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Like tonight. I’d been sleeping, dead to the world. The faint static of that creature’s mind hadn’t even registered. I would have slept right through everything, and awakened to the death of a queen and a world in chaos.
But Dorina had heard.
And while I might have been the one to throw that knife, she’d gotten me there.
Or maybe she’d just done it out of self-preservation, since our losing the war would hurt her, too. Like maybe all those times she’d helped me in the past were because she thought me weak and incapable, and hadn’t been willing to risk it. I just didn’t know.
And neither did Mircea.
I turned back around. “I want to talk to her.”
“Dory!”
For a moment, Mircea looked like he was about to lose his cool. The eyes flashed amber bright; the nostrils flared; the hawklike aspect of his features became a little more pronounced. Because I have the same effect on him that he does on me.
But he reined it in.
“That would be unwise,” he told me tightly. “If she knows what we’re planning, she could, and likely would, evade it—”
“We aren’t planning anything—”
“But you should be! Now, while she’s asleep. When she wakes up, we won’t be able to talk. When she wakes up—”
I didn’t hear the rest of the sentence. It was drowned out by a burst of noise, shockingly loud, only it wasn’t. Just the usual soft music, idle conversation, and click, clink of glasses, which I hadn’t realized had been blocked out until it suddenly broke over us again.
I stared around, like Mircea himself was doing. Something had cut through the sound barrier his masters had created, but I didn’t know what. And I couldn’t see what was happening in the room, because there were still two rows of vamps in the way.
Until, suddenly, there weren’t. They parted, straight down the middle, leaving a long, cleared path lined with vamps on either side. And at the end—
Was a woman.
No, make that a fey, beautiful and golden haired, her shining locks cascading to the floor and explaining the consul’s current hairstyle. But there was no Goth vibe here, no reds and golds and vague creepiness. There were only big blue eyes and a simple blue gown and a peach and pink complexion, like something out of a Victorian painting of the perfect woman. Or girl, because she looked about sixteen.
She wasn’t.
Efridis was almost as old as her brother Caedmon, and he was ancient by human standards. But looking at her, it was almost impossible to believe. The air of innocence was palpable.
Which was why it was so strange to feel the tide of rage suddenly pouring through me.
I had time to say, “Uh-oh,” not that I could hear it over the roaring in my ears. I had time to look at Mircea, who was staring back with alarm on his face. I had time to feel the strangest sensation, like I was about to vomit up the world.
And then Dorina tore out of me, as I’d seen her do in Mircea’s presence once, barely a ripple on the air, almost invisible unless you knew what to look for. But I did. And even if I hadn’t, it wouldn’t have mattered.
I’d have caught on when Efridis started screaming.
Everything after that happened really fast. I saw something emerge from the fey queen, another ripple in space. But not one rising calmly or charging out determinedly, but ripped out of her by Dorina, right before they went writhing into the air, and what felt like a couple extra atmospheres descended on the room. Mirrors shattered; vases toppled; fey and vampire alike hit the floor. Except for Mircea, who grabbed me right before something smashed into us like a freight train.
It sent me flying back against the wall for the second time that night, something I wasn’t sure my body could take. But Mircea had gotten behind me and absorbed the blow. And then held me as I screamed and fought, feeling like my insides were being ripped out, because Dorina was back—and she’d brought company.
Whatever she’d planned, it had gone horribly wrong, because the creature was far more powerful than her, than both of us. I felt Mircea invade my mind, trying to help, but it easily flung him out as well. But it obviously didn’t know my father, because the next moment he was back, and he’d brought company, too.
A lot of it.
I didn’t know all of Mircea’s masters, but suddenly I could see them, and not just the ones gathered around us. A brunet sat on a sofa a few floors down, a book falling from his suddenly motionless fingers; half a dozen beat-up guards, drinking around a table in Washington State, looked up all at once, as much in sync as if they’d been practicing for weeks; a few dozen more dropped what they were doing in Las Vegas, heads turning unerringly toward New York—
But it wasn’t enough.
This thing, this fey queen’s power, was like nothing I’d ever encountered. Shocking, cutting, cruel. And pervasive.
