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“Misdirected?”
“—and no matter how great the weapon, it must be—”
“I’m not a weapon, Mircea!”
“I am well aware of that—”
“Are you? Because I’m starting to feel like everyone thinks I’m just a gun for them to fire. But I’m not. My power is not. It came to me because I’m best able to use it—or to decide when not to,” I said pointedly, looking at Jules.
“Jules wants this.”
“Last night he didn’t know what he wanted.”
“He does now!”
“Do you?” I asked Jules, because some input here would be nice.
Annnnd now he was perusing the prosciutto stand, and trying to tease a paper-thin slice off with a little fork.
“Jules!” I said, and saw him jump.
“I—didn’t have lunch,” he said awkwardly.
“Have you decided?” I asked again. “Because Mircea seems to think you have.”
“I . . . well . . . that is . . .” He looked at Mircea.
“Don’t look at him! This is about your life.”
“My life.” Jules gave a burst of laughter, and then quickly shut it down.
“You can laugh if you want to,” I told him. “You can do whatever you want. You don’t have a master anymore—”
“I know!” He flung out a hand, and an arc of champagne went with it. And then he looked down at his empty glass and grimaced. “I know, all right?”
“Then what do you want to do?” I asked again. And got a half-angry, half-helpless stare in return. “Jules, you were a master. You’ve been able to make up your own mind about things for a long time—”
“Yes, but this isn’t about things, is it?” he asked. “This is about everything. My whole future. My whole—I thought things were set. I thought—” He looked helplessly at Mircea. “It’s not . . . I appreciate, so much, all you’ve—I’d be dead without—I was going to do it, I was going to jump, and you saved me—”
“And I will again,” Mircea told him.
“Yes, but . . .” That helpless look was back, screwing up his face and fluttering the hand not holding on to his glass. Jules had always had such expressive hands, an actor’s hands. And now this one was all over the place, painting stories in the air I couldn’t read, but I guess he could, because his eyes were suddenly distant. “I never figured it out, you know,” he finally said. “Life. I just . . . never had the knack. Other people seemed to get it—they married, had kids, seemed to understand, to fit, in ways I never did. . . .” He
trailed off.
“But then you became a vampire,” I prompted, because I wanted him to get to the point already.
And it seemed to help, because he nodded vigorously. “That’s just it. I was a lousy human. I wasn’t even that great of an actor, to be honest, and that was the closest . . . I thought it would be different, after. I thought, maybe this is it, maybe the reason I didn’t fit in as a human was because I was never supposed to be one. Maybe this is what I was meant for. . . . But I wasn’t. I was a lousy vampire, too!”
“You were a master,” Mircea said. “You know how few—”
“Yes, I know!” Jules said, cutting him off. And then looked stricken because you didn’t interrupt your master in the vamp world. You just didn’t. “You see?” he said, voice almost a whisper. “That’s me, right there. That’s why you sent me to Cassie. That’s why you sent me away.”
“I didn’t send you away,” Mircea said heavily. “I sent you where you could be best utilized. You are—were—powerful but not subtle. But Cassie needs defenders, not diplomats—”
“But I didn’t defend her, did I?” Jules interrupted again, unconsciously, and I bit back a smile. He really was almost completely tactless, which must have really sucked in a household renowned for its charm and diplomacy. “I tried, I really did, but she ended up having to defend me!”
He looked at me. “You asked what I want. How am I supposed to know? Maybe I’d be better off as a human again. Maybe a childhood not knowing when you’re going to eat next, or if you are, of being traded to whoever has a few dollars to rent your pretty face for a night, of being told you’re good for nothing when it was your work supporting the whole damned lot of them—” He broke off, lips tight.
