Hunt the Moon (Cassandra Palmer 5)
“I did not notice it at the party. Things were too fraught and there were too many other scents in the vicinity. But last night, when I was standing by the mage, I thought I recognized—”
“No.” I looked at him in horror.
“—the same tobacco, the same cologne, the same brand of hair pomade—”
“No!”
That damned eyebrow went up again. I was starting to hate that thing. “Would you prefer to have been sired by a dangerous dark mage?”
“Yes! If the alternative is . . . is him. He was—”
“Quite capable.”
I stared at him. “Are you—Did you see?”
“I saw him protect your mother from four demigods for a protracted period of time.”
“He did no such thing! She was driving the carriage—”
“Yes. Because it is difficult for anyone other than war mages to keep up a shield and to concentrate on anything else at the same time.”
“I didn’t see a shield.”
“No more did I. But I saw several direct hits bounce off of something. He wasn’t able to keep it up for the entire chase, but he certainly helped. And last night—”
“All he did was enchant a suitcase.”
“And it proved useful, did it not? The Spartoi must have had them cornered, but he broke through their ranks—”
“Because he was acting like a crazy man!”
“—and protected your mother during a firestorm of spells such as I have rarely seen.”
“He was screaming the entire time!”
Mircea’s lips quirked. “It is only in the cinema that heroes have to look a certain way. I have been in many battles, dulceat?a?, and can tell you from experience that what matters is what works. Ladislas’s charge looked heroic—banners streaming, armor glinting, five hundred horses galloping in one great wave—but it was the height of folly. Your father’s tactics were . . . less impressive . . . but they succeeded. Which is the most heroic, in the end?”
“
But he didn’t look anything like that!” I said, grasping for straws. Because Mircea could say whatever he liked, but being related to that guy . . . no. Just no. “The kidnapper was tall and blond and you said my father was—”
“I told you how he appeared to me. But he was in hiding; it would not be surprising if he used a glamourie. In fact, it would have been more so if he had not.”
“But you said nothing was supposed to happen at the party—that your men had checked! If he was my father, if he was supposed to be there, to elope with my mother or whatever the hell they were doing, wouldn’t your people have known?”
“By all accounts, the party was supposed to be uneventful,” Mircea agreed. “I would hardly have taken you there otherwise. Your mother was not reported missing for several months.”
“There. You see? He can’t be my father!”
“Yes, but, dulceat?a?, the important term is ‘reported.’ My people were not at the party; they did not see for themselves. They were going on the official reports. Reports that may well have been . . . adjusted.”
“Adjusted? But why—”
“To give them time to find her.” He waved a hand. “The Pythian court likes to appear infallible, mysterious, all knowing. This is not a reputation that would be enhanced by losing their heir to a set of circumstances none of them foresaw. It would not be surprising for them to wait some time before admitting that they had lost her. They would want a chance to locate her and bring her back without anyone realizing there had ever been a problem.”
“You think they lied about when she left.”
He shrugged. “I think it possible, yes. I always found it odd that they maintained that your father knew her for such a short time before they eloped. Eight days is not much in which to persuade the heir to the Pythian throne to leave it all behind for a life on the run!”