"About what?"

"Her car. I know it was probably really rare—"

"It was a car." Alphonse shrugged. "It's no big deal. But everyone would like to know how you survived."

"It's a long story."

"I bet. I saw that thing and I'd have given odds that nobody made it out. Burnt to a crisp."

I frowned. A lot of things had happened to that car, but that hadn't been one of them. "It wasn't burnt. And if it had been, the water would have put it out."

Mircea lifted his head to look at me strangely. "What water?"

"The water in the lake. You know, that we nose-dived into?"

He was silent for a moment. "No, dulceaƫă, I do not. The car exploded in the middle of the desert."

For a moment, I just chewed sandwich. I swallowed and drank some of my wine. "It exploded," I repeated.

"We believe it was a car bomb meant for the Consul. The Bentley was one of her favorites."

The gray whale we'd left at the bottom of Lake Mead had been a Packard. I'd seen the name written across its bulbous backside in big silver letters as it sank. None of this was making sense.

"She informed us that she asked Raphael to drive it out for her," he added.

And then I remembered. Rafe had been saving a seat for me in a black Bentley. I'd seen it in the lineup, a sleek, antique gem gleaming under the emergency lights. I'd almost forgotten until now because we hadn't taken that car. Somebody else had. Somebody who was now dead.

"I assume you shifted out before the explosion?" Mircea asked, watching me keenly. He knew something was wrong.

"We took another car," I said numbly. And if we hadn't, Rafe wouldn't have been in the infirmary today. He would have been dead. If I'd gone back in time to try to save him, I'd have killed him.

Chapter Fourteen

"Here." Sal shoved a glass into my hand. From the fumes, I was guessing it was straight whiskey.

I stared at the coffee table while I sipped it, but all I saw were hundreds of ruined cars baking under a cloudless sky. And all around them, an empty, dead landscape filled with bones. Had all that been the power's way of telling me that I was about to screw up big-time? Had it been trying to warn me about Rafe's death?

I really liked that idea, because in that case the images weren't something to worry about. The crisis was over, Rafe had survived, and for once, we'd dodged a bullet. But as much as I wanted to believe it, something about that idea bugged me.

The burnt-out cars I could understand, considering what had happened to the Bentley. But why not just show me that? The actual explosion would have been a lot easier to decipher than some eerie landscape filled with rotting vehicles. And for that matter, why show me a destroyed Dante's when I asked about preventing the attack on MAGIC?

I was sick of trying to figure out messages conveyed, not through language, but through nightmares! It was just one more reason I hated my gift. Once in a while, you got an image that was clear-cut and unmistakable. Like on my fourteenth birthday, when I'd been gifted with a vision of my parents' deaths in a car bomb, complete with sound and vivid Technicolor. Those types were bad enough, but at least they beat the more mystical variety, which could mean anything or nothing. Half the time you never understood them until the events had come to pass and it was too late.

"So this is what? The third attempt on the Consul's life in the last month?" Sal was asking.

"It is an ongoing problem," Mircea agreed. "Made more so now without MAGIC's extensive ward system."

"And by her refusal to go into hiding," Sal said, looking approving.

Mircea rubbed his eyes. I was beginning to know that gesture. "Yes, and while that has allowed us to identify several traitors, it is. . nerve-wracking."

"She can't cower in the dark," Sal pointed out. "She's a symbol. People take their courage from her."

"That is also her opinion. Kit swears she is giving him ulcers."

Sal frowned and leaned forward, suddenly intense. "She understands that you can't just sit by and hope things work out! That you have to make things happen—"

"I thought he liked stubborn, powerful, complicated types," Alphonse interrupted.

"He likes them alive," Mircea said pointedly.

I pretended not to notice.

"How could one of the Consul's cars have a bomb?" I asked. "Aren't they cared for by her servants?"

"Yes." Mircea looked grim. "It would appear that we have another traitor."

"How many did that damn girl corrupt?" Alphonse asked angrily.

"That damn girl" was Myra, Agnes' former ward, who had joined Apollo's side. She'd figured out how to weaken the bonds between master vampires and their servants by using her abilities to go back in time and poison soon-to-be vampires. Vamps who were ill or dying when changed were never as strongly bound to their master's will. Horatiu, for example, had been on his deathbed when Mircea changed him, but the most he did with his greater freedom was to speak his mind.

Others had found more dangerous pastimes.

"There cannot be many more," Mircea said, looking like he really wanted to believe that. "Myra was targeting the leading servants of Senate members, weakening their bonds so that they could be persuaded to betray or kill their masters. That narrows the number of suspects to a relatively small group. And at the rate we're going, they will all have rebelled before long!"

"Wouldn't it be wise to isolate them or something?" I suggested. "At least until things calm down?" I didn't like the thought of one of those hard-eyed masters stabbing him in the back. Or anywhere else.

Mircea shook his head. "Unfortunately, the very ones under suspicion are also those of the most value to us. And at the moment, we need our strength."

"Yes, but if they're dangerous—"

"It would be more dangerous to deprive ourselves of their support," he said firmly. "And we may already know who the traitor is. An old adherent of my house tried to assassinate someone dear to me recently. He failed and was killed. But for months before that, he was on my staff at MAGIC. He would have had ample opportunity to set a trap for the Consul."

And so would a lot of other people,

I thought but didn't say. If I knew Marlowe, he wasn't likely to leave any stone unturned in the investigation. Someone had almost assassinated his leader right under his nose. That had to sting.

"What would happen to the war if the Consul died?" I asked, pretty sure that I already knew the answer.

"Our participation would be severely curtailed while a replacement was determined. That could take months, as our laws allow anyone to contend for the position who has reached first-level status. That includes masters from other courts. And many of them are of the opinion that we need nothing from humans other than their blood."

"So there goes the alliance with the Circle," I said blankly. And possibly the war. I drained my glass, appreciating the warmth it sent coursing through me. My skin had suddenly gone cold.

At Mircea's request, I spent the next fifteen minutes bringing everyone up to speed about my day. He didn't interrupt, but he didn't look happy. And he actually drank the amber liquid in his glass instead of just swirling it around as usual.

"I will have someone examine your ward," he said when I'd finished. "I don't like the idea of your being without it."

"Yeah. Especially with the Circle still after me."

"Yes, about that," Mircea said, accepting a refill from Sal. "The Lord Protector called me this afternoon to ask about you."

"How kind of him." I stabbed a tomato with my fork.

Something that wasn't a smile lifted the corner of Mircea's mouth. "He assured me that Mage Richardson acted completely without his knowledge or consent, out of a spirit of revenge."