Kit started to say something, but Mircea shushed him with a gesture. Kit did not look happy about that. Mircea looked even less so. But it wasn't like he was going to be able to help me if he didn't know the truth.

"My mother wanted to talk to the council," I explained. "And she used this seir spell to do it-"

"Your mother is dead."

"Yes, well, that's why she needed a spell," I said awkwardly.

In fact, she'd needed it to address the council on behalf of Pritkin. Not that she'd done much of that. In fact, she'd barely mentioned him. She'd mostly talked about the war, and how we needed to ally if we had any chance of winning this. Which was true, but not helpful, since nobody else seemed to agree.

"But the spell is on you," Mircea pointed out. Because Mircea is not stupid.

"Yes, well, I was sort of . . . channeling . . . for her," I explained, as little as possible.

He just looked at me.

I looked steadily back. Because, sure, Mircea, I was going to talk first. I'd lived with vampires for most of my life; give me credit for something.

"We don't know the type. Possibly used by the gods," Mircea told them, his eyes still on me.

"Ah yes," the little vamp said, a smart pen going to town on the small screen, almost too fast to follow. "That does simplify . . . ah. Here it is. 'Seir,' meaning 'a cord, string, or snare,' a form of old Norse magic and shamanism concerned with making visionary journeys."

"Is it dangerous?" Mircea demanded.

"To which party?"

"To either party!"

The fat little vamp blinked. He did not appear to be used to hearing that tone from the Senate's senior diplomat. "One moment," he said, and started stabbing about with the pen again.

I risked another glance at the cabinets.

They were ugly old things, steel gray and slightly beat up along the bottom where too many feet had closed them too hard. They were the sort of catchall pieces that could be found in any office-well, any office that didn't care about impressing clients. Hell, they could have been found in plenty of garages, holding old paint cans and half-used bottles of motor oil.

But that wasn't what they were holding at the moment.

I knew that because I'd raided them once.

At least, I was pretty sure I had. They looked the same, but the old ones had been at the Senate's former headquarters. Which was currently little more than a scorch mark on the desert due to having been an early casualty of the war. And considering how that had gone down, I hadn't expected anybody to have waited around to rescue some old metal cabinets.

But then, they hadn't had to wait, had they? They hadn't had to empty and then repack them like a human, because they weren't human. All a vamp had to do was snatch one onto his shoulder and walk off with it, which made packing in a hurry a whole lot easier, didn't it?

And left me with a dilemma.

Because, if they were the same ones, they contained stuff the Senate had been squirrelling away for centuries. Like potent weapons they'd confiscated from other people so they could use them themselves. And ancient relics with powers they thought might come in useful someday. And old enemies trapped in magical snares . . .

And a potion called the Tears of Apollo.

"Hm, it's all very vague," the little vamp was saying. "A good deal about altering the course of fate . . . traveling in spirit form throughout the Nine Worlds . . . seems to have originated with the Vanir, the old Norse fertility gods. They taught it to the sir, the gods of battle, who eventually communicated it to the Scandinavian covens . . ."

"Can it be removed?" Mircea asked.

"Oh, certainly. The caster would merely have to-"

"Not by the caster. By one of the other people involved in the spell."

"Oh, well, then. No."

"I beg your pardon?" Mircea said mildly, but the vamp flushed.

"I simply meant-that is to say-well, you did ask about dangers earlier-"

"And?"

"And, well, that is the main one. In fact, it is the only one, at least that I can find so far. I can check the Edda, and of course I will, although frankly it's not likely to be very useful in this case. The Vanir weren't well liked, you know, by the Christian scholars who wrote most of the accounts, long after the fact, of the old Norse religion. The sir were the strong, manly, warlike types that the scholars' own culture valued. But the Vanir . . . well, their association with fertility was considered a bit . . . effeminate . . . and therefore their magic-of which seir was a prominent part-is not well documented. It was considered somewhat beyond the pale, if you follow me."

"No."

The vamp blinked. "No?"

"No."

"I-well, that is to say, I thought I was being rather plain-"

"You were mistaken."

"I-I merely meant-that is to say-"

"For Christ's sake, man!" Marlowe exploded. "Stop saying 'that is to say' and just say it!"

"Well, I'm trying to!" The little guy had more backbone than I'd expected. "I am trying to point out that seir wasn't named after a snare for nothing! It is said that the gods would establish a link with someone they didn't like, and then . . . hang up the phone. So to speak. And leave that person forever in a dream world, all alone, to eventually wither away from starvation, thirst, or madness . . ." He trailed off.

"The gods were a lot of fun," I said.

Mircea ignored that, but his lips tightened. "But that is not the case here," he pointed out. "No one has 'hung up' anything. That is the problem."

"It is?" I asked.

"It is?" the man repeated, without knowing it.

"Yes!" Mircea told him.

"Why is it?" I demanded.

"Why is that?" the man asked.

Mircea closed his eyes.

"You don't like me being in your head, do you?" I asked, light dawning. I'd been so freaked out about the opposite, it hadn't occurred to me that he might feel the same. And now that it did . . . "Why don't you?"

"You didn't seem pleased when the shoe was on the other foot," he pointed out.

"This is getting surreal," Marlowe murmured. "Even for this place."

"Cassie is here-mentally," Mircea told him.

"I'd gathered that."

"She seems to find it difficult to understand why I do not wish to have her in my head, unannounced, at any time she pleases-"

Marlowe gave a bark of a laugh. "Oh, this should be fun."

"It isn't fun!" I said, looking at Mircea. "And I wasn't happy because I thought you were doing it on purpose. I didn't do it on purpose. I didn't know I was doing it at all!"

"Yet here we are."

I felt my brows draw together, which was stupid because I didn't have brows right now. But it felt like I did, and it felt like they had just knitted. "You're blaming me for this?"

"No. I am merely pointing out that it is a security risk-"

"How? I thought we were on the same side."

"We are on the same side-"

"Then how is it a risk for me to be in your head?"

"It's a privacy issue-"

"A minute ago it was a security issue."

"It is possible for it to be both!" he snapped.

I blinked.

"I'm starting to wish I had popcorn," Marlowe murmured.

"You can leave," Mircea informed him.

A dark eyebrow raised. "This is my office. You already threw me out of yours."

"This really has you freaked out, doesn't it?" I stared at Mircea in amazement. I'd been pissed, sure, when I thought he was tiptoeing through my head. But he didn't look pissed. He looked almost . . . "What are you afraid of?" I asked, hardly believing I was saying the words.

"I am not afraid. I simply think-"

"Yes, you are. I've seen you fight a whole squadron of dark mages, and look like you were enjoying yourself. I saw you be electrocuted and not lose your cool. And now you're freaking out because-"

"I am not 'freaking out'!"

"Well, what would you call it?"

"I-I should go," the small vamp whispered, edging toward the door. But Mircea grabbed him by the front of his natty brown vest.

"You. Tell me how to remove this!"

"But-but I already-that is to say-"

"If you utter that phrase one more time-"

"God does exist, and he loves me," Marlowe said, bright-eyed.

"Tell me how!" Mircea roared.

"Mircea!" I said, appalled.

He shot me an exasperated look. "I am not threatening him, Cassie! He is a second-level master and under the protection of a senator. And he is expected to know his business-"

"I do know my business!" the man said, brushing himself down huffily when Mircea released him. "But as I explained-in some detail, I might add-no one knows much about seir. It isn't used anymore. It's too expensive, magically speaking. The gods found it useful to communicate with one another, even across different worlds. But for humans-well, a phone call is rather easier!"

"A phone call is also voluntary," Mircea pointed out.

He really did not look happy.

And I suddenly felt stupidly hurt. Or maybe not so stupidly. I wasn't sure. This was my first big romance-my first romance period, really, unless you counted one night with a friend to complete a spell and keep from dying, and I somehow didn't think you were supposed to count that. But this . . . this was supposed to count.

I felt my face crumple.

And Mircea suddenly sighed and ran a hand over his own face.

"You manage to make me forget all my training," he told me ruefully.

"You're not supposed to need training with me," I whispered. And I wasn't crying, damn it. I wasn't!

Mircea came over and pulled me against his chest, a strong hand in my hair. "I'm not good at relationships," I told him, sounding muffled.

"I hate to tell you, but it doesn't get any easier," he told me back.

"Well, it was fun while it lasted," Marlowe said, sighing, and headed for the door, taking the wide-eyed little vamp along with him.

"I'll-I'll look for a solution," the vamp threw over his shoulder as he was hustled out.

"Do that," Mircea said dryly.

"Don't step on the rugs," Marlowe said, and then they were gone.

Chapter Twenty-nine.