“I was thinking I needed to get my son away from those SOBs! But after I broke Jesse out, he begged me to go back in for some friends of his. And then they had friends and then the friends had friends…And sometimes wards weren’t the only obstacles, especially once they figured out I could get past them. They started rigging booby traps, so I started carrying explosives and…it snowballed.”

“Oh.” I blinked, finding it hard to reconcile the crazed vigilante with the woman I’d known. Of course, she was probably having a similar problem with me.

“But the Circle set a trap and I fell into it, and now they want me to give up the names of everyone who’s been helping me find homes for the kids. And I won’t.” She glared some more at Marlowe. “I don’t care what you do to me. You damn vampires can drain me dry and I won’t tell you a goddamned—”

“That’s not why you’re here,” I told her, jumping in. A show of spirit was one thing; insulting the Senate was something else. I’d already done enough of that for both of us. “I want to see Mircea,” I told Marlowe, pulling Tami behind me.

“He’s indisposed.”

“You already said that. I still want to see him.”

Marlowe’s expression blanked with that creepy speed the vamps sometimes showed. “No,” he told me seriously. “I don’t think you do.”

“Where is he?” Alphonse demanded. He and Sal had been prudently keeping to the background, but they came forward now. One of the Senate guards moved to intercept, but Marlowe made a gesture and he let them pass.

“He had to be moved to a more secure area.” Marlowe shot me a look. “I have need of every operative right now; I do not have the men to keep Lord Mircea safely confined.”

“Confined?” The word didn’t make sense in context with Mircea. He was a first-level master. They went wherever they damn well pleased. “What are you talking about?”

“He attempted to leave, I assume to find you. But he was not in full control of his faculties. We did not know what he might do if he escaped into the human population in such a state.” Marlowe grimaced. “He was…displeased…to have his wishes denied. I have six men in critical condition who can attest to that fact.”

I swallowed and tried for a neutral expression. I doubt I made it. When Mircea had been thinking clearly, he had ordered me away. If he was trying to track me down now, it meant that things had deteriorated—even faster than I’d expected.

“Where. Is. He?” Alphonse repeated, although it sounded more like “Don’t make me eat your face.”

Sal grabbed his arm while Marlowe just looked irritated. Clearly, he didn’t think much of Alphonse’s intelligence. It was a point of view I was coming to share. Challenging any Senate member wasn’t bright, but antagonizing the chief spy was suicidal, especially for someone who was barely a third-level master.

When Marlowe ignored him, Alphonse let out what could only be called a growl. “Control your servant,” Marlowe said, “or I will.”

It took me a moment to realize that he was addressing me. It didn’t make sense. Alphonse was not my servant. Alphonse was…oh, shit. “You’re treating me as Mircea’s second, aren’t you?” It came out okay, even though my lips had gone numb.

“He named you as such while he was still…capable,” Marlowe admitted.

Okay, this was bad. Really, really bad. It explained a lot of things, including why the Consul had yet to order me dragged off to a cell somewhere, but that was about the only positive aspect.

Technically, Mircea could appoint anyone he chose as his second, the person who spoke for the family in the event that the master was unable to do so for a time. It was the position Alphonse had held under Tony. But why on earth had Mircea chosen me? He had an entire staff at his home in Washington State, not to mention a vast family of adherents, any one of which would have made more sense as temporary guardian. I couldn’t defend the family, which was a second’s primary job. I had trouble just keeping myself alive! What the hell had he been thinking?

I licked my lips. It was a telling gesture that would have won me a smack upside the head from Eugenie, but they were suddenly so dry I couldn’t speak otherwise. But nothing seemed to be coming out of my mouth anyway.

“Well, of course he did,” Sal said. I felt an iron grip descend on my shoulder. It said, don’t you dare pass out and disgrace us all. I straightened my spine slightly, and the pressure eased enough that I might get away with only a slight bruise. “The master and the Pythia have formed an alliance.”

Marlowe’s expression made it clear what he thought about that, but then the Consul spoke up and nobody else’s opinion mattered. “Then you may speak for him,” she told me.

I moved a little closer, but stopped before the reflection cast by my dress hit the table. I doubted the little points of light it was giving off would be more than a flea bite to her, but I didn’t need any help pissing her off. I was probably going to manage that all by myself.

I looked up into that beautiful bronze face. “Why has Lord Mircea been imprisoned?”

“As you were told, for his protection. He was becoming difficult to control without inflicting damage. The snare also obviates the need for constant supervision.”

“The snare? You mean you put him in—”

“We had no choice,” Marlowe said quickly. “Nothing else could hold him.”

Alphonse cursed and I bit my lip before I said something I probably wouldn’t live long enough to regret. But despite my best efforts, I felt my blood pressure skyrocket. She was talking about the type of magical cage Françoise had tried to use on the Graeae. It was meant for dangerous criminals, which meant the designer hadn’t worried about providing a lot of comfort—or about ensuring unconsciousness. The Consul’s offhand comment meant that Mircea was all alone in a blank world going slowly out of his mind, with no comfort of any kind—no voice to talk to, no hand to touch. Nothing. I couldn’t think of a worse fate.

“Are you going to accept that shit?” Alphonse hissed in my ear. His fist was clenched and he looked like a man who dearly wanted to run amok. “Because I—”

I stomped on his foot, hard, and amazingly, he shut up. “No.” I looked at the Consul again. “Mircea must be set free. Immediately.”

She inclined her head slightly. “You agree to complete the geis?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then he remains where he is,” she said flatly. “We cannot cure him. In confinement, he cannot injure himself or others.”

“He is being injured! The geis is driving him mad!”

“A fact you could prevent, if you chose.” A flash of anger rippled across that usually impassive face. “If he had not named you head of house, I would order you locked in a room with him and we would have done with this!”

“If Mircea wanted that, he wouldn’t have named me his second,” I pointed out, thinking frantically. And just like that, I realized why he’d sent me away, why he had taken the only step possible to ensure that the Consul could not force us together. “He’s afraid, isn’t he?”

“What?” Alphonse was obviously lost, but Sal looked thoughtful. I was starting to wonder who really ran that partnership.

“You’re Pythia now,” she said slowly, working it out. “And the geis responds to power.” Her eyes suddenly got wide. “Oh, shit.”

That settled it. I was never going to assume Sal was slow on the uptake again. She’d gotten it a lot faster than I had.

For Alphonse’s sake, I spelled it out. “When Mircea placed the geis on me, he was the most powerful of the parties involved, so it was under his control. It was supposed to be lifted before I became Pythia, but that didn’t happen. And now Mircea is afraid that my power will override his. That, if we complete the geis, I won’t be his servant—he’ll be mine.”

Alphonse looked like someone who had just had a load of bricks dumped on him. I left him to process things while I turned back to the Consul. “Tony had a portal,” I told her abruptly. “He used it for his smuggling operation. You can use it to send Mircea into Faerie, where the effects of the geis will be lessened. He should be in control of himself there.”

“The Fey will not allow it.” The beautiful mask was back in place, and so perfect that I almost thought I’d imagined the other.

“The dark will. Their king and I have an understanding. And one of his servants is available to escort Mircea to the palace, so he will not be harmed on the way. All we need is a power source to open the portal.” I gave Billy a metaphysical poke. I doubted that asking him to babysit a bad-tempered pixie was going to go over well, but I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t trust Radella. “Make sure she doesn’t try to double-cross Françoise,” I told him.

“And how am I supposed to do that?”

“She can hear you,” I reminded him. For some reason, she’d never had a problem with that, even in our world. “Tell her the deal is off if she tries anything.”

Billy streamed halfway out of the necklace to grin at me. “This has potential.”

“And don’t antagonize her!”

“Of course not.” He put on his wounded face.

“That will not solve the issue at hand,” the Consul insisted, ignoring my one-sided conversation. The snake’s hood behind her flexed, a long, slow ripple that cascaded down into the gleaming caftan. I didn’t know if that meant anything, so I ignored it.

“I’ve been working on a permanent solution.” I had hoped to avoid bringing this up, considering how she was almost certain to respond, but I was out of other options. “There is a counterspell.”

“There is not. Our experts all agree.”

“Then your experts are wrong. The counterspell is contained in the Codex Merlini.”