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“What?”
“You are in a room alone with the traitor’s child.”
I still didn’t get it, but then Sal was there, smiling coldly. “He means me, Cassie. Because the toad who made me betrayed his master and joined the bad guys. Leaving me and Alphonse—and the rest of Tony’s old stable—under suspicion.”
“Mircea’s going to change her as soon as he gets the time!” I told Nicu heatedly. “Just like he did for Rafe!”
I may as well have saved my breath. Nicu just crossed his arms and settled back against the wall, those coinlike eyes fixed on Sal. He’d obviously said his piece and he was done.
“Come on.” Sal tugged on my arm, getting me away from Nicu before I said something stupid. “Don’t you want to see what I bought for me?”
Half an hour later, we had a paper menagerie stalking, slinking and crawling its way around the floor and Sal was in a good mood once again. She spun in front of a floor-length mirror, the deep coral charmeuse of her skirt hugging every curve. And I decided this was the best chance I was going to get.
“Um, so. Do you know anything about the Senate members who were hurt in the war?” I asked casually.
“Four were killed, two were injured,” Sal replied promptly, adjusting the fit of the top, which already fit like a second skin. “Although Marlowe’s pretty well recovered, or so he lets on. I hear he got hit in the head one too many times and keeps it bandaged up when he isn’t around people. But that could just be a rumor. Why do you ask?”
I shrugged. “Mircea said the Senate’s been overworked lately because of the casualties, and I was just wondering about them. Were any women injured?”
“Only Ismitta.” Sal held up a triple strand of pearls and admired the effect with the dress. “She put up a hell of a fight, even after they got her head off. I heard she killed two guys with it tucked under her arm.”
“But she’s dead now?”
“Oh, no. Other than Marlowe, she’s the only one to have survived. But with an injury like that, well, even a first-level master is going to be out for a while. I heard she’s gone back to Africa to recover. There’s some shaman over there supposed to have had experience with this sort of thing.”
“Africa?”
“Yeah. Don’t know what part, though. She looks kind of Ethiopian.”
Ismitta wasn’t the girl in the photos, then. So the pretty brunette probably wasn’t on her deathbed. Which meant that there was no reason why I couldn’t just ask Mircea about her. For some reason, that didn’t make me feel any better.
The fun ended with the arrival of a fussy little man in a rumpled suit, with a big bag and a bigger scowl. The wardsmith Mircea had promised. Apparently he’d just finished a shift with the detail trying to bring the casino’s wards up to the Senate’s exacting standards. By the shadows under his eyes and the snap in his voice, it seemed like maybe he was feeling a little overworked. But that changed when he got a glimpse of my ward above the back of my swimsuit.
“Oh, yes, yes.” He traced it reverently with a fingertip. “I’ve heard of this, of course, but never thought to see it. They said it was lost years ago.”
I didn’t feel like going through that whole story. “Can you fix it?”
“I’ll need to remove it. If I may?”
I paused and then nodded reluctantly. It had never left my skin since my mother had placed it on me as a child. But it wasn’t much good to me in its current form.
The mage said an incantation and I felt a trace of heat running along the familiar pattern on my back. Magical wards dissolve into the skin when on the body, mimicking the look of a tattoo. Off the body, they look like small gold charms, such as the one now filling his palm.
“Hmm. Let’s see.” He poked at it with a few odd-looking instruments. “When did you begin to have difficulties?”
“After leaving the ley line.”
“No, it was after that mage attacked you,” Sal reminded me, joining us on the sofa.
“Oh, yeah. I forgot.”
The mage’s brow wrinkled. “You suffered a magical attack?”
“Two. Well, sort of. They were both by the same guy.”
“And
then you got shot at by MAGIC’s wards,” Sal said. “And almost eaten. Or did I get that backward?”
