She had on a typical costume for her, consisting of a sleeveless tee that showed off guns a well-built man would have envied, black cargo pants that served the same basic function as a war mage’s coat—as a way to store all kinds of lethal items—and a brand-new septum ring. It looked good against her olive skin and short dark hair, although I didn’t mention it, because she was currently prowling around me with a look of intense concentration on her face.
It didn’t seem to be the time for small talk.
“I have a problem,” I said.
“You have something,” she agreed.
I caught her arm as she came around again. It was solid as a rock, and displeased about being grabbed, judging from how she tensed up. But she didn’t grab me back or throw me across the room, and not only because Marco was glaring a warning. But because Vi was, if not a friend exactly, at least someone who no longer looked at me with suspicion and anger, as she had when she’d first come here.
The covens had learned the hard way not to trust anybody who wasn’t one of them, but they were making a little progress with me. Enough that, while she scowled down at my hand on her arm, when she looked up, her expression softened. “How do you get into these things?” she asked.
“No idea,” I told her. “But I need to make sure that nobody knows about this one, all right?”
I glanced at the table, where the others were still just staring, and then at Marco, who was propping up the wall with his arms crossed—a favorite pose for when the shit had hit the fan.
“I know you’re not looking at me,” he said.
“I’m looking at everybody. What I have to tell you cannot leave this room.”
There was a court full of vamps outside with super hearing, but my room was soundproofed, both magically and otherwise. Nothing we said would get out unless somebody carried it out. And that couldn’t happen, offended feelings or no.
“Why don’t you just tell us what’s going on?” Marco said.
“Why don’t you just swear to me first?”
“I already swore when I took this job, or don’t you recall how vampire courts work?”
And yes, I did. But this wasn’t a vampire court and Marco wasn’t bound to me by blood. But, in fairness, he’d been more loyal than if he was.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “It’s just . . . this is kind of important.”
“I swear,” Vi said. “I wanna hear this.”
“We all swear,” Saffy said impatiently. “What the hell happened?”
I told them what happened. Well, the stuff between Mircea and me, anyway. If I told Marco I’d had to kill a fey assassin, I’d never be able to leave this room again.
“Mother . . . lover!” Vi said, her face shocked and faintly appalled when I finished, but her vocabulary clean. Tami had instituted a swear jar, and everybody was tired of contributing.
Except for Marco, apparently, who said something less genteel. “What the hell was Mircea thinking?”
“He wasn’t,” I said. “He was reacting.”
We’d moved to the sitting area in front of my fireplace, which was an absurd thing to have in Vegas, but which the little girls loved for the marshmallow roasting opportunities. I liked that it boasted a sofa, several chairs and a convenient coffee table for drinks, all in soothing shades of sand and blue, although nobody was drinking right now. Everybody was looking shell-shocked, and I couldn’t blame them.
It was a lot to take in.
“I’m open to suggestions,” I said, but Marco wasn’t yet ready to move on.
“Let me get this straight. He hijacks your power, shifts you into a tree, and then runs off to Faerie? The fuck?”
“It is kind of a what-the-fuck situation,” Saffy agreed, finally getting up to go to the bar cart. It had been left out on the balcony, and she had to open the curtains to access it, letting in a flood of orange-tinted, sunset light. I scrunched up my eyes, and when I opened them again, Rhea was sitting forward, staring at me.
“They’re still glowing,” she said, wonderingly.
“That’s not a problem,” Vi said. “We can cast a simple glamourie that’ll cover that up. The problem is the spell.”
“Nodo d’Amore,” I agreed. “I need it off, preferably yesterday. Can you do it?”