Cassandra Palmer 1(107)
I gave him a dirty look—now was not the time for humor—and tossed him the robe I'd used during my previous visit. «Get dressed. We need to get out of here.»
He caught the robe in midair. Nothing about the possession seemed to be bothering his reflexes, but then, I'd already found that out. «I have told you, Cassie; you are panicking for no reason. They will come to us, and after we dispose of the sybil, we will save my brother.»
I blinked. I hoped I hadn't heard right. «What do you mean, dispose of her? She was kidnapped, Mircea! She may not be any happier about being part of this than I am.»
He shrugged, and the casual indifference made me cold. «She aided our enemies and is indirectly responsible for the deaths of at least four Senate members.» He saw my expression, and his face softened. «You have grown up as one of us, but I often forget, you are not vampyr.» He gave it the Romanian pronunciation. It sounded better that way, but the implication behind his words hit me like a sledgehammer. «She is the key to all this. Once she is gone, there will be no other way for anyone to slip through time, and therefore no more threat.»
I began struggling into the woman's clothes, which were scattered everywhere, and tried to come up with a response that would make sense to Mircea. I thought about the four Senate guards who had been killed. By the look of them, they had been with the Consul hundreds of years and must have served her faithfully or they wouldn't have been entrusted with protecting the Senate chamber. They may not have decided to betray her: the sybil had interfered with their transition and Rasputin was a powerful master who might have been able to force their obedience. It seemed unlikely that they would have chosen to essentially commit suicide by taking me on in front of such an audience if they had had a choice. But that fact hadn't saved them.
Vamp law was very simple, if a little on the medieval side, and intent wasn't nearly as important as in human courts. Nobody cared why you did something. If you caused problems, you were guilty, and the guilty had to pay. If you were in a quarrel with another master, your own might intervene to save you if you were useful enough to make it worthwhile, either by a duel or by offering reparations, but no one could do anything about a threat to the Senate. There was no higher power to which to appeal.
After only a minute, I gave up trying to figure out how the unbelievably complicated dress worked and threw on the lightweight slip instead. It was too thin, but at least I was covered. I crawled under the bed and retrieved the woman's shoes, then sat looking at them in annoyance. So, high heels weren't a modern invention. I couldn't believe women had been putting up with these torture devices for centuries.
«Would you like me to help, dulceata?» Mircea was holding out a peacock-colored dress that I assumed the woman had been wearing at some earlier time. «It has been some time since I played lady's maid, but I believe I remember how.»
I narrowed my eyes at him. I bet he did. After five hundred years, Mircea probably couldn't remember all the boudoirs he'd been in. «You forget,» I told him, as he helped me on with the heavy dress, «that there will still be a way into time, even if the sybil dies.»
His hands were warm on my shoulders as he pulled the gown into place. He adjusted the low neckline, and his hand lingered on the exposed flesh. «The Pythia is old and sick, Cassie. She will not last much longer.» I looked up into his face, and there was tenderness there, but also implacability. Mircea was willing to talk me around to his point of view, but not to really listen to mine. He had already decided how to deal with this—find the sybil, kill her, go home. It was utterly practical, if absolutely cold-blooded.
«But I will,» I reminded him. «Or were you planning to kill me, too, after Radu is saved?»
Mircea widened those borrowed blue eyes, but there was none of Louis-Cesar's innocence in them. His hands turned me around so he could reach the lacings at the back of the dress. «I have told you, dulceata; you are mine. You have been so since the age of eleven. You will be so forever. And no one harms what is mine. You have my word.»
It sounded frighteningly like Tomas' speech. I had known, of course, that that was how he saw me. It was how any master would see a human servant, as a possession. In my case I was a useful, and therefore highly prized, possession, but that was all. But it was still hard to hear it stated so flatly. «And if I don't want to be owned? What if I want to decide for myself what I do?»
Mircea kissed the top of my head tolerantly. «I cannot keep you safe if I do not know where you are.» He turned me around, the lacing completed, and lifted my hand to his lips. His eyes burned brighter than the room's candles. «You do see that, do you not?»