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I explained who I was and why I’d called. Victorine hovered nearby, listening.
“Why are you telling me this?” Zaquiel asked.
My mind blanked. “I—” I glanced at my mother, then lifted my chin. “Because they’re forcing me to. But I can tell you that they mean it. If I could help, I would.”
Victorine’s lip curled.
“Then get him away from them,” said Zaquiel.
I swallowed. “I can’t,” I said lowly.
“I see.” His disbelief smeared me from three thousand miles away. “Tell them I’m already in New York,” he said, and ended the call.
Victorine thrust out her hand. “The phone.”
I handed it over. “Tell me something. Did you ever love me? Or have I always been just another piece on your gameboard?”
Her face tightened. Something moved way back in her eyes. For a moment, I thought I’d gotten through to her, but she stalked out without answering.
“Yeah,” I told the closed door. “That’s what I thought.”
I went to the sideboard and picked up a wineglass. But instead of pouring myself some blood-wine, I stared at the glass. Hearing that voice in my head about what a princess does and doesn’t do.
I drew back my arm and hurled the glass at the door.
* * *
It was Thursday evening before I saw my mother again. I’d been awake for over an hour, but I was still in bed staring at the ceiling, thinking.
How could I get Victorine to see that her obsession with the Krals wasn’t just a problem for me, but for the whole Tremblay Syndicate? That if she didn’t change course, she was going to take us all down with her?
There was a perfunctory knock on my door, and then Victorine strode inside.
“Get up. We leave for Montreal in a few hours.”
“What?” I bolted upright.
“We’re leaving,” she repeated impatiently.
I brushed my hair back from my face. “Now?”
My mind worked. This might be the chance to escape I’d been waiting for.
She gave a curt nod. “We’ll be traveling part of the time during the day, but that can’t be helped. I’ve arranged for a closed box for you to travel in.”
Jean-Michel followed Victorine into the room and held the door open. I grabbed a bathrobe from the foot of the bed and shrugged into it as two of Philippe’s people carried in a stainless steel box.
I swallowed a spurt of panic.
As usual, my mother had thought of everything. Locked in a box, I’d have absolutely no hope of escape.
And here I’d thought things couldn’t get any worse.
The vampires set the steel box down by the wall and left. Jean-Michel followed, leaving me alone in the room with Victorine.
“When we get back to Montreal,” she said, “you’ll be confined to Isle de Minuit for the next year. If that doesn’t cure you of this…attraction, you can stay there for the next decade as far as I’m concerned. With your new mate.”
“My new mate?” I repeated.
