Page 117 of Fortune's Blade

“We don’t, not entirely. But they’ve been giving us more information than they have him, and of more import. I do not know if they can ignore his commands, but they seem to be selective about what they share.”

“In other words, they have an agenda, like everyone else,” she said sourly.

“You sound like this surprises you.”

She got up, looking agitated. “No, I just hate politics—”

“Unfortunately part of your position.”

“—especially fey politics!” She whirled on him, causing the tiny jewels sewn into the silver tissue of her dress to sparkle in the low light. “How do you do it? Just smile and smile—”

“And be a villain?” he asked, quoting Shakespeare.

“You’re not a villain, Mircea.”

“Tell that to my daughter—either of them.”

Her expression softened, and she sat back down beside him. “I take it things didn’t go well tonight?”

“If by well you mean being mocked by my subordinate and screamed at by Dorina, then yes, it went well.”

“I’m sorry. I know how much she means to you.”

That caused him to huff out a brief laugh. “Do you? Well, that makes one of you.”

She frowned. “Things didn’t get this way overnight. They won’t be solved so quickly, either. You have to give her time.”

“Yes, the very thing we are running out of!”

He abruptly got up and started walking around, not quite pacing, but close enough that it made me blink the troll’s tiny eyes. Mircea did not pace. Mircea was decisive, focused and determined. Pacing was . . . the opposite of those things.

I had never seen him like this, and it seemed that the Pythia had not, either, because her pale eyes grew troubled. “You’re nervous.”

“Ridiculous!”

“You are, though. Why?” She got up and went to him, where he had paused by a flower that he had no interest in but was examining anyway. She put a hand on his shoulder. “If Radella says it’s here, then it’s here. She knows these lands like no other, and she promised—”

“Yes, she promises a great many things!” His hand crushed the delicate blossom, causing the petals to cascade through his fingers redly. “One of which is likely to get my daughter killed!”

“I think . . . that might be difficult,” the Pythia said, smiling slightly.

“Difficult is not impossible,” Mircea snapped, “particularly not here. And that damned pixie has clouded her mind with thoughts of a child. It’s all she can see, all she can think about, and she won’t listen—”

“You both seem to have a problem with that,” she agreed, wryly.

But that just seemed to enrage Mircea more. “I am glad this amuses you!”

“It doesn’t. I’m sorry.”

She did look it, her smile fading and her brow wrinkling. Mircea didn’t see it, however, being lost in his own concerns. “I wish we’d never come here,” he said, low and fervent. “I wish I hadn’t called you when the ‘queen’ wouldn’t give me an audience, that you didn’t know her—”

“Then Dorina would have faced the arena alone.”

“And done quite well, it would seem! Which has made her overconfident, made her believe—” he whirled on her suddenly, something that would have sent most vampires, even most senior ones, scrambling back a few paces. But the Pythia never even flinched. But her look of compassion grew at the struggle on his face, one that confused me to the point that I didn’t know what to believe.

Was it genuine? Did he really care, after all? Had I misjudged him?

Or had he spotted me inside my latest guise, and was busy trying to recruit a new power into his hands?