“Nothing. I think Dorina has proven that she knows how to keep a secret.” Mircea pulled one of the chairs out from beside a small round table and then just stood there, waiting for me.

I cautiously moved forward, wondering if this was some kind of a test. Until recently, Mircea and I had spoken maybe once a decade, and those conversations always ended the same: I got louder and louder, and he got colder and colder, and eventually, I stormed out. That was how the world worked; that was the natural order of things. This… was not. And it worried me.

My hesitation seemed to anger him. “I wish to talk to you, Dorina! Please stop looking as if you suspect me of arranging an ambush.”

An ambush might be easier, I thought, as I slid onto the smooth leather. I knew how to handle those. I wasn’t so sure about whatever this was.

“Talk about what?” I asked cautiously. I had a lot of questions, but I knew better than to think I would get any answers. Mircea never came entirely clean with anyone. All vampires were cagey, secretive, guarded. But in his case, it was more than a personal preference; it was his job.

He was the Senate’s chief diplomat, which meant a lot more than just pressing the flesh at parties. He did his fair share of that, but it was also his responsibility to find the weaknesses in people, to figure out what made them tick, to know what pressure points would yield results. That was why he and Marlowe had practically been Siamese twins since the war. Marlowe gathered info; Mircea exploited it. They were both very good at what they did.

But in Mircea’s case, it had had a side effect. He’d done the job so long now, lived with the lies and half-truths and hidden agendas, that it had bled over into the rest of his life. Sometimes, I really didn’t know if he knew the truth anymore.

“What did you ask for?” He sat down opposite me and crossed his legs, effortlessly elegant, as if we did this every day. Just a casual little father-daughter chat. Uhhuh.

“I’m listening.”

“This cannot leave this room,” he told me. “Not a word, not to anyone, not anywhere, no matter how secure you may think the location to be.”

I’d have made a smart remark about melodrama, but one look at his face was enough. He was serious. “Okay.”

“I assume you are familiar with the World Championships?”

I nodded.

“The Senate is sponsoring them this year, partly to improve our new alliance with the mages, but mainly as a cover.”

“Cover for what?”

“A meeting of delegates from many Senates to discuss the war. If our enemies knew where we were strategizing, they would target it. But everyone goes to the races, which in turn sparks an endless stream of balls and parties—and numerous possibilities for meetings that do not look like meetings.”

“Following you so far.”

“But it is not merely the war that is being discussed. As you are doubtless aware, our Senate recently lost four members, and a fifth is incapacitated for the foreseeable future. Even in a time of peace, this would be intolerable, as it puts a heavy burden on those of us who are left. But with the added burden of the war… it is impossible.”

“I can see that.” The Senate members all had portfolios, like the members of a president’s cabinet. Having so many missing must have placed a big responsibility on those that remained.

“The Senate is using the cover of the races to permit high-ranking masters who do not yet have a Senate seat, but who are strong enough to contend for one, to meet. A test will be held, and new senators will be selected from among the winners.”

“I don’t see what this has to do with the rune.”

“Do you not? The test will be of combat, as is traditional.”

A lightbulb came on. “So whoever has the rune will be automatically among the winners.”

“Yes.”

“That’s too simplistic,” Marlowe said, sitting up. It looked like he’d decided to join the conversation, after all. I guess since Mircea was already spilling the beans, there was no reason to keep quiet. “It would have been little use in battle—its designated function—were its energy easily depleted.”

“You think it could be used again,” I said, seeing where this was going.

“And again and again!” He flopped back against the seat, his expression dour.

“Giving whoever controls it the possibility of also controlling the outcome of the entire contest,” Mircea said more calmly.

“But Ming-de is already the head of a Senate,” I said, getting a very bad feeling suddenly. “She has no reason to join yours.”

“She doesn’t want to join it,” Marlowe said savagely. “She wants to control it.”

“That is, perhaps, overstating things somewhat,” Mircea said soothingly. But it didn’t look like his voice tricks worked on Marlowe, either.

“The hell it is.” He sat up, talking with his hands in that very un-English way of his. “At most, there is perhaps one open Senate seat a century, among all the Senates around the world,” he told me. “Whenever one does come open, competing Senates always try to get one of their people—someone loyal to them, that is—in it, to give them eyes and ears into what their rivals are doing.”

I nodded. I’d never really thought about it—high politics weren’t my usual purview—but it made sense. Vampires invented paranoid; of course they’d want to keep an eye on the competition.

“And yet now, suddenly, there are five. Five seats open, all at once, on the same Senate! It gives an unprecedented opportunity for her to re-form our Senate from the ground up, undermining our sovereignty, and turning our consul into little more than her puppet!”

“So Ming-de wanted the rune to help make certain that her candidates won their fights, and therefore limit your selection of new senators to people loyal to her,” I deciphered.

“Yes.”

“But even say she somehow managed to fill all five seats, that still won’t give her a majority.”

“But it will give her a powerful faction,” Mircea told me, before Marlowe could go on another rant. “And the ability to sway others or to bog us down in constant grid-lock should we ignore her ‘requests.’ ”

“And the other names Ray gave us? Are they trying to do the same thing?”

“I do not know about the mage’s involvement. But Geminus is on our Senate, in a rival faction to my own. The ability to place his people in the empty seats would give him the upper hand.”

“That’s why you asked me if I’d seen Louis-Cesare,” I said, a few pieces suddenly fitting together. “You want him to fill one of your empty seats.”

“With the emphasis on ‘was,’ ” Marlowe said sourly. “He promised to switch Senates a month ago, then promptly ran off chasing Christine. The challenges drew close, and we had heard nothing, not a word. And then, when he finally did surface, it was to become implicated in something like this.”

“Will this disqualify him?”

“Killing another senator? Oh, no,” Marlowe said, waving a hand. “They’ll give him a bloody medal, won’t they?”

“He didn’t do it, Marlowe.”

“A fact that matters not at all, considering that the judge in the case is the very consul he’s planning to desert.”

“Anthony knows?”

Mircea sighed. “Louis-Cesare insisted on telling him. He did not feel it would be honorable to do otherwise.”

“I can’t do anything with the man,” Marlowe said in disgust. “I truly can’t.”

“Louis-Cesare will not be found guilty,” Mircea told me. “Anthony will use this to force him to remain on the European Senate. They have no desire to lose their champion.”

“Which doesn’t help us, Mircea!” Marlowe exclaimed.

Much as I hated to admit it, I could kind of see Marlowe’s point. The vamp world worked because it had a defined hierarchy; everybody knew his or her place and stayed in it. They didn’t have a choice, because there was always someone above them in rank and power to ensure that they did so. Except for the consuls, who were pretty much a law unto themselves. The only ones policing them, if it could be called that, were the other consuls.