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Marlowe’s expression made it clear what he thought about that, but then the Consul spoke up and nobody else’s opinion mattered. “Then you may speak for him,” she told me.
I moved a little closer, but stopped before the reflection cast by my dress hit the table. I doubted the little points of light it was giving off would be more than a flea bite to her, but I didn’t need any help pissing her off. I was probably going to manage that all by myself.
I looked up into that beautiful bronze face. “Why has Lord Mircea been imprisoned?”
“As you were told, for his protection. He was becoming difficult to control without inflicting damage. The snare also obviates the need for constant supervision.”
“The snare? You mean you put him in—”
“We had no choice,” Marlowe said quickly. “Nothing else could hold him.”
Alphonse cursed and I bit my lip before I said something I probably wouldn’t live long enough to regret. But despite my best efforts, I felt my blood pressure skyrocket. She
was talking about the type of magical cage Françoise had tried to use on the Graeae. It was meant for dangerous criminals, which meant the designer hadn’t worried about providing a lot of comfort—or about ensuring unconsciousness. The Consul’s offhand comment meant that Mircea was all alone in a blank world going slowly out of his mind, with no comfort of any kind—no voice to talk to, no hand to touch. Nothing. I couldn’t think of a worse fate.
“Are you going to accept that shit?” Alphonse hissed in my ear. His fist was clenched and he looked like a man who dearly wanted to run amok. “Because I—”
I stomped on his foot, hard, and amazingly, he shut up. “No.” I looked at the Consul again. “Mircea must be set free. Immediately.”
She inclined her head slightly. “You agree to complete the geis?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then he remains where he is,” she said flatly. “We cannot cure him. In confinement, he cannot injure himself or others.”
“He is being injured! The geis is driving him mad!”
“A fact you could prevent, if you chose.” A flash of anger rippled across that usually impassive face. “If he had not named you head of house, I would order you locked in a room with him and we would have done with this!”
“If Mircea wanted that, he wouldn’t have named me his second,” I pointed out, thinking frantically. And just like that, I realized why he’d sent me away, why he had taken the only step possible to ensure that the Consul could not force us together. “He’s afraid, isn’t he?”
“What?” Alphonse was obviously lost, but Sal looked thoughtful. I was starting to wonder who really ran that partnership.
“You’re Pythia now,” she said slowly, working it out. “And the geis responds to power.” Her eyes suddenly got wide. “Oh, shit.”
That settled it. I was never going to assume Sal was slow on the uptake again. She’d gotten it a lot faster than I had.
For Alphonse’s sake, I spelled it out. “When Mircea placed the geis on me, he was the most powerful of the parties involved, so it was under his control. It was supposed to be lifted before I became Pythia, but that didn’t happen. And now Mircea is afraid that my power will override his. That, if we complete the geis, I won’t be his servant—he’ll be mine.”
Alphonse looked like someone who had just had a load of bricks dumped on him. I left him to process things while I turned back to the Consul. “Tony had a portal,” I told her abruptly. “He used it for his smuggling operation. You can use it to send Mircea into Faerie, where the effects of the geis will be lessened. He should be in control of himself there.”
“The Fey will not allow it.” The beautiful mask was back in place, and so perfect that I almost thought I’d imagined the other.
“The dark will. Their king and I have an understanding. And one of his servants is available to escort Mircea to the palace, so he will not be harmed on the way. All we need is a power source to open the portal.” I gave Billy a metaphysical poke. I doubted that asking him to babysit a bad-tempered pixie was going to go over well, but I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t trust Radella. “Make sure she doesn’t try to double-cross Françoise,” I told him.
“And how am I supposed to do that?”
“She can hear you,” I reminded him. For some reason, she’d never had a problem with that, even in our world. “Tell her the deal is off if she tries anything.”
Billy streamed halfway out of the necklace to grin at me. “This has potential.”
“And don’t antagonize her!”
“Of course not.” He put on his wounded face.
“That will not solve the issue at hand,” the Consul insisted, ignoring my one-sided conversation. The snake’s hood behind her flexed, a long, slow ripple that cascaded down into the gleaming caftan. I didn’t know if that meant anything, so I ignored it.
“I’ve been working on a permanent solution.” I had hoped to avoid bringing this up, considering how she was almost certain to respond, but I was out of other options. “There is a counterspell.”
