“To whom did she say it? To you?”

“No. She made the claim to one of the humans conducting the auction. He contacted our delegation at MAGIC, offering her to us—for a substantial price, of course.”

“Then how did Drac get to her first?” I was sitting on my hands to keep from wrapping them around that ivory throat, but that wasn’t going to work for long. I was bled almost dry and exhausted, enough that my temper should have been calmed at least a little. But no such luck.

Caedmon used his fork to cut off the escape of a couple of cows, which had been making a break for the shadows around the salt cellar. “He reached the auction ahead of me and took her from the auctioneers by force.” Caedmon didn’t sound particularly put out. He was relaxed, casual even. “Whether he can manage to control one so powerful, I do not know.” He shrugged. “Perhaps if he keeps her sedated…”

I was about to erupt, but Louis-Cesare beat me to it. “Stop teasing her. Tell us what you know.” His face matched the voice—cold, hard and not amused.

Caedmon’s friendly expression altered, his smile growing as brittle and brilliant as cut crystal. He didn’t seem to like orders. I don’t know what would have happened if Stinky hadn’t chosen that moment to choke on one of the larger cows—about the length of my index finger—which he’d been trying to shove down whole. Olga clapped him on the back with one enormous hand, causing the creature to fly out of his mouth like it had been shot from a gun. It landed in the tray of Amaretto pears Geoffrey had just brought in. A dozen butterflies, which had been decorating the dish, scattered in a mad fluttering of spun-sugar wings.

Radu looked tragic. Geoffrey didn’t look like much of anything, his face a careful blank as he regarded the ruined dish and his splattered shirt. Olga, on the other hand, seemed to find the whole thing extremely funny, judging by her guffaws of laughter. She’d been throwing the miniature herd back like popcorn, not even bothering to chew, and I guess Stinky had been trying to imitate her. I checked on him, but he didn’t appear to be suffering any ill effects.

I turned back to Caedmon. “Please—tell us what you know.”

He inclined his head in a naturally aristocratic gesture. “Of course.” The rich voice wrapped itself around my nerves, instantly soothing. Which was a good thing, considering what he had to say. “I am afraid I have more questions than answers, as does the Domi, our assembly of elders. A child is a great joy among us, not something to be hidden in the dark as if shameful. Yet no one knew until recently that the king was even acquainted with your friend, much less that he may have sired a child with her! And now you tell me you didn’t know it, either.” Caedmon flashed me a red-toothed smile. “The mystery deepens.”

He ripped a leg off one of the struggling creatures on his plate and swallowed it whole. He seemed to like only the haunches. Half a dozen tiny torsos floated on a river of blood in front of him, a few still weakly moving. “Maybe it isn’t true,” I offered.

“Why would she make up such a fantastic lie?” Louis-Cesare asked.

I shrugged. “Maybe hoping for help in getting away from her kidnappers? Anything would be better than being handed over to the harvesters.”

“But why contact the Fey?” he insisted. “They are not known for altruism toward outsiders. If they rescued her and discovered she was lying, she would likely be in even more peril than before.”

“But was she lying?” I turned to Caedmon. “What does your king say?”

“I would ask him had he not disappeared several weeks ago. There was an assassination attempt, or so it seems. He went on a hunting expedition with two trusted retainers one afternoon and never returned. We found his horse—riderless—and, after a search, the two retainers—dead. But of the king himself, there was no sign.”

I stared at my plate, my stomach flip-flopping like a landed fish. I herded my cows over to Stinky, who appeared to have the appetite of a couple of starving teenagers, and tried to order my thoughts. “So the Domi sent you to find out the truth,” I finally said. “Because if Claire’s claim wasn’t a desperate lie, she carries the heir to the throne.” Caedmon’s mouth was full, but he nodded. “And if the rumor is true?” He swallowed but still said nothing. “You’re planning to take her back with you,” I accused.

Caedmon sat back in the hard, uncomfortable dining chair as if on a throne, his legs stretched out in front of him in supine elegance. “The present situation proves that she is hardly safe here, does it not?”

“I believe I’m missing something,” Radu announced indistinctly, around the tiny brown leg that was sticking out of the corner of his mouth. He seemed to be having difficulty with his own chef’s cooking. A moment before, a bull had fallen over the edge of his plate, and when he’d tried to scoop it up surreptitiously, it gored his finger. “I thought the heir had to have a majority of Fey blood. Why would Claire’s child, assuming she is pregnant, be in the running?”

Caedmon shook his head, causing all that golden hair to shimmer like a silken banner caught in a breeze. “Forgive me, but you do not seem to know a great deal about the lady in question. The Domi has recently learned that her mother had a liaison with a powerful Dark Fey noble. If Claire was the result, a child born to her and our king would be three-quarters Fey. And a very strong contender indeed.”

I stared at Louis-Cesare, and could tell we were both thinking the same thing. “Half-breed.” He said it first.

I nodded. The Fey who attacked us hadn’t been after me at all—they’d mistaken me for Claire, the other half-breed who lived at that address. It looked like Kyle had gotten something right, after all. Claire was carrying a nonhuman child, but the father was Fey, not vampire. I felt a rush of relief so extreme that I laughed aloud. This garnered me a few worried glances, but I didn’t care. That was one huge weight off my mind. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the only one.

“I was under the impression that the Fey took human babies and left changelings in their place,” Radu was saying. “Why would a Fey leave a child behind?”

Caedmon made a graceful, indeterminate hand gesture. “Presumably because the lady did not tell him she was going to have one. Perhaps she feared that he would take the child if he knew.”

“Then how did the king find out?” I asked. “Claire’s mother died when she was a baby. And if her real father didn’t know…”

“That is one of many questions I, too, would like to ask, were there any who might answer them,” Caedmon said. “Perhaps her mother told her husband the truth before she died. Perhaps he arranged for a test. There are several that could have shown the truth, both magical and mundane. We can only speculate.”

Louis-Cesare’s blue eyes narrowed as if he didn’t like Caedmon’s answer. “The Senate believes that the succession struggle has been taken into our world recently. Both Prince Alarr and another contender, a Svarestri noble named Æsubrand, have been seen in New York within the last month.”

I stared at him. “Where did you hear that?”

“From Kit Marlowe.” I scowled. The beetle hadn’t bothered to mention that little tidbit.

Louis-Cesare had the look of someone who was thinking hard. I preferred it to the compassion on Caedmon’s face. I didn’t want Claire to need compassion. “If the king is dead,” Louis-Cesare said slowly, “the throne is in contention. Disposing of Claire, if she is carrying the king’s child, would also remove a rival.”

“She must be found and the succession issue resolved,” Caedmon agreed. “In the last civil war, more than ten thousand of us perished.” His gaze went distant, as if he was seeing another time. “Arrows shredded the sky. Blood fell like rain. Smoke from the funeral pyres filled the air until all that was visible was a dirty haze that stung the eyes and stopped the throat.” His voice thrummed in the air like a note from a plucked string, and suddenly, I could actually see the scene his words described.