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I decide on the respectful route. “Thank you for coming. I have many questions for you.”

“Like I had much of a choice,” she says wryly, still grinning at me. “Your people didn’t look like they would have taken no for an answer.”

“Yet you didn’t even try to say no,” I point out. “You came willingly, and I’m told that you were ready for us. You could have left before they got there.”

“True, true,” she replies, leaning back in my chair. “My companion star warned me that you were on my trail, and I could have disappeared, I suppose. But I figured I was busted and should face the music. It’s time.”

That gives me pause again. “What do you mean?”

“You know that I raised Andromeda and figured out that I’m Other. You know what Andromeda is, and if I don’t give you answers, you’ll have to find them from other sources, and you may find them too late to be useful. You have your meeting with Haynes tonight, after all.”

A creeping sensation runs up my spine. This is why I hate dealing with seers. “What do you know of Haynes?”

She clicks her tongue. “A boring question, Gautier. I know just about everything about everyone. Even you, young man.”

“I’m not a young man. I’m older than I look, as you know.”

Her grin sharpens. “As am I.”

A warning bell goes off in my mind. The older an Other is, the stronger they become. That fact is true universally. I thought she may be older than she appeared, but the way she said it . . . is she older than me? That’s almost impossible. Minds are not made to be immortal. After a time, the burden of living, of having seen everything before, is too much. With vampires, there comes a time when even the strongest of us walk into the sun, nothing tethering us to this world. It happened even with my maker, who made it to one thousand before his ennui grew to be too much. It’s why I’m one of the oldest vampires left. For a witch to be older than me . . . she would be extremely powerful. And probably more than a little insane.

“Who are you, Granny Jean? Really?” I ask, narrowing my brows.

“Now, that’s a more interesting question,” she says, a teasing, playful tone in her voice.

I tilt my head challengingly, “Then answer it.”

“I have been many people over the years,” she says, leaning forward. “Every age and place, with a different name. But, I suppose, the first name that I had was Cassandra.”

As she speaks, her eyes start to glow with white light, the wrinkles roiling on her skin until they are pulled taut, her skin becoming young and blemishless, her silver hair curling and writhing, darkening to black. Soon, in front of me is a young, beautiful woman, hair tumbling down her shoulders. Her clothing blurs and changes until they are reminiscent of ancient Greek robes, still in bright colors. Her headband wavers until it is a golden laurel leaf crown. She is a vision before me, but I am not easily impressed. I have seen many Others in my time with the ability to glamour themselves.

“Is this your true form?” I ask.

“This is as I was, when I was Cassandra. When I lived in Troy and belonged to Helen.”

My brows shoot up my forehead. “You are saying that you are that Cassandra? The one from the legend?” That should be impossible. Troy fell in 1180 B.C. She would be thousands of years old.

The young-seeming woman shrugs, eyes still shining. “It was not a legend to me, boy. It was my life. Before it all went wrong. Before I failed.”

“How did you fail?” I question. “And how are you still alive? Why were you fostering Andi if you are an ancient being?”

“Hold your horses,” she cackles, an old-sounding laugh from young-looking lips. “You ask too many questions at once. I would expect a vampire of your age to have at least learned a little patience.”

“Unfortunately, I do not have time to be patient. As you said, I have to face my enemy tonight, and I need to be prepared. I must know about sirens.”

Her beautiful face frowns. “I suppose you are right. You will be tested fiercely, as I was all those long years ago. If you are not to fail as I did, you need to be prepared.”

“You keep saying that you failed,” I push. “What do you mean?”

Cassandra closes her eyes for a moment, as if in pain, before opening them again. “It was so long ago, but I remember it as if it were yesterday. The day that I lost my love. You understand, don’t you, Gautier? The pain of loss and the sharpness that never goes away.”

I nod once, briefly thinking of my sister with a pang. The seer is right. It never quite goes away.

“They came for her in the night,” Cassandra says quietly. “There was no horse. That’s a silly addition of fiction over the ages. No, Odysseus, that bastard, had scoured Greece and captured a nameless siren of his own and drained her dry of power. He blocked my visions with it, and I was blind. I could not warn anyone. Then he used what was left of the power to bring down our great enchanted gate before we could even react. We were overrun. It was like something out of the darkest nightmare. Our people fell before the Greeks, and there was nowhere to run. Knowing what fate waited for her, Helen begged my brother to kill her. With agony in his heart, Paris did, even though it killed him to do so.”

“What fate?” I ask, leaning forward, intent on her tale. “What was worse than death?”

Cassandra scoffs. “You truly know nothing, vampire. Then, I suppose, it is not your fault. The hunters over the ages have made damn sure to obscure what they were doing, to paint the sirens as the monsters instead of themselves.”