“—but you don’t have to tell me a damn thing in return. Not about Saunders, not about your girlfriend, not even about
my father
!”
That made him pause, if only for a second.“We have yet to confirm the rumors about your father,” he told me more quietly. “I did not wish to upset you needlessly. We had no way of knowing that Saunders intended to spread them before half the world!” His forehead wrinkled. “And what girlfriend?”
I ignored him, so angry I was almost shaking. “Upset me? What am I, five years old? I’m Pythia, Mircea!”
“I have never questioned—”
“You question it all the time! Everyone does! The Senate is as bad as the Circle. They both want the Pythia’s power but not what goes with it. They don’t want someone who might make them do things they don’t like or overrule them when they’re being stupid. They want a dumb blonde who is going to do what she’s told and stay locked away under a metric ton of guards the rest of the time!”
“For your protection, Cassandra! Or have you somehow failed to notice how many people wish you harm?”
“About the same number who are trying to assassinate the Consul, but she’s not in hiding! Because she knows it isn’t always possible to stay safe and get the job done!”
“Nor is it possible if you are dead! Do you have any idea how many plots against your life we have thwarted in the past month?”
“No! I don’t know anything! That’s my point! I need information to do my job—all of it, not whatever you think I can—”
“The Lord Protector and court,” one of the masters intoned from the top of the stairs. I looked up to find a large party of mages staring at the destruction, trying not to let it show that the circle of gold-eyed vampires creeped them out.
Marlowe and Marsden were having a low-voiced conversation in the foyer. I couldn’t hear them, but I assumed Marlowe was trying to persuade him to postpone his challenge. From the defiant jut of the old man’s chin, it didn’t look like he was having much luck.
A portly, balding man in an ill-fitting blue suit caught sight of us and stepped forward. “Miss Palmer, I assume?”
Pritkin just stood there for a moment before slowly stepping forward. “And you’re Reginald Saunders.”
I was grateful for the hint, because I never would have picked the guy out in a lineup. He looked more like a middle-management flunky than the leader of the most powerful magical association on Earth. But then, I didn’t look much like a Pythia, either.
“Indeed.” He held out a hand, but Pritkin made no move to take it. It was rude, but since we were about to get a lot ruder, I didn’t guess it mattered. “I’ve been looking forward to this meeting.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t send another lieutenant in your place.”
“Some things, it seems, it is best to do for oneself,” he said mildly. Then the hand he still held out made an odd gesture. And Pritkin sailed off his feet, flew backward out the missing window and disappeared into the night sky.
I stared in disbelief at the spot where he’d just been for half a second and then I was scrambling across cowhide, running for the balcony. I hung over the railing, praying to see a shield bubble somewhere below, but there was nothing. The lights of the hotel extended only so far, and beyond them was only blackness.
I looked up to find Mircea beside me, scanning the darkness. His eyes were better than mine, but judging by the way the metal railing was squeezing up through his fingers like butter, he didn’t see anything either. “Tell me he could manipulate your magic,” he said, his voice expressionless.
“Normally, yes,” I said breathlessly. “But we were attacked before we got here! He’s pretty drained, and I don’t know if—”
I didn’t get the chance to finish the sentence. Mircea launched himself at Saunders, the crackle of his energy hitting the mage’s shields like an out-of-control forest fire. It set the remains of the furniture alight, turning the center of the room into a bonfire, and threatened to scorch my skin even this far away. But Saunders acted like he couldn’t even feel it.
“You have a reputation for sagacity, Lord Mircea,” the man snapped. “Use it! The girl is dead. Even now, the power is passing to another Pythia—one I will control! The game is over.”
Mircea didn’t bother to respond, but someone else did. “Reginald! You worthless, spineless, murdering bastard! You couldn’t control a TV with a remote! As a member of the Great Council, I challenge your right to lead the Circle!” Marsden came striding down the stairs, his mane of silver hair crackling with static.
Saunders ignored him. “Don’t be a fool, Mircea! Did you think you were the only one to make preparations for this meeting? I have more than two hundred mages surrounding this building. It is time to renegotiate!”
“Renegotiate this!” The voice came from behind me. I turned, seeing nothing but darkness, until I looked down. The huge sailing ship hung suspended in midair, its prow dipping and rising, its rigging creaking lightly—and Pritkin hanging over the side. He threw a spell at Saunders that sent him slamming back against the wall, shields and all.
I don’t think it hurt him, but the look on his face was priceless. For about a second, until his phalanx of bodyguards closed in, cutting off the view. Mircea’s vampires moved to intercept them, and just that fast, things went to hell.
I helped Pritkin back over the railing while the ship just hung there, riding invisible currents. He must have ripped open the ley line to save himself, and fallen onto the ship. Like the Chinese barge, it appeared to be capable of levitating in real space in order to reach and descend from ley lines.
I looked back at the apartment to see Marsden calmly walking through the fray, spewing curses left and right, each of which landed like a hammer blow on Saunders’ mages. I was beginning to wonder if Pritkin might not have underestimated him. Certainly none of the mages seemed all that eager to fight him.
One guy tried to hide behind a buddy, who shoved him away and scampered out of the line of fire. The first guy stared at Marsden, who smiled gently back right before hitting him with a curse so strong it knocked him clear through the remaining balcony doors. He flew past us, sailed over the railing and landed on the deck of the ship. Only to be kicked off by a vampire in an old-fashioned captain’s outfit.
Once he’d cleaned off his deck, the captain barked an order and the ship started moving away, out of the line of fire. I didn’t blame him. Spell after spell was flying out of the apartment, exploding in the air like fireworks.
I ducked to avoid sparks from a near miss, and Pritkin grabbed my arm. “You have to get out of here!”
“Me? What about you? You’re in my body!”
“I’ll be fine!”
“Yes, you will. Because you won’t be here,” Mircea said, suddenly appearing beside us. His hair had come loose and one of the ends was smoking slightly. I pinched the flame out between my fingers, but considering the conflagration going on behind us, that didn’t make me feel any better.
Pritkin apparently had the same thought. “You’re outnumbered! You need the help!”
“And how much help do you think you would be in your condition?” Mircea demanded, motioning the ship back toward us.
“More than you, vampire! The place is going up like an inferno!”
“That is my concern. Yours is to get her to safety and switch back as soon as—”
I never heard the rest of the sentence, because a spell slammed into me, picking me up and hurling me into the void. It happened so fast, I barely realized what was going on until I was falling. The side of the building flashed by all of three feet away, the windows blurring together into a continual black line, the pavement rushing up at me at a ridiculous pace. And then something snatched me, almost cutting me in two.
I looked up to see the sailing ship above me, the prow dipped low and Mircea hanging off the end of the wooden figurehead. His fist was knotted in my waistband, which explained why I couldn’t breathe. Considering the alternative, I really didn’t mind so much.
Even so, I was surprised his reflexes had been good enough to catch me. He looked kind of shocked himself. For a second, the reserved demeanor cracked open on something wild and fierce and compelling. Then he dragged me up, put a hand on either side of my face and kissed me full on the lips. From somewhere above, I heard Pritkin swear.
“I guess that whole blackmail thing didn’t exactly work out like you planned, huh?” I gasped when Mircea released me.
“Saunders will die for this,” he hissed, staring back up at the balcony.
“That might be kind of tricky,” I pointed out as a swarm of mages burst out of the ley line and fell onto the deck behind us. It looked like Saunders hadn’t been kidding; the vampires hadn’t been the only ones making plans for this meeting.
Of course, plans don’t always work out.The mages seemed to have assumed the ship would be level, because half of them slid down the rough planks before grasping some kind of handhold, and the other half went plummeting over the side. I stared after them for a second as a dozen little shield chutes bloomed against the night sky. Then Mircea dragged me against his side, vaulted over the railing and jumped—straight after them.
We didn’t end up plummeting to our deaths but onto the surface of the yacht, which had quietly come around underneath. I grasped the railing, my heart still stuck on terror, but Mircea pried me off and we ran. The mages who had kept their balance followed us, and there seemed to be an awful lot of them.
“I can’t believe they’re trying this with the consuls here,” I panted as we dodged deck chairs and little folding tables.
“The consuls aren’t here. That’s why I went to Washington State, to my court. I had to welcome them. They’re there now, with the Senate.”
“Something else you didn’t mention!”
He grabbed me around the waist and tossed me over the side. I got a brief, dizzying view of the dark parking lot below before I was caught by a waiting vampire on the Chinese consul’s barge. Mircea jumped the distance behind me, and as soon as we were aboard, it took off—only to be hit with a spell that shuddered it to a halt.
I looked behind us to see a dozen or more mages manipulating the biggest net spell I’d ever seen. It had enveloped the dragon’s tail on the stern of the barge and was slowly drawing us back alongside the other ship.
“I couldn’t very well tell you anything without being overheard,” Mircea said, staring around.
“By whom?” I demanded. “The only people in the apartment were family!”
“Exactly.” His neck craned upwards as he caught sight of something. I followed his gaze to see what looked like a wall of wood descending on us. It took me a moment to realize that it was the sailing ship’s deck. The massive schooner had flipped upside down.
Mircea held me up and a vampire reached down and grabbed me by both arms, his legs enmeshed tightly in the rigging. Mircea jumped up beside him. “You don’t trust your own family?” I gasped, holding on for dear life.
“I don’t trust one of them. Someone tried to kill the Consul, if you recall.”
“But you said you knew who that was!”
He shook his head. “The Bentley was serviced the day before MAGIC was destroyed, and the bomb would surely have been noticed at that time. So it was planted later, after the man to whom you’re referring was already dead.”
“Then why did you say—”
“To make the guilty party feel secure. Kit narrowed it down to eight suspects, five of whom belong to me. I had them transferred here as soon as I received his report and borrowed the consular ships to make it look like the Consuls were meeting here. If an attempt was made to disrupt the meeting, we would have our traitor.”
“That’s why you discussed their visit in the middle of the living room. You wanted everyone to hear!”
Mircea nodded as the clipper began to move away, putting some distance between us and the melee. But some of the mages had managed to get themselves untangled from the net spell in time to launch themselves at us. I thought things were about as bad as they could get, dangling upside down twenty stories up while the Circle’s mages started swarming down the webbing toward us. And then the ship started to rotate.
I think the captain was trying to jiggle his stowaways loose, and he was doing a damn good job—on me. Mircea grabbed me as my grip started to slip and swung us over the side just as the rounded hull came into view. “No,” I said, shaking my head vigorously. “You aren’t suggesting—”
“I have you,” he assured me, setting my feet down onto the very uneven planks of the hull. “Think of them as small steps.”
“To where?”
“Up there,” Mircea said as the ship slowly began to rise back toward the balcony.
“The people trying to kill us are up there!”
“They’re down here, as well,” he pointed out. “And we have more allies there.”
“One of whom could be a traitor!”
“No. The suspects have been given the night off and instructed not to return before dawn. If one of them does, we’ll have him.”
We’d almost reached the keel, but the mages were right behind us and the balcony looked very far away. And unless I was imagining things, the rotation had picked up speed. “Wait. What if the traitor decided to go with a bomb instead?”
“We’ve checked. The apartment is perfectly safe.”
“Yeah. It looks it!” I said, and then the flat deck was coming up at us again and there was suddenly nowhere to put my feet. Not that it mattered because the ship’s rotation jerked to a halt, with my toes hanging off the edge. “Mircea!”
He didn’t answer, just swept me up and jumped down to the mast, which was sticking out of the deck like a bridge. The mages had nowhere near good enough balance to follow along the curved, polished surface, and so they decided to start flinging spells instead. One of the furled sails went up in flames right beside us and then Mircea put on a burst of speed and we were suddenly out of mast and jumping.