Clever words came to Mona's mind and faded away instantly. She had never in her life lingered before a mirror more than necessary. She had not looked in one this morning at all.
"Look, I don't have much time," Rowan said. She clasped her hands on the table. "I need to talk to you straight."
"Yes, do it," said Mona. "Please."
"I understand completely about your being the heiress. There is no malice between you and me. You're the finest conceivable choice. I knew this myself in my own instinctive fashion as soon as I came to grasp what had been done. But Ryan cleared up the matter completely. The tests and the profile are complete. You are the gifted daughter. You have the intelligence, the stability, the toughness. You have the perfect health. Oh, the extra chromosomes are there, all right, but they've been there in Mayfair women and men for centuries. There's no reason to expect that anything like what happened on Christmas will ever happen again."
"Yeah, that's what I figure," said Mona. "Besides, I don't have to marry anyone with the extra string, do I? I'm not in love with a member of the family. Oh, I know that's bound to change, you're thinking, but I mean at present there isn't any kind of childhood-sweetheart syndrome with someone loaded with deadly genes."
Rowan thought about this and then she nodded. She looked down into her coffee cup, then lifted it and took the last swallow and set the cup a little to the side.
"I don't hold any malice against you for what happened with Michael. You must understand that too."
"It's hard to believe. Because I think what I did was so wrong."
"Thoughtless perhaps, but not wrong. Besides, I think I understand just what happened. Michael doesn't talk about it. I'm not referring to the seduction anyway. I'm talking about the effect."
"If I did cure him, then I won't go to hell after all," said Mona. She pressed her lips together in a sad smile. There was more than a trace of guilt and self-loathing in her voice and face, and she knew it. But she was so relieved now, she couldn't put that part into words.
"You cured him, and perhaps you were meant to do this. Someday maybe we can talk together about the dreams you had, and the Victrola that materialized in the living room."
"Then Michael told you."
"No, you told me. All the times you thought about it out there, remembering the waltz from La Traviata, and the ghost of Julien telling you to do it. But this isn't important to me. It's only important that you not worry about my hating you anymore. You have to be strong to be the heiress, especially the way things are now. You can't be worried about the wrong things."
"Yes, you're right. You really don't hold it against me. I know you don't."
"You could have known sooner," said Rowan. "You're stronger than I am, you know. Reading people's thoughts and emotions, it's almost a trick. I always hated it when I was a child. It frightened me. It frightens lots of gifted children. But later on, I learned to use it in a subtle, almost subconscious way. Wait a beat after someone speaks to you, especially if the words are confusing. Wait a beat and you'll know what the person feels."
"You're right, it's like that, I've tried it."
"It gets better and stronger. I would think that knowing what you know--about everything--it would be easier for you. I was supposed to be disgustingly normal, an honors student with a passion for science, growing up with all the luxuries of a well-to-do only child. You know what you are."
She paused. She drew a cigarette out of the pack lying on the table. "You don't mind, do you?" she asked.
"No, not at all," said Mona. "I like the smell of cigarettes, always have."
But she stopped. She slipped the cigarette back in the pack. She laid the lighter beside it.
Then she looked at Mona, and her face seemed incidentally hard suddenly, as though she'd fallen deep in thought and forgotten to conceal her strong inner self.
The look was so cold and so quietly fierce that it made her seem sexless to Mona. It might be a man looking at her, this person with the gray eyes and the dark straight eyebrows and the soft blond hair. It might have been an angel. Surely, it was a beautiful woman. Mona was far too intrigued and excited by all this to let her eyes be forced away.
Almost at once the expression did soften, deliberately perhaps.
"I'm going to Europe," said Rowan. "I'm leaving in a little while."
"Why? Where are you going?" demanded Mona. "Does Michael know this?"
"No," she said. "And when he finds out, he'll be hurt again."
"Rowan, you can't do that to him, wait a second. Why are you going?"
"Because I have to. I'm the only one who can figure out this little mystery about the Talamasca. I'm the only one who can find out why Aaron died like he did."
"But Michael, you've got to take Michael with you, you've got to let him help. You leave him again, Rowan, and it's going to take more than a nubile thirteen-year-old to save his ego and whatever manhood he's got left."
Rowan listened to this, thoughtfully.
Mona instantly regretted what she'd said, then instantly thought she hadn't said it strongly enough.
"It's going to hurt," said Rowan.
"Oh, you're kidding yourself," said Mona. "Maybe he won't be waiting around here when you get back."
"Look, what would you do if you were me?" Rowan asked.
It took a second for this question to sink in. Mona took another big drink of the orange juice and the
n pushed the glass to the side. "You're really asking me?"
"There's no one I'd rather ask."
"Take him with you to Europe. Why not? What's he staying here for?"
"There are things," she said. "He's the only one who understands the kind of danger directed against the family. And there's the question of his own safety, but then I don't know just how critical that is."
"His safety? If the Talamasca guys want to hit him, they know where to find him if he just hangs around this house. Besides, Rowan, what about your own safety? You know more about all this than anyone except Michael. Don't you need him with you? You're really prepared to go over there alone?"
"I wouldn't be alone, I'd be with Yuri."
"Yuri?"
"He called again this morning, only a little while ago."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I'm telling you now," Rowan said coolly. "He had only a few minutes. He was in a pay booth in London. I persuaded him to meet me at Gatwick. I have only a few hours before I leave."
"You should have called me, Rowan, you should have ..."
"Hold it, Mona. Yuri's purpose in calling was to warn you to stay close to your family and remain under guard. That's what's important here. He thinks there are people who may try to get hold of you, Mona. He was very serious. He wouldn't explain any more. He said things about the genetic testing, people accessing the records, figuring out that you were the most powerful witch in the clan."
"Yeah, well, I probably am. I figured that out a long time ago, but, Rowan, if they are after witches, why aren't they after you?"
"Because I can't give birth ever again, Mona. But you can. Yuri thinks they may want Michael also. Michael fathered Lasher. These evil people, whoever they are, will try to bring you together. I think Yuri's wrong."
"Why?"
"Mating two witches? Expecting the extra genes to throw a Taltos? It's as unlikely now as it ever was. You might say that breeding two witches is the long way of doing it. According to our records, the one and only successful attempt took three hundred years. There was intervention and purpose in that one success. I gave it my assistance at a crucial moment. Maybe it could not have happened without that."
"And Yuri thinks they'd try to force Michael and me to do that?"