Of course, that made the other consuls their only real rivals, too. This was getting really scary, really quickly. But at least it explained why everyone was going quietly out of their minds over that stupid rune.

“So that’s why you were angry with Louis-Cesare earlier tonight. You thought he’d deserted you to… what? Run his own game?”

Mircea shrugged. “It seemed unlikely. He had not been invited to the auction; I could not conceive of how he had learned of the stone’s existence. And it would have been out of character for him. But then—”

“That kind of power corrupts quickly,” Marlowe finished for him.

“Indeed.”

“And that’s why you asked Radu to bid on Naudiz—you wanted it to build a Senate to your liking.”

“Not just to our liking,” Mircea said. “To our necessity. We cannot afford constant power politics, bickering and infighting during a war. We have to be united—something that will not happen if candidates under obligation elsewhere win the right to a seat on our Senate.”

“You didn’t know about the stone until a few days ago. What were you planning to do before?”

“Kit and I have been working to ensure a favorable outcome, hand-selecting candidates who are not only of a like mind politically, but who have no outside ties and have a good chance in their matches. It has been a difficult search, but we believe we have found our champions.”

“Yet no one can stand against an invincible opponent!” Marlowe reminded him. “I don’t care how good they are; if anyone at that damned auction has the rune, it’ll skew everything. Ming-de isn’t the only one who can play power games.”

“But if we find the rune, we find the killer,” I realized. “Setting Louis-Cesare free to challenge for one of your empty seats.”

“A fact that would make me feel a good deal better if the matches did not begin tomorrow night,” Marlowe said.

“It’s also a short suspect list,” I pointed out. “I think we can eliminate Ming-de. She won the auction; she would have had no reason to steal her own property.”

“Unless she knew the rune’s provenance,” Marlowe argued. “She may have doubted her abilities to keep it from being reclaimed by the fey, even should she pay for it. But if it was supposedly stolen before it reached her hands…” He shrugged.

“You’re a sneaky son of a bitch.”

He smiled. “Thank you.”

“Ming-de is not what anyone would call naive,” Mircea said sardonically. “It appears that we cannot rule anyone out at present. Other than Radu, who was there on my behalf.”

“But we have to add back in Cheung,” I said. “He wasn’t here for the auction, but he could have murdered Elyas. He was chasing Louis-Cesare and me half the night, trying to recover Ray. After he lost us, he could have returned to the club and questioned some of Ray’s servants. And if any of them mentioned Elyas, he had plenty of time to come here.”

“Five then,” Mircea said. “Ming-de, Geminus, Lord Cheung, the mage Lutkin andsubrand.”

“I need about six hours sleep; then I’ll start on the list,” I told him.

“No,” Mircea said flatly. “I told you all of this to avoid your involvement, not to solicit it. You needed to know how high the stakes were; now that you do, you must understand that—”

“I understand that you need all the help you can get!”

“You have a number of useful talents, none of which will work on anyone on that list!” he told me, suddenly angry. Or maybe he’d been so all along and just hadn’t shown it. Mircea was one person whose emotions I’d never been able to read with any accuracy. “You will not get in to see them, and if by some chance you did, they wouldn’t tell you anything.”

“The vampires, maybe. But I can talk to the mage—”

“I am not concerned about the mage. If he wants the stone for personal protection, all well and good. In that case, it will not interfere with the outcome of the competition. But you will stay away from the rest, the fey prince in particular.”

“Why does everyone assume I plan to go aftersubrand? I’m insane, not stupid.”

“I have never assumed you to be either. But you wish to help your friend.”

“I don’t recall mentioning any friends.” And if Louis-Cesare had, I was going to skin him.

Those dark eyes met mine. “I am not stupid, either, Dorina. When the stone is recovered, assuming it is, it will be returned to its owners. I have no wish to make an enemy of the fey. In the meantime, you are to stay out of this. Once you are no longer in competition with him for the rune,subrand will have no reason to trouble you.”

There was no safe reply to that, so I didn’t make one.

“I’ll get people on it,” Marlowe said. “But it isn’t going to be easy. Not with that group. Our best bet may be to wait and see whose candidates start cleaning up at the challenges. Although what we’re supposed to do about it then, I don’t know. Prying it loose from any one of them, with the possible exception of the mage, will not be easy.”

Funny thing, that’s exactly what I’d been thinking about Marlowe.

CHAPTER 22

Anthony made his rather flamboyant departure a moment later, surrounded by a passel of genuflecting flunkies. “Not coming?” he asked, peering in the door at Mircea.

“I will be along presently.”

“Oh, good. We’d hate to have to start without you.” He strode away, cheerfully chatting with Jérôme, and I suddenly realized that he was wearing a toga. His personality was so big that it had eclipsed everything else. I simply hadn’t noticed.

I did notice that Louis-Cesare didn’t even look in at me as he passed, however. It looked like some of Marlowe’s comments had gotten through, after all. Slumming with a dhampir was okay as long as nobody knew, but now it was clearly time for damage control.

I don’t know why it surprised me. No vampire had a dhampir lover. A few had tried to seduce me over the years, for the thrill or the bragging rights or just because they liked living dangerously. But anything more than a one-night stand? No.

And that wasn’t going to change. Best-case scenario, it would be social and political suicide. Worst-case, someone influential might start to wonder about said vampire’s sanity. And there was only one solution for insane vampires. I should know; I was the one called in to dish it out.

But it did surprise me. It also hurt, and that was unacceptable. I was tired and I was drunk off my ass and I was in danger of getting maudlin. It was clearly time to go.

I started to get up, when a cool hand slid onto my undamaged wrist. “Could you give us a moment, Kit?” Mircea asked.

Marlowe didn’t even bother to argue. I had the feeling he wasn’t exactly looking forward to facing the Senate. He went out the door, and Christine came back in. She was lugging two large suitcases and had a third under her arm.

“Christine. Dorina and I need to have a short conversation. Perhaps you could wait in the office?” Mircea asked politely.

Christine looked up, saw him and blinked. Then she smiled, the way women always smiled at Mircea. “Of course.”

“We’re not done?” I asked warily. This was already more than we’d talked in… well, ever. At least in one sitting.

Mircea selected a small cigarette—Turkish, by the smell—and proffered me the case. “Not quite.”

“Nasty habit,” I said, declining. I only smoke weed.

“There are worse ones.”

“Meaning?”

He put the case away and sat back in the chair, lighting up with an easy, unhurried motion.

For a long moment, he didn’t say anything, which wasn’t good. Mircea never has to gather his thoughts. Mircea has entirely too many thoughts. That’s his problem.

Well, one of them.

“I’ve never spoken to you much about your mother, have I?” he finally asked.

For a minute, I just sat there, frozen. Of all the things I’d expected him to come out with, that would have probably been dead last. I’d given up asking about her years ago, because the result was always the same: a few dead, dry facts that told me nothing more than I already knew, uttered with cold indifference. She’d been a peasant girl; they’d had a brief affair; he’d left when he discovered that he’d joined the life-challenged segment of the population, which, coincidentally, was about the same time she found out she was pregnant. The end.