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“Cassie, may I see you a moment?” Mircea didn’t wait for a reply, just hauled Pritkin into the hall leading to the bedrooms, I guess for privacy. Thoughts of how well that was likely to go had me scrambling after them until Marlowe blocked my path.

He smiled. “Are you sure you won’t have a drink? You look like you could use it.”

“Maybe later,” I said, trying to hedge around.

He moved with me. “This is the last whole bottle left to us. I’d take advantage, if I were you.”

There was a curse from the hallway, followed by a grunt and a thud. I winced as Pritkin ran back into the room, face flushed and eyes livid. “Actually, I think a drink sounds like a good idea,” I said as Mircea followed.

“Cassie!” he hissed, his eyes on my face.

“Make that a double,” I told Marlowe before an angry vampire had me by the shoulders, fingers digging into my flesh.

“It’s not like we didn’t try to switch back!” I said defensively.

“You’re saying you can’t reverse this?”

“No, no! We totally can,” I promised quickly, because Mircea was looking a little stressed. “It’s just . . . well, the last time we tried, we sort of almost died and—”

Marlowe tried to hand me my drink, but Mircea took it instead and threw it back. “Ah,” Marlowe said, looking back and forth between Pritkin and me. “This is . . . disturbing.”

“Imagine how I feel,” I said, which won me a dirty look from Pritkin. “What? You like wearing a bra?”

Mircea put a hand to his forehead and just stayed like that for a long moment. A small vein was beating in his jaw. It didn’t look like the whiskey had helped much.

“Mircea,” Marlowe put in quietly. “Saunders is downstairs demanding to see Cassie.”

“He is in no position to demand anything, as you made clear in your communiqué. It appears thickheadedness is a requirement for Circle membership!”

“Perhaps, but he is here. She must greet him.”

“She must do nothing of the kind,” Pritkin spat. “He needs to be removed, not bargained with!”

“You don’t know what we’ve learned about him,” I added. “The man is completely—”

“Cassie, it is you who do not understand the situation!” Mircea told me.

“We understand it perfectly!” Pritkin snarled. “The man is a traitor to the Corps, putting its mages in danger to line his pockets—”

“How do you know that?” Marlowe demanded.

“One of the men Cassie released from the Circle’s prison knew about his activities. He went to tell Jonas, who has decided to challenge.”

We all looked at Marsden, who had commandeered a towel with which he was attempting to dry devil dog. He nodded and shrugged and then went back to clucking over his possessed pooch. Mircea shut his eyes briefly and Marlowe groaned. “Isn’t that perfect!”

“What else is there to do?” I asked, confused. “He has to be removed.”

“If we wanted him dead, we’d have arranged it before this!” Mircea informed me. “We want him controlled!”

“Controlled how? He’s head of the Circle. It looks to me like he pretty much does whatever he wants!”

“A state of affairs that will end tonight!”

“I don’t understand.”

“The man you helped me release from the Circle’s prison brokered the original deal for Saunders,” Marlowe explained. “He was the liaison between the Circle and the final purchaser of their power. Saunders locked him away after the deal was finalized, to keep him quiet.”

“Purchaser?” Pritkin’s brow knotted. “You mean purchas ers. No one person could use that much power.”


Tags: Karen Chance Cassandra Palmer Fantasy