Frost Burned

so long is that one grows so bored that even disaster seems a good thing. And so I told him. He hung up. Oh, he’ll come avenge my death, but he will not bestir himself before then.”
    “Iacapo?” I asked.
    “Iacapo Bonarata, the Master of Milan, the Lord of Night.” Stefan paused, and said in an odd voice, “I wonder if he has anyone left in his court who knows his given name.”
    I wondered if Asil was the Moor’s first or last name. From what I’d heard about him, he was old enough not to have a last name.
    “There will be no vengeance if Frost has his way,” said Hao. “If he wins this challenge, Iacapo will be handicapped by his own rules.”
    “It won’t stop him,” Stefan said with an odd smile. It made him look young for a moment. Then he continued thoughtfully, “But you are right. Frost might not know how free and easy our former master is with his own rules because when people think of the Lord of Night, they are more interested in the scary and very dramatic things he does to people who break them.”
    Marsilia nodded. To me she said, “Frost cannot take my seethe by murder or he risks the Master of Milan’s remembering that his job is to destroy vermin—even all the way across the world. Frost was not skilled enough to take over my seethe by stealth. So he is left with a frontal attack—and this is a problem. He is not entirely certain that he can take me.”
    “Marsilia is no fledgling.” Stefan looked at her, and his face was . . . pensive. “She has a well-deserved reputation that followed her here. She is powerful and dangerous, too dangerous even for the Necromancer to fight alone. The werewolves have dominance fights, fights to the death for the position of Alpha, yes?”
    “Bran frowns upon them,” Asil murmured. “But yes.”
    “We have the same, but with more rules and variety. Frost would not challenge her alone—he brings two more with him, a triad. Marsilia is allowed to bring two others to the fight as well.”
    “Except that he can bring two former masters,” Hao said. “And none of the vampires Marsilia has are capable of acting against him. Constance was strong, and he forced her to do his will. She was not quite his puppet, not quite, not even at the end. But Constance was stronger than any vampire Marsilia has to call except for Stefan and Wulfe.”
    “And Stefan is not hers to call,” I said. Marsilia narrowed her eyes at me, narrowed them further when I held her gaze.
    “And Wulfe would be a mistake.” Marsilia looked away. “He is strong enough in power and a vicious fighter when he chooses, but . . .”
    Stefan broke in. “He is less stable now than he ever was.”
    “I have never been certain,” Marsilia said, speaking to Stefan, “that he wasn’t smack in the middle of the conspiracy that Estelle headed up. I know she thought so.” She hugged herself and looked about fifteen. “To tell you the truth, I did ask him if he felt up to the fight. He said he felt that it would not be a good idea.” She gave Stefan a gamine grin, an expression I’ve never seen her wear. “He called Iacapo and yelled at him. Said he was getting old and lazy if he couldn’t bestir himself to ‘squish’ Frost.”
    Stefan snorted. “That sounds like Wulfe.”
    “I have heard it said that Wulfe made Iacapo,” Hao said.
    Marsilia shrugged. “Wulfe is the older—and Iacapo could never get Wulfe to obey him any better than I can. But that means nothing.”
    “Iacapo couldn’t get Wulfe to obey him at all,” said Stefan—which for some reason made both Marsilia and Stefan laugh. Stefan stopped laughing first. He rubbed the thigh of his jeans and looked away.
    I followed his gaze and realized that he was watching for something. For Frost.
    “Tonight,” I said, feeling stupid because I’d been evaluating the basement as a fighting ground since I’d jumped in after Marsilia. “He’s coming to fight you tonight. Here.”
    “Yes.” Marsilia’s eyes were dark again. And she still looked like a college student, young and vulnerable. I knew some of the people in Stefan’s menagerie whom she’d tortured to death. She was not some helpless girl but a sociopath who had outlived most of her enemies.
    I was her enemy. Stefan was my friend—and he wasn’t Marsilia’s anymore.
    “You wanted Adam for your second,” I said.
    “How long has your fight been scheduled?” Asil asked.
    “He picked the time, I chose the place,” said Marsilia. “He