cassandra summons a fireball. She isn't comfortable in the same way that people aren't comfortable in the eye of a hurricane, and she's not unafraid, but she knows that whatever Cassandra does, whatever she will do, it'll all be worthwhile. No matter what.
But that's not what Cassandra is asking, is it?
Cassandra isn’t the only one who can see patterns, after all: snakes, women, forbidden knowledge – and an Eve, too, hanging over their heads like a curse.
Lamia turns her hand, slowly, so that her palm rests flat against Cassandra's. "I will follow you anywhere," she says instead.
Cassandra's face is unreadable, empty and bright, and Lamia watches the firelight dance across the hollows of her cheekbones. Her skin, where their hands touch, burns electric-hot.
“My Guardian,” Cassandra says, and the moment stretches out between them; a promise Cassandra won’t mention but will hold Lamia to. She will die for Cassandra. Lamia has known that ever since Eve, ever since she felt the rush of wild magic pouring from Cassandra like so much floodwater, like a river bursting its banks—but Cassandra is still here, incredibly, improbably whole, and Lamia could be dead or dying but if Cassandra were to ask then she would get to her feet and fight, she would.
She reaches out to tangle her fingers around Cassandra’s. “My lady,” she whispers, and that will have to be enough.