Page 28 (1/2)

And suddenly, stupidly, I felt a sharp stab of jealousy for a dead woh for one day

I scraped the last of the guac out of the little plastic cup "I’onna turn in," I told Marco "What was it you wanted to ask ly

"Fred said there was sorinned "Oh yeah I wanted to knohat you did to those witches"

"Why?" I asked warily

"’Cause they just called asking for an appointment tomorrow"

"Um"

Dark eyes narrowed "Is there a proble to sleep in"

He still didn’t ask "Get a bath," he toldthe side of his nose

And then he ruined it by stealing the rest ofout the darabbed e and saw a big black questionat me I stared back at it for a moment, and then texted 2h

Shit

Yeah It went through

I left the tee to soak and gotan acre of Tony’s back forty down the drain, I leaned ainst the water-slick tile, wrapped a hand around my neck, and tried to relax It didn’t work I was tired, really, bone-achingly tired, to the point that I was surprised I didn’t just fall asleep right there

But I wasn’t tired enough

Not to relax, not to forget, not to just let it all go for a while and stop the ind in a you to pay your money and take your chances Only with ment just held another problem

And the space the little clicker landed on this time was labeled Mircea

God, Mircea No wonder Marco was being nice to ured I was in for it already

I kind of figured that, too Vas, but I didn’t think seeing your girlfriend uy on your laas one of theht by sodifferent than expected

Not that that had stopped the world

I’d been expecting to hear about that--it was one reason the breakneck pace of the last week hadn’t botheredso to have to talk, and wasn’t that going to be fun? When I couldn’t even tell hi on, because that would out Pritkin as part incubus? And that so-sharp intellect wouldn’t take long to put two and two together, not when there’d only ever been one incubus-human hybrid in all history

I wondered which would bother Mircea uy the world remembered as Merlin?

Of course, I wasn’t the only one with secrets Like that whole thing with the Pythias I’d half overheard What the hell did Mircea ith a Pythia so badly?

I knehat the senate wanted: having the Pythia in their corner gave thees, so they’d never really had And it didn’t hurt their efforts in the war, either But this hadn’t been about the senate, had it? This had been about Mircea personally

So what had he wanted?