Agnes

**Agnes Weathersby** — first appears in Touch the Dark

## Introduction

**Agnes** was the former Pythia prior to Cassandra Palmer. Her title as Pythia was Lady Phemonoe.

At the Start of the series, Agnes is the current Pythia. She is very old and has had to carry the power far longer than she should have done. Her health is failing, and her control along with it.

## About

### Books Appears or is Mentioned In

* Touch the Dark
* Claimed by Shadow
* Embrace the Night
* Tempt the Stars
* Ride the Storm

### Species

* Pythia
* Seer
* Human

### Powers & Abilities

* Pythia Powers
* Able to Shift through time or space
* Time Travel
* Can stop Time

### Occupation

* Pythia
* Police the Time Line, stop the Guild, be available to the Supe community.

### Trainees

* Myra: 20 years
* Elizabeth O'Donnell: 10 years

### Character / Personality

* Can and will turn on the crocodile tears to manipulate people to her way of thinking.
* Agnes likely cultivated her childish air so that people would underestimate her.
* “Agnes needed to be a bitch—she didn’t put up with people running roughshod over her.
* She often went out alone on Pythia jobs without the escort she was entitled to—Agnes felt they messed things up more than helped by shooting everything in sight.
* She liked to dance around like a ballerina.

### Physical Description

* Young Version: slender, short girl with long, dark hair rippling down her back almost to her knees, wearing a long, high-necked tea party gown circa 1880.
* 5 foot 2 inches, heart-shaped face, porcelain skin, with a little-girl air about her.

### Family, Friends, Allies

* Ally: John Pritkin
* Ally: Jonas Marsden

### Enemies

* Guild
* Myra

### Other Details

* Agnes knew what to change in the Time Line and what to leave alone.
* Agnes loaned her ward to my Heir (Elizabeth O'Donnell) for a training exercise right before she eloped with some loser. Naturally, she didn't bother to give it back first. (This is the ward that Cassie has on her back.)
* Trained Elizabeth O'Donnell, Cassie's mom for ten years, loved her like a daughter. And when she took up with Cassie's father, Agnes forbade it, telling herself that I was doing her a favor, he was a member of the vampire mafia.
* Agnes was the only of of the sybils of her generation would have been very happy not to have been picked.

## Biography

### Post-life Bio

For her bonus life, Agnes had found a young woman—nice German girl who was supposed to die in a rockfall. She had cut a deal with her to possess her body to extend her life—a shared life, two spirits sharing the same body. Every Pythia is rewarded at the end of her service with another life—a bonus life—for giving up to her calling.

At Carcassonne, Agnes had used too much energy helping Cassie by freezing time and jumping three hundred years—she couldn't go back. Though Cassie would have taken back, she couldn't stick around because there were too many hungry ghosts around Cassie who would have devoured her spirit. So, she went to inhabit Francoise. Before she could return to Cassie to hitch a ride, the Dark mages kidnapped Agnes to sell to the Fey. She has been there in Faerie for years—not the centuries that had passed in the mortal world.

## Saint Sebastian medallion

* Implicated in her murder: she held it when she died, arsenic was found in it—the poison that killed her.
* **Agnes** extremely careful about poisons—almost paranoid
* superstitious with age—bought various questionable remedies: knife that turn green over poisoned food, an glass that exploded if filled with a poison, a goblet with a bezoar.

## Related Characters, Groups, Objects, Places, etc

* Pythia
* Cassandra Palmer
* Jonas Marsden
* Myra
* Guild
* Silver Circle
* John Pritkin
* Time Travel
* Time Line
* Pythia Court
* Saint Sebastian medallion
* Carcassonne
* Convocation
* Augusta

## Events in the Series

*This section may have **spoilers**. If you want to avoid spoilers, think of the book title as a "Spoiler Warning". The purpose of this section is to find things in the series. Please use book references and use this section of spoiler you have to add.*

### 1. Touch the Dark

Agnes appears at Carcassonne in 1661 and stops time just in time before Myra's dagger was millimeter away from stabbing Cassie. She and Cassie chat... Agnes was the one who left that message on her computer to get her out of her office to save her life from Rasputin's vampires. She talks about her two apprentices: Elizabeth O'Donnell (Cassie's mother) and Myra. She tried to stop Lizzy from taking up with Cassie's father—she forbade it. She didn't go after her, and that vampire boss had her killed to get to Cassie. Agnes turns on the fake tears, Cassie just folds her arms and Agnes relents. Cassie refuses the Power, but Agnes says she has no choice and not wanting the job is a sign of sanity. Agnes kisses Cassie on the cheek—the Power slams into her like a mack truck. Agnes vanishes and Time restarts. Then Myra stabs Cassie in the foot.

### 2. Claimed by Shadow

It was discovered that Agnes had been murdered by poison and they believe it was Myra, the other Heir. Pritkin asks Cassie to help him get myra from Faerie. He tries to force Cassie to touch Agnes' locket to perceive any information from hie—the locket had contained the arsenic which killed her. Cassie suggested that the Circle could have killed her—maybe she opposed them too many times. Kit Marlowe tells Cassie about the historical background of a Saint Sebastian medallion—used as a ward against the Black Plague—and the possible ways that arsenic is used to poison someone.

In Faerie, Cassie finds that Francoise is possessed by Agnes. Agnes tells her how both she and Francoise got there to Faerie. Right after Agnes aided her at Carcassonne, she was too weakened to get back to her own time. She found to closest person still close to death to bargain for shared passage—Francoise. Right after that, Françoise with Agnes residing inside her, was abducted by Dark Mages and sold to the Light Fey. She escaped her noble owner and his jealous wife to the Dark Fey where she's been as a slave until Cassie came along. She and Françoise have been there for years, not the centuries that passed in the mortal world. Agnes/Fran darts into the Portal to return to mortal time.

### 6. Tempt the Stars

Cassie recalls how Agnes saved her life by warning her that I was about to be assassinated—how she wasn't supposed to do that.

## Quotes

"I'm afraid. In fact, it is quite possible that this little trip will do me in." — Agnes
"I can't train you properly because I don't have time, but quite obviously the power can't be allowed to go to Myra. She's either in this voluntarily, or she was coerced. If the former, she's evil; if the latter, she's weak. Either way, she's out of the running." — Agnes
"Perfect. Then at least I move on knowing you aren't insane." She stopped her little ballerina impression so abruptly that her skirts swirled about her legs. "I didn't want it, either, you know. I alone among the sybils of my generation would have been very happy not to have been picked. It is a great honor, but it's a heavy burden, too. Plus, you have to put up with the Silver Circle and, believe me, that's no one's idea of fun." — Agnes to Cassie
"For what it's worth, Cassie, I'm sorry. There hasn't been a Pythia since the first one that has had to take on the job completely untrained. But then, with your abilities, you're likely to rewrite the rule book anyway. For example, did you know that you're currently inhabiting the same time twice? Your spirit is struggling along with that girl you rescued, through the streets outside, while you're in here talking to me. I can't do that. Plus, most of our adepts take years to learn what you've managed to teach yourself in only a few days. Really, taking another spirit along with you! That's impressive."
“Agnes was a bitch, okay? But she needed to be a bitch. Because the people around her were all these big personalities with all this power and given half a chance they’d run roughshod over her. And she knew it. So she didn’t put up with that. Not at any time, not for any reason, not from any of them! And as a result, they respected her. As a result, they were afraid of her, not the other way around.”
## Note

Q&A, #43, question 4. **Why did Agnes decide to transfer the power to Cassie? I assume at some point she found out Myra was evil, knew she herself was dying, and decided to transfer the power to a better candidate. But why, specifically, did she choose Cassie? As she wasn’t even an initiate, how did she know about her**?
**Answer**: The power chooses the pythia. Agnes received a vision about Cassie, which is how she knew who she was and that she was in trouble. But she didn’t transfer the power so much as make sure that Cassie was still around to receive what was already headed her way.

* Source for Images and Into: Author's Gallery. — The Artist is not credited or I would name the artist.

## See Also

* Time Travel Log
* Pythia Court

## Book References

1. ↑ *Touch the Dark*, ch. 11
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 *Touch the Dark*, ch. 14
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 *Claimed by Shadow*, ch. 5
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 *Embrace the Night*, ch. 1 Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; name "CP3ch1" defined multiple times with different content
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 *Tempt the Stars*, ch. 3, p. 41
6. ↑ *Tempt the Stars*, ch. 6, p. 69
7. ↑ *Embrace the Night*, ch. 14
8. ↑ *Tempt the Stars*, ch. 4, p. 44
9. ↑ *Claimed by Shadow*, ch. 10
10. ↑ *Claimed by Shadow*, ch. 13
11. ↑ *Tempt the Stars*, ch. 4, p. 44
12. ↑ *Touch the Dark*, ch. 14

## External Links

**Specific Links**

**General Links**:

* Take A Chance: Gallery
* Cassandra Palmer series - Urban Fantasy Wiki
* Cassandra Palmer Series ~ Shelfari
* The Cassandra Palmer series - Wikipedia