I stared at him. I had never considered that he might have felt anything for her; I had always just assumed that she’d been one in a long line of conquests, easily made and easily forgotten. And maybe she had been. Maybe I just wanted to believe that his expression meant something else. Wanted to think that at least one of their kind was capable of something like real affection.

God, I must be drunker than I thought.

“After we finally began a relationship,” he said, “I bought her a house in her village and visited her there rather than keeping her in the castle.”

“Because you were ashamed to have a servant girl for a mistress.”

“No, Dorina!” He regarded me through a cloud of smoke, his countenance impatient. “I was never ashamed of your mother. I was fearful for her. And my fears were eventually realized.”

“You couldn’t have known Vlad was going to do what he did.” I blamed Mircea for a lot of things, but not that.

“No. But I knew she would be a target, should anyone realize that she was important to me. Some would have used her to attempt to influence me; others would have harmed her to hurt me. It was a cutthroat time, and one’s family was never safe. I would not let circumstances proscribe my life to the extent of choosing my lover for me, but I was careful. I was cautious. I was discreet.”

“Ah. Light dawns.”

“Louis-Cesare must occupy one of those empty Senate seats,” Mircea said, dropping the analogy. “I need someone I can trust, and I need his vote to help sway others during the war. Anything likely to prevent that is unacceptable.”

“I thought you’d already decided to scrap that plan.”

“The incident with Elyas is unfortunate, but I am owed a number of favors by members of the European Senate, and the consul is owed more.”

“You think you can convince them to let him compete?”

“It is possible. It helps that he has refused to join any faction, preferring to vote his conscience on matters as they arise. That has made him a dangerous loose cannon for years, and left many of the power brokers on his Senate tearing their hair out on a regular basis. I think some might prefer to see him gone. Unfortunately those same people would just as soon see him destroyed. And if he cannot have him, Anthony will do his best to ensure that no one does, lest his abilities be used against him one day.”

“And this has what to do with me?” I asked, pretty sure I already knew.

“A liaison with a dhampir could destroy Louis-Cesare’s credibility at the worst possible time,” Mircea told me bluntly.

“In case you missed it, Louis-Cesare has a mistress,” I reminded him.

“No, I did not miss it. I also did not miss how he looked at you, or that outburst.”

“Or the fact that he left without a word?”

“As well he might, after that! This could ruin him, Dorina. It has already damaged our case considerably.”

“Anthony didn’t hear that much—”

“He heard enough to ensure that I cannot introduce your evidence about the way in which Elyas was killed!”

I frowned. “But Louis-Cesare wouldn’t have killed him that way! He couldn’t have, even if he wanted to. He didn’t know how until I—” I broke off, feeling a little queasy suddenly.

“Exactly,” Mircea said grimly. “If I introduce our strongest defense, Anthony will make the case that Louis-Cesare received instruction in creative vampire-killing from his dhampir lover. His political opponents would jump at the chance to smear the character of one who has been, until now, unimpeachable. And even his friends on the Senate might begin to waver. If he could do that, some will think, he is capable of anything.”

“Including murdering a fellow senator.”

“Exactly so.” Mircea sat back, the end of his cigarette drawing patterns in the air around him. “Louis-Cesare is powerful, which makes him a good weapon, but also a dangerous enemy. He and Elyas had a long-standing animosity that stretched back more than a century. But he had never before moved against him. Now, some will believe, he has done so, and those with whom he has had other disputes may start to wonder if they are next.”

“Senators must have been killed before,” I protested.

“In coups, yes. In carefully planned political bloodfests for understandable objectives. But they are not assassinated for personal reasons while sitting in their own homes! This is something that has rarely been seen before, and it allows Anthony to paint a picture of a dangerous loose cannon run amok. And if the Senate vote goes against Louis-Cesare, as judge, Anthony can impose whatever sentence he wishes.”

“You said he won’t kill him.”

“He won’t—if Louis-Cesare is willing to knuckle under and bind himself to Anthony in perpetuity.”

“Giving him a powerful first-level master at his beck and call without any power expenditure on his part whatsoever,” I finished. It would be the Tomas situation all over again, only I didn’t see Louis-Cesare agreeing to what was essentially slavery. And if he didn’t…

“I hate politics,” I said fervently.

“At the moment, I am not in love with them, either,” Mircea said cynically. “But the situation is what it is, and we must deal with it.”

“How?” It sounded to me like Anthony had a lock on this.

“I can still bring up the rune, and show the Senate the empty carrier. That, at least, is a motive they can understand for someone else to have killed Elyas. Louis-Cesare, whatever he may lack in political acumen, needs no such crutch in a duel.”

“And if Anthony mentions me?”

Mircea regarded me soberly. “Louis-Cesare tricked you. He wanted the vampire Raymond, but did not wish to fight a family member. He therefore let you believe that he cared for you, in order to steal it away.”

“That will cover my outburst,” I agreed. And might even be the truth. “What about his?”

“That is why you need to stay away from him! Louis-Cesare is a warrior, first and foremost. And like most such men, he is blunt, straightforward and uncompromising. He has developed a tenderness for you; that much is clear. How far it extends, I do not know. But he will not succeed in hiding it; he will not so much as understand the reason he should do so!”

No, I didn’t suppose so. I could see him standing in front of the Senate, arrogantly informing them that his personal life was none of their concern. It would read like some torrid affair with a creature many of them viewed as only slightly better than Satan. Not too helpful.

“You begin to see,” Mircea murmured.

“Maybe. But what about Anthony and Jérôme? They already heard him be… indiscreet.”

“Fortunately they are also the ones who have the most reason to interpret anything badly. I will point out that you and Louis-Cesare battled subrand together recently, and that he was concerned that the creature might be among us once again. He wanted your information, nothing more.”

“You know, sometimes you’re a little scary,” I told him frankly. “I was there, and that still sounds strangely believable.”

“Let us hope the Senate thinks so. But no matter what persuasive skills you believe me to possess, you must see that I cannot continue to come up with plausible explanations for other such incidents. This must—”

Someone tapped on the door, and a second later Marlowe’s curly head poked in. The timing made me narrow my eyes suspiciously, but the look on his face was not slyly knowing, but maddened and frustrated. “Unless you want to let Louis-Cesare handle his own defense, we have to go, Mircea!”

“That I do not want,” Mircea said, getting up. “Dorina—”

I stood up, too. “It was business,” I told him. “He stole from me; I returned the favor. That’s all.”

Mircea didn’t look as pleased by that sentiment as I’d have liked. “This isn’t—” He stopped, and again seemed to be trying to marshal his thoughts. I didn’t know why he was bothering; I’d already agreed to what he wanted. Not that it was much. Louis-Cesare had Christine back; I wasn’t likely to be seeing much more of him anyway.

“I want you to be happy, Dorina,” he said suddenly—and strangely. I searched his face, wondering what this new game was, what the hell he wanted from me now. Like always, it was the perfect, beautiful mask, and told me nothing.

His hand rose hesitantly toward my face, and I unconsciously flinched. Mircea had never hurt me, but a lifetime of fighting and killing his kind provides a person with certain instincts. A flash of some emotion crossed his eyes, but it was gone before I could name it, and his hand dropped again.

And something lanced through me, brief and sharp, like a needle’s bite.

Sunlight streamed in a small, glassless window, painting a watercolor wash over a wooden table. A woman stood beside it, her arms moving in a circular motion, kneading a pile of dough with an unbroken rhythm. Every few moments she looked out the window, over a crenellated ridge of mountains, their sheer faces lined with snow and backlit by the sun.

It was a rising sun, I concluded as I watched it swell, gleaming and red as it broke free of the landscape and drifted into the liquid blue sky. The cottage stood on the edge of the small village, near a road that ran through the trees. But the road was empty, the dust undisturbed except for a slight wind.

The air that flowed in from the mountains outside was crisp, ruffling her hair as she worked to braid the dough into a long ribbon and then form it into a loaf. She set it aside and started the process over again, while the wind died and the flour hung in the air like mist. It clung to her dark lashes and brows, to the soft down of hair on her arms, and gloved her hands in a dusting of gold.

Two arms went around her from behind, pulling her back against a warm, familiar body. “Stop that,” she admonished, her voice liquid with laughter. “No baking, no bread for your morning meal.”

“But I am hungry now,” he said, smiling as he lifted her gilded hand to his lips, tracing the calluses there with his tongue.