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“Well, not intentionally.” Mircea just looked at me. “We were in the Senate chamber and he got a little too—”
“In the Senate chamber?”
I frowned at him. His face seemed to be twitching for some reason. “Yes, he’d dragged me to see the Consul—”
“You set him on fire in the Senate chamber in front of the Consul.”
“It was only a little fire,” I said, then stopped because he’d broken into laughter, his whole face crinkling up with it, all bright teeth and curving, irresistible mouth. “He put it out,” I said defensively. He just kept laughing.
“Dulceata?,” he finally gasped, “as much as I would give to have seen that, it would be as well if you did not repeat the performance this evening.”
“I’m not—”
“I only mention it because I believe Ming-de wishes an audience.”
“What?”
He inclined his head slightly at the opposite side of the room, where the Chinese version of a consul was flanked by her four bodyguards. “It would be prudent to refrain from setting the Chinese Empress ablaze.”
“She looks busy,” I said weakly. It was true—she had already gathered a large court of admirers—but I’d also had enough formidable females for one evening. Mircea didn’t bother replying, just used our linked arms to pull me through the room.
We stopped in front of the dais on which Ming-de had parked her thronelike chair. It had dragons, too, writhing around the back of the seat, but at least they weren’t moving. Unlike the fans that had taken up residence on either side of her head, fluttering and waving in the air like two overactive butterflies. No one was holding them, the guards’ hands being preoccupied with the spears that, since they were vampires, I assumed were mostly ceremonial. Especially as the fans were razor-edged, and could probably go from circulating air to cleaving flesh at a moment’s notice.
I’d been so preoccupied with the spectacle that was Mingde that I hadn’t immediately noticed that she was talking until Mircea nudged me with his foot. I looked away from the dancing fans to liquid black eyes set in a tiny oval face. Mingde looked all of about twenty and yes, she was startlingly pretty. I sighed. Of course she’d wanted to see Mircea.
Only she wasn’t looking at him. I wondered if maybe I should get a sign VICTIM OF ROGUE SPELL, NOT A THREAT before anyone started planning to remove the competition. Ming-de held out a hand with ridiculously long, bright red nails. I was so focused on them—the thumbnail alone had to be six inches long and was curled outward, like a spring—that it took me a few seconds to notice that she was poking something at me.
It was a staff with an ugly brown knot on the end. I shied back
before it could cut out my heart or something. But it followed me until I managed to focus, despite having it almost shoved up my nose. The knot resolved itself into a shrunken head wearing a tiny blue captain’s hat on its thin hair.
“Her Imperial Majesty, the Empress Ming-de, Holy Highness of the Present and Future Time, Lady of Ten Thousand Years, would like to ask you a question,” it said in a bored monotone that managed to convey absolute disgust with me, its mistress, and the world in general.
I blinked. “You’re not Chinese.” The British accent sort of gave it away, that and the fact that the remaining strands of hair were red.
The head gave a long-suffering sigh. “I wouldn’t be much bloody use as an interpreter if I were, now would I? And how did you know?”
“Well, I just—”
“It’s the hat, isn’t it? She makes me wear it so people will ask.”
“Ask what?”
“D’you see? It always works. It’s part of my punishment, to have to tell the story of my tragic life and painful death to every Tom, Dick and Harry before they’ll answer a simple question.”
“Okay. Sorry. What’s the question?”
It eyed me suspiciously. “You don’t want to hear about my tragic life and painful death?”
“Not really.”
It suddenly looked offended. “And why not? My death isn’t interesting enough for you? What would it take, eh? Perhaps if Robespierre was hanging here, damn him, you’d care to have a listen, hmm?”
“I don’t—”
“But a simple East India Company captain who made the mistake of firing on the wrong ship, oh, no, not enough to trouble yourself about?”
“Look!” I said, glaring. “I’m not having a great night here. Tell me, don’t tell me—I don’t care!”
