He glanced at the door and Mircea cocked his head slightly. "The spell is active. Even with enhanced hearing, Pritkin cannot eavesdrop. Tell her."

Louis-César looked at me and I got that feeling again of power sliding along my skin. His control was slipping. I thrust my bracelet into my pocket so it wouldn't go nuts. I didn't want to find out what would happen if it attacked him. "We believe that a challenger to the Consul, Lord Rasputin, is using the missing sybil in his bid for power. For months, Senate members have been attacked by their own retainers. In some cases those who have served them for centuries, who were thought completely loyal, have turned on them without warning. The guards in the Senate chamber who attacked you were some of these. Sworn to the Consul's own power, still they turned. Now we may understand why."

Maybe I was missing something. I wasn't exactly at my best. "Okay, why?"

Rafe came forward and knelt at my feet. I petted his messy curls and felt a little better. He couldn't do a damn thing for me, but it was nice having him around. "Don't you see, mia stella? The sybil must have traveled in time as you did, and somehow she interfered with the bonding between servants and masters. It has long been thought that the Pythia experiences all times at once, instead of traveling only in one direction as we do. It may be that the missing sybil is gaining power as you have recently done. Only she has used the power for harm."

"Wait a minute." My head hurt. "There are so many problems with that statement, I don't know where to start. How do you interfere with a bond that close? And how about the fact that I'm not the heir? Pritkin made that pretty clear."

"No," Louis-César said, "he made it clear that he did not wish the power to come to you. But obviously he fears that it has, at least in part, or he would not have tried to kill you. I apologize for that. If we had truly believed him that hostile, we would not have allowed him to stay. But we hoped he would confirm our suspicions."

"Which he did, after a fashion," Mircea commented. "He may not have said as much, but his reactions make it clear that part of the power the Pythia holds has leaked to Cassie, and therefore in all likelihood to the other heir as well."

I shook my head. "But Pritkin said the Pythia can't possess people, so her heir wouldn't be able to either, right? And if that's true, it would really limit what she could do. Energy reserves are used up fast in other times, real fast. Especially if you do anything more than stand around. When I was, um, in Louis-César, I didn't have that problem, but if she can't latch on to a human energy source, she won't last long enough to do very much."

"She might not need long," Mircea said thoughtfully. "The act of creating a new vampire is a delicate process. Any deviation can have very unfortunate results."

I'd heard a few horror stories. Best-case scenario, the new vamp simply never rose. He or she stayed dead after three days, and you knew there had been a problem. Worst-case scenario, they rose without any higher brain functions, a horrible mess called a revenant. They were like animals who lived only to hunt. And because they couldn't reason, they didn't acknowledge the mastery of the one who made them. The only thing to do was to hunt them down before they went crazy on a group of humans.

"What could someone with no more power than a new ghost do in, what, about an hour?" I looked at Tomas. "Is that right? How long were we there?"

"It could not have been much longer, but we were exerting ourselves heavily. We might have been able to prolong our stay otherwise."

"Yeah, but I wouldn't know how to interfere with a vamp making a new servant, and even as a spirit, I wouldn't like to try. How would she do it?"

"The sybil has Rasputin to tell her what to do," Louis-César reminded me. "She would go with detailed instructions, and possibly others to aid her."

"It would not be so difficult," Mircea added. "The individual in question has to be pure, with no bites from another vampire in the last few years. They have to be willing and at peace when they are made, and healthy, or at least not seriously ill. If someone tampered with any of these conditions, centuries later, a powerful master such as Rasputin might be able to override the weakened bond." He thought about it for a minute. "Interference in the first condition seems to me unlikely. That would result in the subjects failing to rise, which would not help Rasputin's cause: the master would have simply selected other servants. It is also likely that a master would detect another's bite and pass them by."

"What would she have to do?"

He shrugged. "There are many possibilities. Poison them with a slow-acting toxin, for instance. They would die before it became obvious that they were seriously weakened, and the poison would not harm them once they rose. Yet it would severely diminish their attachment to their master. Or they could be given a stimulant powerful enough that they remained aware and afraid through the transition, instead of peaceful and euphoric."

"But you can't take stuff with you in spirit form," I pointed out. "Where would she get the poison?"

"She likely retrieved whatever medium she used from where her allies had placed it. The Black Circle has existed almost as long as the Silver—it dates to the middle of the third millennium B.C.E.—and poison has always been a favorite weapon of its members. They could easily have provided what was needed."

"But why would the old Black Circle trust Rasputin?" If he was strong enough to cause this much hell, I doubted the guy had actually been born a Russian peasant in the latter nineteenth century. It was probably a name he'd adopted, possibly after killing the owner or by making it up and using mental tricks to make people believe his story. But it didn't seem likely that he'd been around long enough to have been at Carcassonne when I was there. The Senate would not have so badly underestimated a vamp that old.

"He is allied with their modern counterparts, who could tell him what to say," Mircea explained. "The sybil could have taken a message to the dark mages, asking for aid. The Silver Circle is allied with us, and it is an old alliance. Disrupting it would be a coup for the dark."

My head was swimming. I had a hard time believing that the Black Circle in any era would exert themselves for future gain that none of them would live to see. But it wasn't my problem. "What do you expect me to do? Go back and arm wrestle her or something? Shouldn't you be more worried about the duel?"

"We are." Louis-César was grim. "In less than twelve hours, I am scheduled to duel Rasputin to the death. I will defeat him, if I am still here."

"You planning on going somewhere?"

I meant it as a joke, but he didn't look like he found it funny. "Possibly. Rasputin agreed to the duel believing that he would face Mei Ling. It was thought that, when I was named champion instead, he would withdraw. But he did not, even though he must know that he cannot defeat me."

I decided not to point out how conceited that sounded. "But he can't interfere with you. You're a first-level master; he isn't strong enough to influence you. Even if he weakened your bond with your old master, at your level, it doesn't matter anymore. The tactics he's used on the other vamps won't work."

"No, but he could prevent me from being made at all."

I debated whether to point out the obvious. I decided to risk it. "No offense—I'm sure you deserve your rep—but there's got to be other champions the Consul could choose. She's been around two thousand years; she has to know people."

"True." Louis-César didn't look insulted, to my relief. "She had other names in mind if I declined."

"Then what's the problem, other than for you personally?"

"The problem, dulceaţă" Mircea said, "is that Rasputin has also never lost a duel. There were other names on the Consul's list, but none that we are confident can manage victory no matter the trickery used against him. Louis-César has fought more duels than the rest of the Consul's choices combined. He must be our champion, for our champion must win."

"And that has to do with me how?" I was getting a very bad feeling.

"We need to ensure that he does not alter time again, dulceaţă. We need you to go back and stop him from interfering with the birth of our champion."

"How would she do that?" Tomas asked before I could. "How can she guard him from a curse?"

Louis-César was looking at Tomas as if he'd lost his mind. "What curse?" .

"Is that not how you were made?"

"You know perfectly well it was not!"

Billy Joe streamed in the window, a dove gray cloud. "Did I miss anything?"

"You are completely out of your mind," I informed them. Too bad for their plans, but I wasn't about to die for the Consul, or for anybody else if I could help it. "Do you get the implications here? I took Tomas back with me. Okay, it was by mistake, but if they've been doing this as long as you say, they've almost certainly figured out how to do it, too." Someone had brought the gypsy into this century, and it hadn't been me. "I could be facing Rasputin himself, and I'm not a duelist!"

"I missed something, didn't I?" Billy Joe drifted around, but I ignored him.

"You took Tomas with you when you were inhabiting his body. The sybil can't do that; Pritkin told us as much, dulceaţă."

"Pritkin's an idiot," I reminded Mircea. "We don't know that's why Tomas was able to hitch a ride. Maybe all I have to do is touch someone. Maybe she can do it, too."

Billy drifted in front of my vision, making the whole room look like I was seeing it through a glittery gray scarf. "We need to talk, Cass. You won't believe what I found out at Dante's!" I cocked an eyebrow at him but didn't dare say anything. I didn't want to alert anyone to his presence. I had a feeling I would need him before long.