“Mircea bugged me?” I guessed.

“And Marlowe, I believe.”

“Why? Was he afraid Mircea might not tell him everything?”

Rafe looked shocked. “We all have the same desire, mia stella: to keep you safe. And a new version of the spell was recently perfected. It is much harder to detect, even by mages.”

“Then why not remove the old one?”

“We were not aware that the mage was also planning to cast one on you. And if someone did abduct you, they would expect to find such a spell.”

“So the original was left to give them something to remove, in the hopes that they wouldn’t look any further.”

“Exactly!” Rafe seemed pleased that I’d grasped his point so easily. Yet he managed to totally miss mine. Sometimes I forgot that Rafe, who had taken to modern clothes and cars, music and art, almost better than any vamp I knew, had been born in the same century as Mircea. No wonder he didn’t understand why I’d object to having my every movement followed. The women back then had probably enjoyed it.

Pritkin met my eyes. He got it; he just didn’t care.

“You could have asked me,” I pointed out, keeping my temper because I was too tired for anything else.

“You admitted that you would have had it removed.”

“If you had explained that you’d done it for my safety—”

“Yes, because safety is so important to you!” He rounded on me. “So important, in fact, that you deliberately lied in order to stay in a situation you knew was perilous. For no reason!”

“No reason?” I felt my face flush with more than sunburn. “I had the impression that you needed my help!”

“Until the prisoners were freed, yes. Afterward, there was nothing more you could do and no reason for you to remain. You should have left when I instructed you to do so!”

“Partners don’t abandon each other to die.”

“If the alternative is to stay and die with them? Yes! They do!” His words were angry, but his face was oddly still, strained and pale.

I tried again. “I am concerned with safety. But I can’t always do my job and—”

“That was not your job. Rescuing those prisoners had nothing to do with the time line! Had I guessed that you were foolish enough to almost get killed over them, I would never have agreed to help you!”

“It might not have been my job, but it was my doing. If I hadn’t gone to that meeting—”

“Then we wouldn’t know that there is a problem with the lines.”

I frowned. “What are you talking about? The battle—”

“Should have had no effect. If the lines were that unstable, they would be useless to us. Someone or something must have weakened the structural integrity of that line before the battle.”

“Someone? You think this was deliberate?”

“I don’t know. But I’ve never heard of anything of the kind occurring naturally, and the fact that the breach targeted MAGIC is highly suspect.”

I thought about the incredible power of a ley line, all those acres and acres of jumping, brilliant energy, and didn’t believe it. “But how?”

“I can’t explain it. No one has that kind of power. Not the dark, not even us.”

“Apollo does.”And if anyone had reason to want MAGIC destroyed, it was him.

But Pritkin didn’t seem to think much of that idea. “If he could send that amount of energy to his supporters, he would have done so long ago and destroyed the Circle at the outset. Thankfully, you possess the only remnants of his power on Earth.”

The conversation had to pause at that point because we’d reached Tremaine and, just beyond him, his idea of a ride. He shot us an apologetic glance. “It seems that any food that doesn’t make it into tourists’ stomachs is made into high-quality pig feed,” he explained. “And Mr. Ellis here hauls leftovers from several casinos to a recycler. He’s kindly agreed to drop us at Dante’s on his way back for another load.”

“It’s on my way,” the old man repeated cheerfully. “Now settle yourselves any old where. The drums are empty; you won’t hurt anything.”

Empty, as it turns out, is a relative term. The buffet sludge leaking over the sides of a half dozen black plastic drums was joined by several weeks’ worth of dried flotsam rattling around the truck bed. It was also about one hundred degrees with no shade, causing Rafe to hunker down with the sheets pulled up over his head.

“Are you all right?” I asked him, worried. Rafe was a master, but only fourth level. The sun didn’t merely drain someone like him of power; it could hurt or even kill him in sufficient quantities.

“Well enough,” he told me, but he didn’t sound good. Thankfully, it was only about twenty-five miles into town.

“I don’t get it,” I told Pritkin, who shook his head before I could even frame a question.

“Not here.”

“I don’t think he’s listening,” I said, nodding at the driver. The radio was blaring Johnny Cash at ear-ringing decibels, and that was from where we were sitting. The sound in the cab had to be deafening.

Pritkin just looked at me, so I turned to the nice war mage. “I don’t understand what stopped that thing. Once there was a tear in the fabric between worlds, why didn’t it continue all the way to the end of the line? Like ripping a seam when the thread’s cut?”

Tremaine looked nervously at Pritkin, who muttered something but answered the question. “My best guess would be that the ley line sink at MAGIC had enough energy to seal the breach. In your analogy, it would be like encountering a knot in the thread.”

“But what if that hadn’t been enough? What would have happened?”

“The tear would have continued until reaching a vortex big enough to counter it.”

“And that would be where?” I asked, getting a very bad feeling.

“The line where the eruption occurred runs from MAGIC straight to Chaco Canyon, where there is a great vortex—a crossing of more than two dozen lines. It is one of the most powerful in this hemisphere.”

“Chaco Canyon?”

Pritkin grimaced. “New Mexico.”

I stared at him for a moment, sure I’d heard wrong. “New Mexico? You’re saying that thing could have continued for hundreds of miles?”

“Leveling every magical edifice across three states,” he agreed tightly.

“And a lot of nonmagical ones,” Tremaine added, looking horrified. “Even some norms can pick up on the kind of energy a powerful ley line throws off. Traditionally, a lot of human structures have been built around the lines, even when the builders didn’t know why.”

Pritkin nodded. “If someone has found a way to disrupt the lines, it could be disastrous. Both for us and for the human population.”

I thought about the seared plain, the death and the destruction we’d left behind. “I think it already has been,” I said quietly.

At least I didn’t have to worry about any war mages who might still be prowling around the casino. By the time we made it back, our closest friends wouldn’t have recognized us. Or wanted to get within ten feet of us.

I picked a desiccated wonton wrapper out of my hair, thanked the driver and skirted a long line of cabs to the front entrance. Despite the fact that we were covered in garbage and leaving a trail of dust that would have done Pig-Pen proud, no one gave us a second glance. The place was a madhouse.

Hundreds of tourists had crowded around the reception desk, yelling and waving papers at the usually suave Dante’s employees, who were looking a little stressed. Luggage was piled in heaps on the floor and on overflowing carts as harried bellhops ran back and forth, trying to keep up with the demand. Children were crying and threatening to fall in the Styx. An overtaxed air-conditioning system was straining to lower the temperature to maybe ninety degrees. And a bevy of new, life-challenged guests were clogging the lobby bar.

For a minute, I saw a double scene, the ruined bar from my vision transposed over the real thing. Then I shook my head and it cleared, leaving me looking at a muscle-bound type who had one of the fetish-clad waitresses by the waist. She was kicking and screaming and not with pleasure, but the senator didn’t seem to care. He’d been born in ancient Rome, where the manners relating to bar wenches had been a little different. Fortunately, the southern belle by his side wasn’t in a good mood. She cut her eyes up at him, frowned and nailed his hand to the table with a swizzle stick. He eyed her unfavorably as he pried it loose, but he did let go of the waitress.

“What is the Senate doing here?” I asked Rafe, only to discover that he’d disappeared. I glanced around but didn’t see him in the uproar. “Where did Rafe go?” I asked Pritkin.

“He left as soon as we arrived,” he told me, eyeing the dozen vamps, luggage in hand, who were waiting by an elevator.

None were Rafe. “Did he say where he was going?”

“No. But he probably went to check in. It appears that the Senate and its servants were instructed to rendezvous here.”

“It looks more like they’re moving in.”

“They are,” Casanova said, hurrying over. “And ruining me in the process. I have three conventions booked for this week and two more for next, and I’ve been ordered to cancel them all! Oh, and you’re being moved out of the penthouse. The Consul outranks you.”

“Since when?” I demanded.

“Since this is a vampire-run property and she’s head of the Senate.”

“There are other hotels! Why does she have to stay here?”

“Other hotels aren’t a well-warded property with a portal to Faerie. Welcome to MAGIC Two,” he said in disgust.

“Sorry,” I told him, because he seemed to expect me to say something.

“I need a little more than that, like the key card to the penthouse. Our machine’s busted.” He caught my expression. “You aren’t going to make a scene about this, right?”