Mircea shut up, but the arms around my middle tightened. I could feel his power, soothing, calming, but it couldn’t reach me, wasn’t enough, not against the red tide pulling at me. The dhampir strength that comes only in my fits was rising. With that amount of strength, all poured into one hard, swift lunge, I could have her. I. Could. Have. Her.

And as soon as I did, I was dead. The thought cut through the writhing echoes, going straight to my core. I didn’t know if it was my thought or Mircea’s, but it was true, either way. She’d kill me, and if she didn’t, the guards would. I could feel them, hovering nearby. Ten, twelve—I couldn’t tell but enough. More than enough.

But it was so hard to care.

“I’m right here.” The words, low, sibilant, taunting, ripped through my brain, seething like fire ants, tearing like shrapnel. Squeezing one eye shut, I flattened a hand against my ear, but it did no good. The words were inside my head.

“She is stronger than I expected. Or perhaps you are helping her, Mircea.”

“No, Lady.”

“Release her, then. Let us see what manner of control she really has.” The arms around me didn’t budge. “You would defy me on this?”

“With… regret, Lady.”

And suddenly, the snakes were back, and this time, they’d brought friends. It felt like my body had been invaded by a sea of tiny spiders. I could feel them seething underneath my skin, in my head, every movement of their hair-fine legs displacing some of my flesh. The tiny erosions were multiplied by thousands, millions, until my skin was cracked and running and my flesh was flaking off the bone.

Someone squeezed my shoulder, and spiders scurried outward from the touch, crawling up through cracks in my flesh to scuttle across my skin. I considered screaming, but my lungs were teeming with them, too, sloughing away like the rest of me, and drawing the necessary breath would only split me open like a rotten fruit. So the spiders seethed and I didn’t scream.

“Enough!”

The single word sliced through the black haze in front of my vision, leaving me gasping on the floor, where I’d somehow ended up. The consul laughed again, but this time, it didn’t resonate. It was just a laugh. Like the carpet I was drooling onto was just carpet.

I clawed in a breath and coughed it out again, and didn’t even try to get up. I just lay there, blinking away moisture. Sweat, I told myself firmly, as my heart beat a staccato rhythm in my chest.

Someone knelt in front of me. “Are you all right?”

I made some small sound. It was supposed to be a laugh, but even I had to admit, it sounded more like a whimper. Pathetic, some part of my mind said.

I told that part to suck it.

“This is why you will never be a consul, Mircea,” he was told as he gathered me up. “No matter how strong you become, you are not ruthless enough.”

“I can be ruthless, Lady.”

“But not with everyone.”

The room swam a little about me, and my skin felt clammy and cold. But Mircea’s arms were a warm, steadying presence around me. “No. Not with everyone.”

“Unlike Anthony.” Her voice suddenly switched to a more businesslike tone. “Louis-Cesare must be found. Once Anthony learns he is lost, our case will be as well.”

“He will be found.”

“In time? We must produce him tonight, after the challenges.”

“We are doing what we can. You know the difficulty.”

“I also know the solution. He has shown an interest in this one. He went to her aid last night.”

“He went to collect his mistress—”

“Do not take me for a fool, Mircea.” The voice cracked like a whip. “I do not care that Louis-Cesare indulges his perversions, only that he fights for me while he does it. We cannot find him; therefore he must find us. If he has a bond with this creature, her pain will bring him faster than any other lure we have.”

“They do not have a bond. Therefore such a tactic would gain you nothing and be a waste of a resource,” Mircea said. His voice was calm, but the hand on my arm pressed hard enough to hurt. “Remember Tomas.”

There was no reply to that, but the room suddenly became noticeably chillier.

My eyes managed to focus on the consul, who was standing a few yards away. There were plenty of seats around, but she was probably afraid to crush her little pets. I watched the swarm of tiny snakes she wore in lieu of clothes writhe across her form from neck to feet, a glimmering, gleaming mass in constant motion. The first time I’d ever seen that trick, I’d thought it pretty cool.

I wasn’t feeling so much like that now.

“Top pocket,” I gasped, a little desperately. I really, really didn’t want to feel those things writhing inside me again. I thought once more and I might just go crazy permanently.

Three sets of eyes focused on me, but it was Mircea’s hand that slipped inside my jacket. Dark eyes ran swiftly over the short letter Claire had given me. His face did not change, but the body holding me relaxed slightly.

“I am afraid we shall have to find another method, Lady,” he said, handing the letter over.

Marlowe took it from him. “What is it?”

“A letter from a Blarestri royal princess, appointing Dorina her envoy to act for her in all matters concerning the stone. Any action taken against her representative will be considered to have been taken against the princess herself.”

The consul’s expression did not change, but her snakes writhed a little faster. “Find him!” she snapped, and strode from the room. She didn’t use the door; the fireplace was apparently an illusion, too, because she passed right through it. I was starting to wonder if anything in this house of horrors was real.

Except the bodies.

“What was the point of that?” Mircea demanded, as soon as she’d left.

“The consul is becoming… concerned… that the problem with Louis-Cesare may backfire on her,” Marlowe said carefully.

“Explain.”

“Should she lose him to Anthony, it will be a defeat on her own soil in front of her colleagues. Such a loss could damage the prestige she needs to lead in the war. And if she wins…” He took a deep breath he didn’t need. “She knows we need to be strong at this juncture, but she fears that some of us may be becoming too much so.”

Mircea had been wiping my face with his pocket handkerchief, but at that, he looked up. “She is suspicious of my loyalty?”

“Ambition has blinded better men.”

“And more foolish ones. I have no plans to challenge her authority.”

“Perhaps not now. But with the Pythia under your control—”

“She is under the Senate’s control.” He paused. “More or less.”

“She is under your control, Mircea,” Marlowe insisted. “Her loyalty is to you. She is suspicious of the consul—”

“With reason. That stunt with Tomas was ill-conceived. I warned her as much at the time.”

“You suggested using him!”

“Using, not abusing, Kit. I never suggested butchering the man! That backfired, as anyone who knows Cassie’s temperament should have expected.”

“But we do not know it. You do. And you were strong enough before. Now, you have control of the Pythia as well as Louis-Cesare’s loyalty through his attachment to Dorina—”

“And how did she find out about that? What did you tell her, Kit?”

“Only what she asked. She’d already heard as much from Anthony. He thinks it’s the best joke this century.”

“Anthony is not you! You could have denied it.”

“I could have betrayed my duty, you mean, in order to save this—”

“Careful.”

“Mircea, what the hell is wrong with you? I’m beginning to think that damned geis addled your brain!”

“Or cleared it.”

I lay utterly still, content to let them believe I was more or less out of it. Which wasn’t far from the truth. Between the general oppressiveness of the house and the consul’s idea of a good time, I was a little under the weather. The room kept shimmying like a belly dancer every time I opened my eyes, so I mostly didn’t.

I didn’t understand a lot of the conversation, but the basic idea came across. Mircea was growing powerful enough that the consul was starting to worry about him. And given the way she handled problems, I didn’t think that was too healthy.

Apparently, Mircea didn’t, either. “She truly thinks I would move against her?”

“She wonders if one with so much power will be content to serve for the rest of his life,” Marlowe said.

“I am content to live, Kit. Perhaps it is something you have forgotten how to do.”

“You are making no sense.” Marlowe sounded confused and resentful. “You do realize that?”

“Then tell your Lady this. The love of power destroyed my family once; I do not wish to see history repeat itself. I will serve her loyally until such a time as she moves against those I consider mine.”

“You want me to give an ultimatum to the consul?”

“No. Merely to request a concession. For an old and trusted ally.”

“There are those who would serve her without such concessions.”

“Yes. Sycophants are always easy to find. They are also easily swayed by the next power who promises them more. How many offers have I turned down to stay with her?” Mircea asked, suddenly angry. “Why this? Why now?”

“It’s Anthony,” Marlowe admitted, “at least in part. He has been whispering in her ear since he arrived, warning her that Louis-Cesare would add too much to your personal power base.”

“She must surely see why!”

“Of course, but his words reinforced her own concerns. This was… a test.”

“An unnecessary one.”

“Was it?” Marlowe’s dark eyes were serious. “You chose family over the needs of the Senate. Over her.”