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 ?subrand, 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.
Wind whipped my robes against my sweat-soaked body. Below me, a battlefield flowed away to the bloodred horizon. All around, columns of smoke clutched the sky like leprous fingers. Everywhere lay bodies in still-smoking armor, suffocating me with the smell of blood and fire and burnt flesh. My hands were raw from holding the spear I had used against my enemies, but I barely noticed. Ashes were in my eyes, ashes that had once been the body of a comrade, an ages-old life ended by a chance shot from a green recruit. They clung to my face, stealing the pride of victory, mixing with my tears, threatening to choke me—
“Caedmon!”
It felt like someone slammed a door in my face. I was back at the table, my heart thudding, my ears ringing, my vision swimming in pieces. I was light-headed and disconnected, as if my mind was trying to occupy two places at once and it wasn’t built for it. My mouth was sour with anguish over the death of someone I’d never met; my veins thrummed with adrenaline from a fight I’d never experienced.
Radu was on his feet, confusion on his face, and Louis-Cesare was looking daggers at the guest of honor. Caedmon ignored him, but his eyes were concerned as he gazed at me. “My apologies, child. I would not have had you see that.”
“What happened?” To my surprise, my voice was steady.
Caedmon appeared slightly embarrassed. “The Frum-fórn, what you call the Fey, exist in both planes of being at once: the physical and the… I suppose you would call it the spiritual. I sit here, I eat, I talk, yet my awareness is not taken up entirely with such things. It exists—I exist—elsewhere, as well. And for a moment, so did you.”
“Why?”
He lifted his glass slightly. “I have had, perhaps, a bit too much of our host’s excellent wine.”
Louis-Cesare snatched up his own glass, sniffing it cautiously. He turned to Radu. “What are you serving?”
Caedmon smiled at his host. “I must congratulate you—smooth, velvety and with a subtle tang that lingers on the palate like perfume.”
Radu looked from him to Louis-Cesare, managing to appear proud, confused and contrite, all at the same time. “I thought it appropriate, considering our guest—”
“What is it?” Louis-Cesare demanded again.