“What does it matter?” I asked harshly.

“Because you may be the only one who can help me find her.”

I woke in another sumptuous bedroom, judging by the feel of the linens. But it wasn’t Louis-Cesare’s. I could feel the pressure of the consul’s house holding me down, like a dozen hands trying to push me through the bedding, even before I opened my eyes. And then I blinked the room into view and had it confirmed.

It was a nice room, blue and brown and beige, with lots of iridescent satins and thick velvets and a few furs warming up the ever-present marble. All of which my eyes glossed over because they were busy looking at something else. But I didn’t feel like getting up, or even moving, so for a few minutes I just lay there.

And watched E.T. float around in my wall.

The expanse opposite the bed was mostly unadorned, except for subtle striations in the marble. And a few pieces of museum-quality art. And some glowy blobs that, yes, kind of looked like E.T.

I turned my head—slowly, because it made the room do some convoluted spinning thing otherwise—to look at the wall to the left. The blobs sort of reminded me of reflections, like people passing in front of stained-glass windows. And having their shadows distorted before being cast on the opposite wall.

There was only one problem: there were no windows.

Not too surprising. Regular old vampires had to make do with regular old houses and modify them to suit. But the consul didn’t have to put up with that crap.

I hadn’t had an opportunity to do much exploring last time I was here. But from what I’d been able to tell, her house was built like an onion, with an outermost skin that opened onto long, shallow hallways that kept it from looking strange to anyone who might happen by and wonder why anyone would build a house with no windows. But that’s essentially what it was after you penetrated the first layer.

And I guess I was past that. Because all I saw was some shelves and a table-and-lamp combo. None of which could be throwing light shadows, including the lamp, which wasn’t on.

I turned my head back again—slowly, slowly—and looked at the wall. But E.T. must have found me pretty boring, because he was gone now. Or maybe my brain had decided not to go schizo right at the moment, although I didn’t know why. It had done everything else.

Including possibly killing Mircea.

That whole horror scene came back to me in a rush, hard enough to leave me gasping. I abruptly sat up, and just as quickly regretted it when the room telescoped and threatened to collapse. But I wasn’t going to lie back down.

Not until I found out what had happened.

I threw off the covers and went almost a yard before my knees gave way, throwing me onto a very nice carpet that probably didn’t need any puke stains. I stayed down for a moment, breathing, waiting for my head to accept the idea that, yes, we were doing this. And then I got to my feet and stumbled toward the door again.

And got halfway there before I realized I was naked.

Of course I am, I thought angrily, and went back to the bed for a sheet. God forbid I actually wake up dressed anymore.

I made a sixteen-hundred-thread-count sarong and wobbled back to the door. And poked my head out. And was immediately glad that I’d had enough working brain cells to think of the sheet. Because there were no fewer than six huge vamps outside, all spit and polish in shiny faux Roman gear, eyes expressionless pools of disapproval even without being exposed to a naked dhampir.

But one of them wrinkled his nose anyway, as if he smelled something bad.

Yeah, well, fuck you, too, buddy, I didn’t say, because I wanted to see Mircea more than I wanted to piss them off.

I started out the door, only to have two long spears crossed in front of my face, one from each of the guys framing the door. I looked at them, but they didn’t even bother to look back. They were staring straight ahead, just like the two on the opposite side of the hall, who apparently found something fascinating on the door over my head.

“Really?” I croaked, not gesturing at my sheet-covered form or the dried blood flaking off my upper lip or the fact that my eyes kept trying to roll up in my head. Because I was afraid if I let go of the doorframe, I was going to end up on my knees again.

And because nobody was looking at me anyway.

I cleared my throat and decided to try again. “I just want to see my father.”

And okay, that got a reaction. Not verbal, because I didn’t rate that. But the stony look in the vamps’ eyes got a little stonier.

“Sorry,” I said drily. “I forgot that it’s bad taste to mention that he is my father, but there you go. And I’m going to see him.”

I started to duck under the spears, only to have the two vamps on the other wall suddenly appear in my face. Or, at least, their crotches did. Another day, I would have made a cute remark about heat and leather jock straps, but I wasn’t feeling real cute right now. Apparently, they weren’t either, because the next thing I knew, the spears were gone, the door was shut and I was back inside the room, despite not being able to recall how I got there.

Okay, then.

I stared at the door, swaying gently, for what was probably a full minute. I would like to say that I was standing there planning my next move, but mostly I was just standing. My head felt really…odd.…My mouth was dry and I really, really wanted to crawl back into bed.

But I wanted to see Mircea more. And I was going to. Just as soon as I figured out—

My train of thought, such as it was, got derailed at the appearance of another otherworldly visitor. Only this one was a little different. Instead of E.T., it kind of looked like the blobs that used to goop around inside lava lamps, round and unformed and visible in a full-length mirror to the right of the door.

I turned around. It was on the same wall that the bed was facing, the one that held a large, ornate fireplace and a couple chairs. And, at the moment, some fuzzy blue stains that glooped along until they hit the mantel. And then flowed along its massive carved shelf until they fell off the other side.

I blinked at them for a moment, and then wobbled over.

They hadn’t waited. By the time I got there, they’d traversed the entire length of the room and disappeared. But before that, they’d gotten a little clearer for a moment. And instead of random blobs, they’d formed themselves into a vaguely person-shaped thing, with a distinct head, torso, and a couple smaller bits that might have been arms or tentacles.

I supposed the former was more likely, but considering where I was, I wasn’t ruling out the latter. But here’s hoping, I thought, and stuck my head in the fireplace. Or, more accurately, through the fireplace, because the bastard wasn’t really there.

It shouldn’t have surprised me—what does a vampire really need with a fireplace? And yet they were all over the building. And now that I thought about it, I vaguely recalled the consul vanishing into one the last time I was here, when she’d thought I was too out of it to notice.

Like I had just done.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark, and then to notice that I was standing in a corridor, surrounded by a wedge of hazy light. It was coming from a filmy ward over the surface of a square opening in the wall. The fireplace, I assumed, which was apparently just for camouflage. I could see the whole room from here, including the bed, which was creepy.

But not as creepy as another light monster coming my way.

What is this, Grand Central? I thought, staring stupidly at the haze for a second, which was getting rapidly brighter. And then I stumbled quickly in the opposite direction.

It wasn’t exactly a run, because running into utter blackness isn’t fun, and I wasn’t really up to it right now anyway. The best I could manage was a shuffle, with a hand on the wall for balance. But at least there was nothing to trip over, because nobody had bothered about decoration in here. It was just a concrete floor, cold against my bare feet, and an equally cold blank wall.

Or it was until a reddish light started coming toward me from the other direction. I turned around, but the purple light monster was still there and still coming up strong behind me, judging by the way shadows were jumping on the ceiling. Well, shit, I thought, backing up, trying to get a wall behind me.

Which would have worked better if there had been one there.

But my reaching hand found only air, just my ears registered a difference in the echo. I was standing in front of another opening. And then I was through it and into an almost black room.

I threw myself to the side of the opening, hard enough to set my head spinning, so I didn’t see much as the blobs passed by outside. Just flickers of different colors strobing in through the opening for a second. And then they were gone and everything was dark again.

Except for something that gleamed to the far right of the room, displacing a tiny bit of dark.

My eyes fixed on it, and after a moment, it came into focus.

It was a candle.

I felt my spine relax, and I let out a breath I hadn’t noticed I was holding.

It was sitting on a small table by a bed. The bed was big and old-fashioned, with a canopy and curtains to close it off from the cold—and the consul’s spy tunnel, I assumed. It was the sort that had gone out of style with humans when things like central heating came into vogue, but had retained its popularity in the vampire community due to offering added protection from the sun.

Of course, that wasn’t needed here. A windowless room inside a vampire stronghold was about as far from sunlight as it was possible to get. But the bed was there anyway. So it probably belonged to one of the older vamps, who tended to be more traditional.

And who probably wouldn’t be thrilled to wake up and find a dhampir looming over him or her.

I paused, because the last thing I needed was another fight. And if whoever was in there was old, they were probably also powerful and well rested and I…was not. So it might not just be inconvenient.

I should go back to bed.

For once, I should just do the smart thing and go back and get some sleep. By the time I woke up, someone would probably be around to tell me how Mircea was doing. Who was probably fine because he was a freaking tank and people had been trying to kill him for five centuries and had usually ended up dead instead. He was fine and I didn’t even know that this was his room and he was fine.