Jonas frowned. “Then why haven’t I heard of this before, if it’s so common?”
“I didn’t say it was common,” I said, taking an armful of my clothes back where they belonged. “It isn’t.”
“And why not, if it’s so useful?”
“Because a master vampire is accountable for his family members, whether claimed or Changed. Their actions reflect on him, and he’s answerable for them to the Senate. But someone who has been claimed doesn’t have the blood tie to him that ensures obedience, giving him a lot less control over that person’s actions.”
“But senior-level masters within a family can also challenge their sire, can they not?” Jonas asked, surprising me.
I turned from hanging the stuff back up. It had been quick, since my old governess had always insisted that the hangers all go the same way, and I’d never gotten out of the habit. “Yes. Which is why a lot of senior vampires are emancipated by their masters. Most of them, in fact.”
“Except in Lord Mircea’s case,” Jonas said darkly. “There seem to be quite a few upper-level masters in his service. In fact, I have yet to meet a low-level one!”
“The low-level ones wouldn’t be much use here,” I pointed out. “And Mircea is a senator. He needs more senior vamps to help with his work. But he’s the exception, not the rule. Most masters cut loose anyone strong enough to challenge them, just like they think twice before putting a claim on someone.”
Jonas sat a while, absorbing that, while I tidied up the rest of Niall’s mess. “If I understand you correctly,” he finally said, “the vampires consider you Lord Mircea’s servant, almost his property.”
There was no “almost” about it, I didn’t say, because he looked ruffled enough. “In a sense,” I said, knowing where this was going.
“And property is expected to work for the good of its owner, is it not?”
“Yes.”
“Then they believe they’ll control the office of Pythia!” he said, as if he’d suspected this all along.
I shrugged. “Probably.”
“And this doesn’t concern you?” he demanded, as outraged as if he weren’t planning to do the same thing himself.
“Jonas, I’m expected to work for the good of the family. Not the Senate.”
“And you really think they’re going to make that distinction? You think that Lord Mircea will make it?”
“I’ll make it.”
“And you believe you can divide your loyalties so easily?”
“Why not?” I asked, suddenly angry. “Every Pythia has had a family, hasn’t she?”
Jonas looked taken aback for a moment. “Well, yes. But this is hardly the same—”
“It’s exactly the same!” I thought of the vamp who’d had half his leg taken off last night. It would eventually grow back, but others hadn’t been so fortunate. One of Mircea’s older masters, a vampire named Nicu, had died protecting me barely a month ago, and Marco nearly had, too.
If that wasn’t family, I didn’t know what was.
“They’re my family,” I repeated flatly. “And I’ll treat them as such. But it doesn’t mean that I’m going to be the Senate’s happy little puppet.” Or the Circle’s.
Jonas looked far from satisfied. “That’s easy to say, but I think you may have more of a struggle establishing your independence from the Senate than you seem to think. But, in any case, we’re talking about appearances, not esoteric facets of vampire law. And the fact is that you . . . belonging . . . to a vampire, however you define it, is not going to sit well with the supernatural community as a whole.”
“So what do you expect me to do about it?” I demanded.
“I’m not saying don’t date the man, Cassie—”
“Then what are you saying?”
“Merely that it would be helpful if you were seen to be dating others, as well. A Were, perhaps, or a mage. It would make it far easier to sell the idea that your private life has little to do with your decisions.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t really know any—”
“I could send you some.”
I blinked. “Some what?”
“Some . . . suitors . . . if you will.”
“You could send me some suitors,” I repeated slowly, while outside, it sounded like someone was choking to death.
“You wouldn’t have to date any that you didn’t like, of course,” Jonas said, without the faintest hint of irony. “I could send a selection, and you could choose one.”
I had a sudden, crazy image of recruitment posters plastered on the walls at war mage central: BOYFRIEND WANTED. HAZARDOUS-DUTY PAY. Only it really wasn’t funny. Because I could see Jonas deciding that that was a perfectly reasonable way to proceed.
“Or you could choose two,” he said, warming to the idea. “A mage and a Were. Covering all the bases, so to speak.”
“How about half a dozen?” I asked sarcastically, only to have him blink.
“Oh, no. That might get you a bit of a reputation, as it were.”
“And we wouldn’t want that.”
There was some sort of commotion going on outside, and I decided I’d had enough. I went to the door and stuck my head out. Marco was gasping for breath on the sofa, and two of the other guards were bent over a cell phone.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“Trying to record this,” the smart-ass from the shopping trip told me. “Nobody is going to believe us otherwise.”
“Well, cut it out. It isn’t funny!”
“On what planet?”
I glared at him, which did no good, because he simply went back to tinkering with the phone. So I looked at Marco. “Can’t you do anything with them?”
Marco flopped a hand at me, tears streaming down his reddened cheeks, and tried to say something. But all that came out for several moments were asthmatic wheezes. I bent over his prone form, starting to worry about him, and he put a hand on my neck and pulled me down.
“It . . . is . . . funny,” he gasped.
I stood back up and smacked him on his rocklike shoulder. “Bastard.”
Jonas was coming out of the lounge when I turned around, dragging Niall by the arm. “Now, now,” he told the younger mage. “Don’t fuss.”
“We have ten days, Jonas,” he said. “When I frankly doubt that ten months would be enough! She looks about twelve, except for the, uh . . .” he gestured up and down at my offensive curves. “Her clothes are wrong, her makeup is wrong—”
“Those are bruises!” I told him indignantly.
“And her hair is . . .” He bent closer, squinting at it in the lights. “Why is your hair green?”
“It’s a fashion statement.”
“It’s hideous. And even if it weren’t . . . tinted . . . or whatever you did to it, it still wouldn’t do. We haven’t had a blond Pythia before; it’s simply not what people expect to see. And, frankly, it doesn’t suit you.”
“It’s my natural color!”
“Then it’s naturally hideous. And this”—he tugged at my curls—“will have to go.”
“If you touch me one more time—” I said softly.
“I’ll make you an appointment with a hairdresser who understands that we need suave. We need sophisticated. We need—well, someone else, obviously, but—”
“Niall. I really think that will do for today,” Jonas said, watching my face.
“And what is this?” He took the fine, starched handkerchief out of his pocket and used it to fish Pritkin’s amulet from my shirt. “And if all that weren’t enough, she smells!”
“Let it go,” I told him, my voice low and even.
“I’ll let it go,” he told me grimly, ripping it off my neck. “Straight into the nearest trash bin, along with whatever other hippie-dippie nonsense you—”
“Oh, dear,” Jonas said.
I blinked, staring at the spot where the officious mage had just been. Because he wasn’t there any longer. “Damn,” one of the vamps said.
&n
bsp; “What happened?” I asked, feeling myself start to panic. Because the mage wasn’t anywhere in sight.
“Well, on the bright side, we weren’t scheduled to cover that for another month,” Jonas said. “We’re making fine progress, it would seem.”
“Jonas! What happened?”
“Hm? Oh, well, as you know, you can move through space as well as time. What you haven’t yet learned is that you can move other things, too. And people.”
“But . . . but where did I move him to?”
He blinked at me owlishly from behind his thick glasses. “I haven’t the faintest. Can you see him?”
“Can I—” I broke off, because suddenly I could. A furious little mage in the middle of a great, big desert, a black snake of a highway a few hundred yards off. And nothing else but dirt and scrub for what looked like miles.
“I think he’s in a desert.”
“Would you happen to know which one?”
“I . . . no. There’s a road, but—”
“Oh, well. That’s all right, then.” He patted my arm.
“Jonas! How do I get him back?”
“Yes, well, we’ll get to that, of course. But for right now”—his glasses gleamed—“it might be as well to leave him be. Agnes had to do that a time or two, as I recall, to his predecessor. It’s no end of use in teaching them manners, you know.”
He tucked my arm in his and we walked to the door, my head still spinning. “By the way, you haven’t had any visions about a wolf, have you? Or a large dog?”
“You mean a Were?”
“No, no. I don’t think so. Of course, it could be, but that would be a little too easy, wouldn’t it?”
“I’m . . . I’m not really sure what you—”
He took my hand and bent over it with old-fashioned courtesy. “If you do see anything like that, anything at all, you will let me know, won’t you?”
“I—Yes. Of course.”
He looked up and those vague blue eyes were suddenly anything but, and the expression on that usually jovial face was almost scary. “Right away, Cassie.”
I nodded, a little freaked-out, and suddenly he was all smiles again. “Enjoy your date,” he told me, and left.
Marco closed the door and we stood there, staring at each other. “Mages,” he said in disgust. “They get weirder every year.”
And I couldn’t really argue with that one.
Chapter Eight
“You are sure you’re ready?” Mircea asked me.
It was seven hours later and several decades earlier, and I wasn’t sure of a damn thing. My hands were sweaty and my stomach hurt and I was starting to rethink my dress choice for the evening. I’d already rethought it once, going with the red silk, which had seemed chic and sophisticated in the shop. But now I thought the top might be a little low, and I hadn’t had time to have it altered, so it was too tight in some places and too loose in others, and I wasn’t sure that the color looked that great with my hair, especially since I hadn’t gotten all the green out yet, and—
“I’m fine,” I said tightly.
Mircea gave me a look that said I wasn’t fooling anyone. But he pressed the doorbell nonetheless. And at least he looked like he belonged here.
His dark hair was sleek and shining, confined in a discreet clip at his nape. His black tuxedo fit his broad shoulders like a glove, the material soft and sheened as only truly fine wool can be. He’d paired it with a crisp white Frenchcuff shirt with small gold links that glinted under the lights. They were carved with the emblem of a royal house, although he hardly needed them. Nobody was ever going to mistake him for anything but what he was.
Apparently the butler agreed, because despite not having an invitation, we were ushered straight into the party taking up most of the ground floor of a swanky London mansion. There were a lot of gleaming hardwood and glittering chandeliers and softly draped fabrics and fine carpets, and I barely noticed any of them. Because across the main salon was a small, dark-haired woman in red. And by her side was . . .
“She is beautiful,” Mircea said, snagging us champagne from a passing tray.
I didn’t say anything. I clutched the flute he handed me, feeling a strange sense of detachment. I could feel the cool crystal under my fingertips, taste the subtle bite of the alcohol, but it seemed distant, unreal, like the people crowding all around us. I heard the soft sounds of their laughter and the conversation that swelled and ebbed, like the notes someone was playing on a distant piano. But none of it mattered.
Not compared to the tall girl in the bad eighties ball gown, standing by the side of the former Pythia.
Her dress was electric blue satin with big, puffy sleeves and a peplum. There was a lace overlay on the top and little jeweled buttons down the front. Her shoes were dyed to match. It was absolutely awful, like something a bridezilla would stick on a too-pretty bridesmaid. Yet somehow she carried it off. The blue matched the color of her eyes and complemented her dark hair and pale skin. And when she laughed, you forgot all about the dress, didn’t even see it.
Because you couldn’t take your eyes off her face.
An arm slipped around my waist. “Dulceață, I do not think you want to get so close.”
I suddenly realized that I was halfway across the room, although I couldn’t remember moving. Mircea pulled me off to one side, near a row of floor-length windows that looked out into the night. The one in front of us was as good as a mirror, allowing me to stare at the girl’s reflection without being so obvious.
Mircea is right, I thought blankly. She was beautiful. And delicate and fragile and poised.
She looked nothing at all like me.
“I don’t agree,” he murmured. A warm finger trailed down my cheekbone, tracing the track of a tear I couldn’t remember shedding. “There’s a similarity in the bone structure, in the shape of the eyes, the contour of the lips. . . .”
“I don’t see it,” I said harshly, gulping champagne and wondering why I was suddenly, blindingly angry.
“You said you were prepared for this,” he said, pulling me against him.
His chest was hard at my back, but his arms were gentle. I felt myself relax into his embrace, even knowing what he was doing. All vampires could manipulate human emotions to a degree, but Mircea could practically play me like a violin. It was a combination of natural talent and more knowledge of what made me tick than I probably had. But for once, I didn’t care. I clutched the familiar feeling of warmth and comfort around me like a blanket and told myself to stop being an idiot.
I didn’t know why I was reacting this way. I’d known in advance what she looked like. I’d seen a photo of her once, a faded, grainy thing taken at a distance. But it had been clear enough to show me the truth.
I didn’t resemble my mother in the slightest.
“I’m fine,” I told him, my throat tight, only to feel him sigh against my back.
“You are not fine, dulceață. You are feeling anger, loss, betrayal—”
“I don’t have any reason to feel betrayed.”
“She abandoned you when you were a child—”
“She died, Mircea!”
“Yes, but the fact remains that she left. And hurt you in the process.”
“I wasn’t hurt. I was barely four.”
“You were hurt,” he insisted. “But you do not deal with such emotions, Cassie. You ignore them.”
“That isn’t true!”
“That has always been true. It is one of the defining aspects of your character.”
I scowled at his reflection in the window, but if he saw, he didn’t react. He took the empty champagne glass from my hand and sat it on a nearby table. Then his arms folded around me again, trapping me, although it didn’t feel that way. I didn’t want to talk about this. But suddenly I didn’t want to move, either.
“Do you recall when I visited Antonio’s court when you were a child?” he asked.
“Of course.” He’d been there for a year, fro
m the time I was eleven until I was almost twelve. It had been a lengthy visit, even by vampire standards. At the time, I hadn’t thought much of it; Tony often had visitors, and it had made sense to me that his master would eventually be one of them. It was only later that I found out Mircea had an ulterior motive.
He’d discovered that the little clairvoyant Tony had at court was the daughter of the former heir to the Pythian throne. My mother had run away from her position and her responsibilities to marry a dark mage in Tony’s service. That effectively barred her from any chance of succeeding, but made no difference as far as my own odds were concerned.
“You hoped I’d become Pythia one day.”
Mircea didn’t bother to deny it. He was a vampire. Utilizing whatever resources were available within the family was considered a virtue in their culture, and a possible Pythia was a hell of a resource. “Yes, but you were also interesting in your own right.”
I snorted. “I was eleven. No eleven-year-old is interesting.”
“Most eleven-year-olds do not wander about talking with ghosts,” he said wryly. “Or pipe up at the dining table to casually mention that one of the guests is an assassin—”
“I think Tony would have had heart failure,” I said, remembering his face. “You know, if he had a heart.”
“—or lead me to a cache of Civil War jewelry hidden in a wall that no one else knew about.”
“The guy who put it there did.”
“My point is that you were a fascinating child, not least of which for the way you dealt with pain. Or, more accurately, the way you avoided dealing with it.”
“I deal with it fine.”
Mircea didn’t comment, but a hand covered the fist I’d bunched at my waist, finger pads resting on sharp knuckles. “I had been there perhaps a month,” he said softly, “when I chanced to be passing your room. It was late and you were supposed to be asleep, but I heard you cry out. I went in to find you sitting in bed, your arms wrapped around your knees, staring at the wall. Do you recall what you told me when I asked what was wrong?”