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“But . . . but at the party, he was trying to disrupt things! That’s what the Guild does,” I insisted.
Mircea cocked his head. “But if that were the case, why not focus on Lady Phemonoe? She was Pythia; your mother was merely the heir. And one due to disappear soon, in any case. Removing her from her position a few months early would hardly seem likely to make a huge impact on history.”
“No! There were spells everywhere—”
“Yes, thrown by war mages attempting to shield your mother and the Pythia.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because the spells were frozen, dulceat?a?. If your father had thrown them, they would not have been trapped in time any more than he was.”
I shook my head. “My father was a member of the Black Circle, not the Guild.”
“Is there any reason he could not have been both?”
I sat back in my chair and glared at him. “Okay. So he’s part of some crazy cult that wants to change the world, but then one day he gets bored and decides—just for the hell of it—to join the most infamous group of dark mages around and try to take them over? And when that doesn’t work, he thinks, oh well, and elopes with the Pythian heir? Is that what you’re saying?”
Mircea laughed. “I thought your father was an interesting man. I just had no idea how much.”
“He isn’t interesting; he’s a nut. And he isn’t my father.”
Mircea shook his head. “As you say. But perhaps we can discuss it later, in our time?”
“You just want to see how badly the guests trashed your house.”
His lips quirked. “With representatives from five of the six senates in attendance, it is a concern.”
“All right.” I drained my coffee and grabbed another scone. “But we hit the suite first. I need some clothes.”
“And afterward, if it remains standing, I will show you around the house.”
“Deal,” I said, grabbing his hand. And shifted.
And knew immediately that I was in trouble.
One clue was the slick, wet feel of damp grass under my feet, instead of the suite’s plush carpet. Another was the Cheshire cat grin of Mircea’s glass ballroom, glowing gold against the night—a night that should have been over. And a third was the fist slamming into my jaw, hard enough to send me sprawling.
“Pathetic, weak, idiot child. You killed the great Apollo?” Something reached into my brain like a rain of quicksilver, clean and cold, but burning down all my nerves. “Obscene.”
I couldn’t see what was attacking me—the transition from watery daylight to thick darkness had left me half blind—but I really wasn’t that curious. I reached for Mircea, intending to shift us out of there, but I didn’t find him. His strong grip was no longer on my hand, and I doubted that he’d have just let go. For one thing, I couldn’t remember him materializing with me. And for another—
For another, he usually objected when people kicked me in the ribs.
The pain was breathtaking, like a dagger through my flesh, robbing me of breath and bringing tears to my eyes. But it wasn’t bad enough to keep me from shifting. That was something else, grabbing me, jerking me back the second I tried.
“Oh no. Not this time, little Pythia.” A booted foot came down on my wrist, crushing it into the dirt, sending pain lancing up my arm—and trapping my daggers against the ground. My hand spasmed, still holding a warm scone, which tumbled into the mud.
“This time, there won’t be any running away—or any powerful friends to save you. This time, I have you all to myself.”
I looked up to see boiling, dark clouds laced with distant lightning, backlighting a face. It blurred across my watering eyes, or maybe that was the rain, which was still coming down. But for a moment, I couldn’t tell what I was looking at.
And then my vision cleared and I still couldn’t.
On the surface, it was a sharp-faced brunet with slickedback hair, thin cheeks and a long nose, vaguely familiar although I didn’t . . . and then it snapped into place. Niall, the officious pain-in-the-ass from the publicity department. It had taken me a second to recognize him, because while the face was the same, the eyes—
The eyes were horrible.
No, not horrible. They would have looked perfectly fine in the face of his alter ego, the dragon that had chased Pritkin and me through an office building. But seeing those same firelit orbs in a human’s face, complete with elongated pupils and reptilian, nictitating membranes . . .
