Tempt the Stars

brandy.
    “—than into that child. ‘Why, isn’t that a pretty painting, Cassie? However did you do it?’” Marlowe mimicked.
    “The colors were quite nice,” Mircea protested, lips quirking.
    Kit didn’t look so amused.
    “What is your interest?” he asked bluntly.
    “She’s a charming child.”
    “She’s a
seer
.” Marlowe’s eyes narrowed. “The real thing, by all accounts, but that is hardly enough to warrant camping out in the wilderness—”
    “It is less than an hour to Philadelphia.”
    “The
wilderness
,” Marlowe insisted, looking around disparagingly. “And in any case, if you wanted to see the blasted vamp, why not order him to your court? Why come here at all, much less for almost
a year
?”
    “Ah. Is that what has your lady ordering you to check up on me?” Mircea asked, settling back into a dark red leather armchair. He still looked amused, although whether he actually was or not was anyone’s guess.
    His companion remained standing, and tensed up slightly. “I needed to ask you about a number of—”
    “Now who’s being coy?”
    Marlowe dropped it. “Well, if she is curious, who can blame her? No one
does
this.”
    “Many masters visit their servants.”
    “Servants who live in Paris; servants who live in Rome. Not servants who live in the backwoods of Pennsylvania in a dump!” Marlowe gestured around, the small gold earring he wore in one ear flashing in a lightning burst. “What do you expect me to tell her?”
    “That I am attending to family matters that do not concern her.”
    “Oh yes. Yes, that will go over well,” Marlowe said sarcastically.
    “It should. It’s the truth.”
    “And you’re not going to offer any further explanation, any more details,” Marlowe said, prowling nearer to the fireplace.
    “I don’t see why she would expect them,” Mircea commented as I started struggling again. “I am not a newborn who must be tended, and this has nothing to do with her.”
    “Nothing?” Marlowe spun, just before he reached me. And just before he would have gotten close enough for a good look over the screen.
    I swallowed hard.
    I was twenty-four.
    And I was already too old for this.
    “That is what I said.”
    Marlowe pounced. “Then the fact that her mother was Elizabeth O’Donnell, the Pythia’s former heir, is irrelevant, is it?”
    Mircea’s head cocked, and his eyes narrowed slightly. “Now, I wonder. Is the mole in my family or Antonio’s?”
    “I don’t need a mole,” Marlowe said shortly, and drank scotch.
    “Ah, a listening device, then. And yes, it would be simple enough here. Antonio’s mages are not the best.”
    “They’re shite,” Marlowe said bluntly, “and that isn’t the point. You have a line on a possible Pythia—”
    “That’s rather reaching, wouldn’t you say?”
    “No, I would not say! And you didn’t tell us!”
    Marlowe’s tone was as accusatory as the words, but Mircea didn’t look concerned. “As yet, there is nothing to tell. Cassandra’s mother was heir to the Pythian throne at one time, yes, but she was removed—”
    “But not for lack of ability! For consorting with that Roger Palmer character—”
    “Whose capabilities are unknown.”
    “He worked for your servant. You ought to know them well enough!”
    “Yet, nonetheless, I do not.” Mircea’s tone was calm, but then, it always was. More tellingly, his eyes stayed brown. Marlowe wasn’t getting to him. “And as he and Elizabeth are now deceased, we may never do so. Leaving Cassandra’s talents in question.”
    “Yet you decided to meet her anyway.”
    “Would you not have?”
    “And to gain her trust.”
    “Only prudent.”
    Marlowe crossed his arms. And even though I could no longer see his face, the set of his shoulders told a story all on its own. “Only prudent, if you had told us. Only prudent if you hadn’t shown, how shall we say, some persistent interest in the Pythian office before now.”
    I’d been trying to get a hand on the ring of jostling bricks, to force the damned things open. Only to have them slide through my fingers as my head abruptly jerked up. And then even more abruptly jerked down again, when I felt someone’s hand on my butt.
    That heart attack I’d been postponing for a few months now might have taken that moment to show up and say hi, except that the hand was not followed by a crushing blow or the sound of an alarm. But by a second hand on my other hip, and then by a sharp tug. My spine