“So I can tell you to shut up?”
I scowled at him. Jules scowled back. “Step outside,” he told the baby, who started to leave, taking me with him. “No, just you!”
The vamp put me down and did as he was told, and I sat on a marble ledge poking out from the wall, to spare my feet. Jules stood, arms crossed, until he noticed that the curtain was still open. And swished it closed.
That left us largely in the dark, since the alcove still had a roof. The main corridor, which mostly didn’t, had been a lot brighter. As it was, I could barely make out Jules’ perfect profile as he watched shadows passing outside through the fabric’s thin weave.
“What?” I said.
“The walls have ears around here—along with who knows what else?”
“And? I didn’t say anything I wouldn’t say to his face—and will, as soon as I find him. This is bullshit.”
“You’re preaching to the choir.”
“They wouldn’t even have an alliance without him, so they’re what? Repaying him by making him even more of a target? Someone tried to murder him yesterday—”
“And will again. And maybe that’s the point.”
“What?”
Jules ran a hand through thick, wavy blond hair. “Look, I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell you this—”
“Oh, you’re going to tell me.”
“Yes, I am,” he agreed. “But only because you forced it out of me. I’m only human now, and can’t be expected to stand up to—”
“Jules!”
He grinned, a quick flash of teeth. “That’s just in case you ever slip up and say where you heard it. It helps to have the defense prepared.”
“You’re paranoid.”
“And then some. But I doubt you’ll be asked; it’s common knowledge that the consul’s worried about Mircea.”
“Worried?” I frowned. “What do you mean, worried?”
“I mean, people aren’t taking bets on which one of them will survive yet, but it’s only a matter of time.”
I stared at him. “What?”
He sighed. “Look, this always happens when a servant gets really strong, okay? Consuls need allies, but as soon as someone gets a little too capable, they have to start worrying. Is he gunning for my job? Is he planning to make a move? Does he have the power to challenge me? And in Mircea’s case, lately, the answer to that last question has been looking more and more like a yes.”
“And the first two?”
“Are assumed.”
I shook my head. “But . . . she can’t really believe he wants to kill her!”
“Can’t she? How do you think she got the job? Consuls don’t retire, Cassie. She killed her own master for the top spot; why would she think he’d balk at taking out a mentor? Mircea was already more or less ready, if he’d wanted to make a challenge, but lately . . .”
“Lately?”
For the first time, he looked conflicted. “A lot of things have happened lately, not all of which I can go into—no, I can’t,” he said, seeing my face. “That’s the master’s story to tell, if he chooses. But you don’t need all that. Let’s just say that he was pretty damn powerful already, although he was keeping it under wraps fairly well—”
“Under wraps? But everybody knows—”
“But they don’t know that they know,” Jules said cryptically. “Vamps still have a lot of human prejudices, right? Have you ever noticed that the guards people choose always look the part? Take Marco. He has a good brain, better than most. But he looks like a tough guy, so he spent centuries doing muscle work, even though a ninety-pound weakling at the same level could do as much damage—”
“I know that.”
“But you may not know that the master used a variation on the theme, to fly under the radar for years. Who looks twice at the too-smooth, Armani-clad diplomat, with a woman on his arm and a drink in his hand? Especially when he’s smiling and flattering and telling you how powerful you are . . . somehow people never think to wonder the reverse. Or not enough people. Even otherwise very smart people—”
“Like the consul?”
He shook his head. “No, not like the consul. She hasn’t lasted two millennia by being careless. And I told you, she knew him from way back. But she knew her own abilities, too, and thought she could handle him.”
“So what changed?”
Jules just looked at me.
“I—no,” I said, seeing the truth in his face. “No! I had nothing to do with—”
But Jules was already nodding. “It started when he went crazy with that spell and bit you.”
“You mean the geis?” I asked, talking about the spell that Mircea had put on me as a kid, linking us together for my protection at Tony’s. But which had gotten screwed up after I became an adult and ended up almost driving him mad. “But that was lifted.”
“Yes, but before that, he bit you,” Jules said, reaching over and turning my head slightly, to show the two small pinprick scars on my neck. “That put a claim on you in vamp terms that he wasn’t authorized to make.”
“He was all but crazy at the time!”
“So he says—and I believe him,” Jules said, putting up his hands. “Choir, remember? But not everybody is as trusting as I am, and it made you a permanent part of the clan. And bound you—and your abilities—to him in a way that the consul didn’t like.”
“Mircea doesn’t control my abilities.”
“But you’ve used them on his behalf before, right? A lot of times? And no offense, but you’re also kind of obviously, um . . . what’s the term I’m looking for here?”
I just looked at him.
“Sweet on him,” he settled for.
“So, what exactly are you telling me?”
“Just that it’s not too hard to figure out that she might feel a little threatened. When all this started, you were just some kid who’d inherited more power than you knew what to do with, and were clueless enough that maybe the senate could manipulate you. And she liked that version. She really liked it. I heard she was going around almost jolly, creeping everyone the hell out—”
“Must have missed that part.” Jolly plus the consul did not compute.
“—but then she finds out that your mother was Artemis—”
“That doesn’t have any—”
“—and that you’ve been raiding hell because some demon lord took one of your servants and you got pissed—”
“How did you know about—”
“—and suddenly you’re changing me back into a human, something nobody even knew the Pythias could do! I mean, do you have any idea how big a deal that is?”
“I— That was an accident. I didn’t mean—”
“I know.” Jules crouched down in front of me. “I know. And I’m grateful. However things turn out, I’m grateful, okay? I couldn’t have lived like that, how that curse left me, just a ball of flesh—”
He shuddered.
“It’s over,” I said, because the clear blue eyes were suddenly haunted. “You don’t have to think about it now.”
He bowed his head, his curls soft on my hands. “I know. I just wanted—” He looked up. “I don’t think I ever properly said thank you. And I do thank you. However things turn out, I have a choice now, something my kind—my old kind—never get a lot of.”