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He came around in front, and since I was sitting on one of the higher steps and he was standing on the ground, when he bent over and took my hand, we were almost eye to eye. I remembered something I’d read once, about executives making sure their seats were higher than their subordinates’, so they would have some kind of psychological advantage. Mircea didn’t use tricks like that. Mircea didn’t
need them.
“No, it isn’t. We have two relationships, Cassie. You know this. It can’t be otherwise. And this was a professional decision—as was last night’s.”
“Professional,” I said bitterly, staring into beautiful dark eyes. They reflected the gaslight, just like Jack’s. And yet managed to look so very different.
“Yes.”
“Then let’s talk professional,” I said quietly. “A month ago, you promised me you wouldn’t interfere with me doing my job.”
“A month ago, Apollo was dead and I thought the worst was past us.”
“So you lied.”
“No. I said I would try. And I have. But this is not about your job.”
“It’s my coronation!”
“It’s a formality. One that has made me nervous from the beginning.”
To my surprise, he sat down on the wet step beside me, getting his Armani-covered tush wet. I guess he could just go change; this was his home, after all. Not that I’d ever had a chance to see it.
“I would have had you here long before this,” he said, with that uncanny ability of guessing my thoughts. “But we were attempting to make it secure. We knew the coronation would be an obvious target, but it was impossible to forgo it. The people need to see you—”
“Only, apparently, they’re not going to.”
“We had planned for you to be here; all along, that was the intent.”
“Then what changed?”
He looked at me in amazement. “The past week changed. Three attempts on your life in as many days changed! The chance of an attack went from a possibility to a probability to a certainty, and the risk was deemed too high. It was determined—”
“Yes, it was,” I cut him off. “It was determined. Without consulting me, without even telling me—”
“And if we had told you? If we had said, ‘We have decided to hold the ceremony with a doppelgänger in your place for security reasons.’ What would have been your reaction?”
“What the hell do you think?” I said angrily. “I’ve told you a hundred times—it is not okay for someone to die for me!”
“And I have told you that sometimes it is necessary. She is a professional; she takes risks such as this all the time. It is her job—”
“And this is mine!”
We stared at each other, and Mircea’s face reflected the frustration, even some of the anger, that I was feeling. I was surprised he’d let me see it; his facade was flawless when he wanted it to be. I searched his face, wondering if this was a trick, if this was some way to manipulate me into feeling guilty for causing him more problems, for taking him away from his duties, for being a pain in the ass once again.
If so, it was doing a pretty good job. I did feel all those things, along with a nagging suspicion that he had a point. The problem was, so did I. And he couldn’t see that, couldn’t see anything but that little eleven-year-old girl cowering in her room. I wasn’t that person anymore; I hadn’t been for a while now, but I didn’t know if he’d ever be able to see that, to see me—
My thoughts scattered as something knocked me broadside. It wasn’t an attack, or if it was, my own power was doing it. Something like a fist knotted in my being, jerking me, tugging me, trying to drag me somewhere, somewhen else.
Mircea was talking, saying something that probably sounded logical and reasonable and charming all at the same time, and it might have been really persuasive, except that I was a little too busy to listen right then. And then the tug became a heave and the pull became a wrench, and it was like before I became Pythia, when the power had just tossed me around here and there, wherever it needed me to go. And it must be needing something pretty damn bad, because fight as I would, I was losing.
Mircea must have finally noticed something wrong, because he grasped my shoulders. “Cassie! Cassie, what—”
“Fair warning,” I told him through clenched teeth. Because his hands were gripping my arms, and if I went before he let go, he was coming along, like it or not.
“What?”
“Fair warning!” I yelled, trying to pull away. Because I didn’t know where my power was taking me, but judging by the intensity of the pull, it wasn’t going to be anywhere fun. “Let go!” I told him, but his hold merely tightened, fingers digging into my flesh.
