“Jonas! What happened?”
“Hm? Oh, well, as you know, you can move through space as well as time. What you haven’t yet learned is that you can move other things, too. And people.”
“But . . . but where did I move him to?”
He blinked at me owlishly from behind his thick glasses. “I haven’t the faintest. Can you see him?”
“Can I—” I broke off, because suddenly I could. A furious little mage in the middle of a great, big desert, a black snake of a highway a few hundred yards off. And nothing else but dirt and scrub for what looked like miles.
“I think he’s in a desert.”
“Would you happen to know which one?”
“I . . . no. There’s a road, but—”
“Oh, well. That’s all right, then.” He patted my arm.
“Jonas! How do I get him back?”
“Yes, well, we’ll get to that, of course. But for right now”—his glasses gleamed—“it might be as well to leave him be. Agnes had to do that a time or two, as I recall, to his predecessor. It’s no end of use in teaching them manners, you know.”
He tucked my arm in his and we walked to the door, my head still spinning. “By the way, you haven’t had any visions about a wolf, have you? Or a large dog?”
“You mean a Were?”
“No, no. I don’t think so. Of course, it could be, but that would be a little too easy, wouldn’t it?”
“I’m . . . I’m not really sure what you—”
He took my hand and bent over it with old-fashioned courtesy. “If you do see anything like that, anything at all, you will let me know, won’t you?”
“I—Yes. Of course.”
He looked up and those vague blue eyes were suddenly anything but, and the expression on that usually jovial face was almost scary. “Right away, Cassie.”
I nodded, a little freaked-out, and suddenly he was all smiles again. “Enjoy your date,” he told me, and left.
Marco closed the door and we stood there, staring at each other. “Mages,” he said in disgust. “They get weirder every year.”
And I couldn’t really argue with that one.
Chapter Eight
“You are sure you’re ready?” Mircea asked me.
It was seven hours later and several decades earlier, and I wasn’t sure of a damn thing. My hands were sweaty and my stomach hurt and I was starting to rethink my dress choice for the evening. I’d already rethought it once, going with the red silk, which had seemed chic and sophisticated in the shop. But now I thought the top might be a little low, and I hadn’t had time to have it altered, so it was too tight in some places and too loose in others, and I wasn’t sure that the color looked that great with my hair, especially since I hadn’t gotten all the green out yet, and—
“I’m fine,” I said tightly.
Mircea gave me a look that said I wasn’t fooling anyone. But he pressed the doorbell nonetheless. And at least he looked like he belonged here.
His dark hair was sleek and shining, confined in a discreet clip at his nape. His black tuxedo fit his broad shoulders like a glove, the material soft and sheened as only truly fine wool can be. He’d paired it with a crisp white Frenchcuff shirt with small gold links that glinted under the lights. They were carved with the emblem of a royal house, although he hardly needed them. Nobody was ever going to mistake him for anything but what he was.
Apparently the butler agreed, because despite not having an invitation, we were ushered straight into the party taking up most of the ground floor of a swanky London mansion. There were a lot of gleaming hardwood and glittering chandeliers and softly draped fabrics and fine carpets, and I barely noticed any of them. Because across the main salon was a small, dark-haired woman in red. And by her side was . . .
“She is beautiful,” Mircea said, snagging us champagne from a passing tray.
I didn’t say anything. I clutched the flute he handed me, feeling a strange sense of detachment. I could feel the cool crystal under my fingertips, taste the subtle bite of the alcohol, but it seemed distant, unreal, like the people crowding all around us. I heard the soft sounds of their laughter and the conversation that swelled and ebbed, like the notes someone was playing on a distant piano. But none of it mattered.