"Let's try this again," she told me viciously, and stabbed something into my thigh.

I had a second to hear the wards blare a warning, to see shadows coalesce in the corners of the room, to see them descend on her and to see her fall, screaming and clutching her head. And then the room tilted and reeled and darkness closed over my own head, so absolute it felt like there would never be light again.

Chapter Fifty-two.

"Cassie! Cassie!"

Someone was yelling my name, and someone else was shaking me. Or maybe they were one and the same. I couldn't tell. I also couldn't seem to move, except very sluggishly. And when I did, I hurt, all over.

My joints felt like rust had formed around them, old, thick, caked-on rust. My head was pounding, like a happy lunatic with a jackhammer had gotten in there and decided to redecorate. Yet it was managing to whirl around at the same time, despite the fact that I was already lying down with my eyes closed. How do you pass out lying down? I wondered. How do you- Somebody slapped me.

And damn, that was getting old.

I opened my eyes to see a frantic face hovering over mine that was nothing but a blur, because my eyes weren't working right, either. But I didn't need them. A mixture of perfume and hair oil and cookies hit me before Tami's frantic face swam into view.

Along with the living room, because I was lying on the sofa, in the midst of utter chaos. There were mages everywhere, dark-coated, heavy-booted guys with grim faces, busy freaking out the crying children they had by the hand or in their arms. Jonas was by the door, arguing with a red-faced Rhea; the blond acolyte was in a chair, guarded by no fewer than four mages, and my bodyguards- Were everywhere.

But not facing off with the Circle. It was a fact that should have made me happy, except that they weren't doing anything else, either. Including standing.

Marco was slumped on the couch beside me. I was having trouble seeing properly, but even I could tell he wasn't moving, wasn't blinking. His eyes were open, but, like mine a minute ago, they weren't focused on anything.

I struggled over and slid a hand inside the latest terrible golf shirt. But while his skin was warm under its coating of fur, there was no heartbeat, no movement of the chest up and down, no anything. And that . . .

Didn't happen.

Vamps didn't go unconscious like humans. They were up and mobile, or they were in a healing trance, or they were dead. Those were pretty much the only options. And yet Marco wasn't up, and he wasn't dead. And if this was a healing trance, whatever had hit him must have hit everyone else, too, because the others weren't any better off.

Rico was slumped in a corner, like a lifeless doll. Roy was lying in a heap by the bar, highball glass still in hand. Half a dozen others were scattered around, looking like they had simply dropped on the spot, or been towed out of the way of traffic and left sprawled in odd positions, like puppets with their strings cut.

"What happened?" I asked, hearing my own voice slur in my ears.

"What didn't happen?" Tami said frantically. "You were out for hours! You got drugged, and the vamps fell out-everyone except for Fred, who ran off like a scared chicken! And Jonas showed up and then he called for his men and-"

"Wait," I told her, trying to keep up while my vision pulsed in and out.

But my life doesn't wait.

"Lady!" Rhea had noticed me awake and strode over, Jonas behind her.

"What's he doing here?" I asked groggily. Because I might be out of it, but I was pretty sure he was not on the guest list.

"I let him in!" she told me, looking no better off than Tami. "I'm sorry, but you were unconscious and Lizzie was here and I didn't know what else to do-"

"Lizzie?"

"She attacked you," Rhea said, looking at the blond acolyte with hatred. "She drugged you and the demons attacked her and I managed to subdue-"

"You managed. What happened to the vampires?" I asked, looking at Marco again. I'd never realized how big of a presence he was, even when he wasn't doing anything. He was the kind of guy you felt in a room.

Except for now.

Now I didn't feel anything.

"We don't know," Tami said. "They just fell over, all at the same time, and we couldn't wake them-"

"All at the same time?" I looked at Jonas.

"My people had nothing to do with this," he told me. "I arrived to speak with you-alone-and found your so-called defenders unconscious on the floor. I called for backup, as you and your court had no protection. As I have told you before, you cannot rely-"

He kept talking, but I wasn't listening. It was easy with the roaring in my ears now sounding like an ocean. Or maybe that was my heartbeat. I just know I could barely hear over it as I grabbed the house phone. "Casanova," I told it.

"He's unavailable right now; may I give him a-"

"Put him on the damned phone, David," I said, because I recognized the voice of one of the front desk guys I used to work with, back when Casanova was making me earn my keep. "It's Cassie."

"Oh, sorry." He swallowed. "I didn't check. I'm a little flustered-"

"What happened?"

"What happened is the boss just keeled over this afternoon, along with half the damned security force! First he's gone for two days, with no warning, and the next he-"

"Were they all vamps?"

"What?"

"The ones who fell out! Were they all vampires?"

"Yes-"

"Of Casanova's line?"

"Um, I think so? I can go check-"

"Never mind," I managed to get out, before I hung up.

"What is it?" Rhea asked, seeing my face.

"Mircea."

I put through a call to his private line, but nothing. I called the number for his court in Washington. Same thing. I stood up and almost fell over, but managed to fall in the direction of the chair where the blonde was sitting, smirking at me. Smirking at me while Mircea lay dying somewhere, either dead or damned close, because that was the only way-the only way-this made sense.

A master could pull power from his family in extremis. But first-level masters almost six hundred years old didn't need to do that anymore. First-level masters, even those considerably weaker than Mircea, could power a city. So if Mircea had needed to borrow this much power, and with no warning- My heart twisted, and my breathing stopped. For an instant. Until I grabbed the blonde by the front of her T-shirt. "What did you do?"

The smirking intensified.

"We'll see to her interrogation, Cassie," Jonas told me. "But in the meantime-"

The blonde burst out laughing.

For a moment, we just looked at each other.

Why didn't I think we had a meantime?

"Apple," I told Rhea, who ran to get one.

"She will talk, I assure you," Jonas told me.

"I know she will," I said, my eyes not leaving the girl. I don't know what was on my face, but hers was smug, self-assured, cocky. She didn't look like someone who was surrounded by war mages and an angry Pythia. She looked like someone who has already won, and is just waiting for everyone else to catch up.

"Apple," Rhea said breathlessly, handing me one.

"What did you do?" I asked the girl again, bending over her chair.

"If you're trying to threaten me, good luck," she said. "That dart would have taken down a bull elephant. You're out of power. And by the time you get it back . . ." She trailed off, smiling.

I held out the apple, flat on my palm. "One minute."

"A minute is all you have left," she snapped. "In a minute, the master will be back and you'll be dead-"

"But you won't be," I promised. "You will be very much alive."

"You're damned right I-"

She stopped, somewhat abruptly. Because the apple had suddenly blushed a darker shade of red. It took a lot out of me; it took too much. A full bottle of Tears was warring with a hit of knockout drug and a lot of running around. The net result was edging up on zero.

But I had to do this.

I had to know what they'd done.

"I'm not going to kill you," I told her steadily as the fruit began to change color on one side. "I'm going to age you." The red started to brown in spots, and the plump flesh to move oddly, sickeningly, blowing up slightly before starting to deflate. "To the point that no one will be able to tell that you used to have pretty blond hair and smooth skin."

The apple suddenly imploded, one half sinking in, almost to the core, while gray splotches joined the brown. She recoiled, but there was nowhere to go, with the Circle's mages hemming her in on all sides. And me in front, keeping the decaying thing in her face.

"Old people earn their wrinkles," I told her. "They buy them with a lifetime of joy and sadness, triumph and pain. With the sight of their lover's face on their wedding day, the sound of their baby's first cry, the feel of their child's hand in theirs. But not you."

And then it was all gray, in between one blink and the next, the once shiny surface of a formerly perfect fruit now fuzzy with mold and leaking nasty-smelling juices onto her nice blue blouse.

"You'll just be old," I said as she stared at the rotting thing. "In the blink of an eye. Too old to be Pythia, if that's what he promised you. Too old to enjoy the triumph your friends will be celebrating. Too old to do anything or be anything or have anything or experience anything. Ever. Again."

Wide, frightened blue eyes met mine, and then they narrowed and her chin raised. "My friends will save me," she spat. "Once the master returns-"

"Your friends? You mean the other acolytes? The ones in competition with you for his affections? The ones who sent you here? Those friends?"

She stared at me, and then looked at Jonas, standing behind me. "You're bluffing. The Circle doesn't allow-"

"But you're not dealing with the Circle, are you?" I asked. "You're not even dealing with a proper Pythia. You're dealing with someone raised by homicidal vampires, and I don't bluff."

"And I'm afraid," Jonas told her mildly, "that the Circle tends to be . . . pragmatic . . . in these cases."

The apple was no longer leaking. It was a piece of desiccated, withered flesh, clinging to a rotten core. I let it fall into her lap. "Once last chance. What are they doing?"

She swallowed. And then tossed her head defiantly. "It doesn't matter. You're too late to stop it-"

"To stop. What?"

"We're attacking the vampire's stronghold in New York. With a whole army!"

"Upstate," Jonas murmured. "The consul's home."

"Why?" I asked her.

"To keep them from invading faerie-they're the only ones who can. They were stupid enough to assemble their leaders all in one place, for some kind of conference. It'll be the last time they-"

"What about Mircea?"

Her lips curled. "He's the one keeping the vampire alliance together, and you know how they are. One Senate won't dare invade if it leaves them vulnerable to attack from the others back home. Break the alliance and no more invasion. Plus our vampire contact didn't want to go up against him, and decided to take him out before-"

"Take him out." I felt the room spin again. "Then he's dead."

She shrugged. "If he's not, he soon will be. Along with the rest when we get the Tears-"

"Tears? You're after . . ." I broke off.

Because of course they were.

Of course they were.

"Our contact told us they have two whole bottles," she confirmed. "More than enough for what we need. But he wouldn't get them for us. Said it was too risky. Said they were in some kind of command center with a ton of wards-"

"I know where they are," I said, my lips numb.

"-and that we'd have to wait until the attack started."

"Just like at Lady Phemonoe's," Rhea said, furious. "When you plundered her."

The blonde moved her eyes to Rhea. "You were there to do the same thing. We both want the power; we're just taking different paths to get it. Those of us with any sense chose to align with the god. You chose the vampire's whore. So don't tell me-"

Tami decked her.

The girl's head rocked back, the blow hard enough to send her slamming into the mage behind her. Who didn't so much as flinch. But he did catch her when she slumped over and tried to slide off the chair.