A shocked silence fell over the room. Estelle’s expression was stony until she gave her brother a fake smile. “I’m sure Wavena would love to hear your views on a traitor,” she said smoothly. “Naturally you wouldn’t know this, but such opinions are verboten at court.”
There went any chance of getting through this dinner unscathed. Helene turned on her daughter. “How would he know since no one’s helping him get a job there?” she snapped.
Renault nodded emphatically. “Felix’s young and has potential,” he said firmly. “A job at court would help him grow. He deserves the opportunity, and it would be good for the family and our business. You should think of that instead of only forwarding yourself.”
Did any of Estelle’s family even know it was she who shot Madden during the island battle? Stephan caught Raoul shake his head at Estelle, then suddenly realized as head librarian Raoul would also have access to the court and its advantages as well. He wondered how much pressure the poor bastard had from Felix.
Estelle’s expression didn’t change. “He’s old enough to make his own way and not coast on me.”
Stephan and Raoul cringed. This was getting into the perilous world of deep internal family politics.
“Dinner was wonderful,” Stephan broke in, shooting a help-me-out look across the table at Raoul. For a moment, he thought the vampire might simply let him flounder—he’d made one or two barbed comments about the masquerada and how wonderful vampires were over dinner—but Raoul jumped in with a line of ass-kissing that left both Helene and Renault wreathed in smiles. Estelle and her brother glowered at each other across the table but kept mercifully silent.
Coffee ended on a strained but civil note when Felix pushed his chair back from the table and nodded to Raoul. “Time to go,” he said.
“We were going to have—” Helene began to protest.
“Sorry, mother. We have plans.” With that, Felix left the room, leaving Raoul to make his thanks and farewells as best he could.
“Classy,” muttered Estelle. “Marianne, can you make sure Raoul drives? Felix is too drunk.”
The maid nodded and left. Stephan heard Felix complaining in the hall as they took his keys. Raoul’s voice cut through sharply, and Felix shut up.
Renault turned on Estelle. “I’m disappointed in you. We’ve only asked one thing from you: watch out for your brother. He’s young and rash. Your duty is to get him work at court. It would be good for him.”
These people were like a broken record. Felix was ninety years old, for God’s sake. He shuddered. Families.
“Being seneschal doesn’t mean that you’re above us,” added Helene. “If that was Felix in your position, he would have had you at court immediately.”
Estelle’s pause was long enough to be noticed. “I’m sure he would.”
They fumbled through some small talk until Estelle stood to leave. Stephan’s arm had developed a dull ache and he wondered if it had to do with the strain of the night. The muscles must be tense from all that drama. Combined with the dull hum in his ears—courtesy of his good friends, the multitude—he was eager for the night to be over.
They got into the car and drove silently around the first turn of the long driveway.
“That wasn’t too bad,” Stephan finally offered.
“Yeah. No one pulled a knife. A real success.” Estelle glanced in her rearview mirror and then pulled the car down an almost-hidden lane that branched off the drive.
“Where are we going?” Stephan felt a rush of trepidation. Were alligators nocturnal? It was already night.
“Getting information,” Estelle mumbled. She turned off the headlights and leaned so far forward that her chest almost pressed against the wheel.
“No lights?”
“Can’t, in case someone’s looking at the woods. Here we are.” She stopped the car in front of a tiny gardener’s hut. Marianne stood in front, hands tucked into the pocket of her old-fashioned maid’s uniform.
Estelle rolled down the window. “Dogs?”
“Taken care of.” Marianne waited until they were out of the car to duck into the shed. Stephan paused when he entered. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness and along with the usual paraphernalia of gardening, there was a long bench along one side. Marianne sat, smoothed her skirts, and waited for them to join her.
“Are you doing well?” Estelle asked. “Do they treat you as they should?”
Marianne laughed. “Very well. Stop worrying about me.” She took Estelle’s hand affectionately. “I miss you, but that’s to be expected. Congratulations on the promotion.”
Estelle sighed. “Seems to have caused more problems to be seneschal.”
“Enough of that,” Marianne said sharply. “You deserve this and you are the right person for the role.”
“What about Felix?” Estelle asked. Even in the gloom of the shed, Stephan saw Marianne purse her lips at Estelle’s abrupt topic change.
“Getting worse,” said Marianne. “He’s eaten up with resentment, and I believe he’s thinking of the Dawning. I found information on his web browser.”
Estelle looked over her shoulder at Stephan. “They do find their easiest prey among the disenfranchised,” she said.
“Felix isn’t that by a long shot, but your parents have spoiled him. He feels entitled.” Marianne brushed off her skirt. “Like so many others.”
Estelle groaned. “I can’t believe I have to call for surveillance on my own brother. If he even had an iota of a chance with Wavena, this will destroy it. Not that I care about Felix, but I’ll never hear the end of it.”
Marianne had a devilish smile. “You could do it through official lines,” she said.
“Or?” asked Estelle.
The maid pulled out a phone from her pocket and handed it over. “You could track him through the GPS I hid on the ring to his car keys. He’s been going to Disney Springs more frequently than any person should.”
Estelle grabbed it and gave Marianne a huge, smacking kiss on the cheek. “How would I manage without you?” she demanded.
“Let’s not find out. Go find out what he’s up to.” Marianne paused. “He’s not bad at heart, Estelle.”
“He’s an arrogant narcissist. Stephan, let’s do some shopping.”
With that, she left the hut.
Chapter 10
“Sorry about that.” Estelle’s abrupt apology cut in on Stephan’s thoughts. “My parents have gotten worse with time. Plus my brother…you can see why Wavena doesn’t want him around.”
Stephan bit his tongue, knowing that agreeing with someone that their family member was an idiot almost invariably led to them indignantly defending said family member and a subsequent fight.
It was safer to ask about Marianne. “Did you ask Marianne to watch Felix?”
She nodded, eyes on the road. “She used to be an undercover operative. Cressida had her infiltrate human groups to make sure the Law was strong and report back to Madden.”
“Madden’s role on the Pharos Council was supposed to be secret,” he said.
Estelle gave him a pitying look. “Can you imagine any scenario where Madden has power, of any kind, and doesn’t proclaim it from the rooftops? We all knew.”
Were the masquerada the only ones who followed the rules? Like suckers? At least Miaoling had done away with the secrecy surrounding the Council, so that playing field had been leveled.
He was intrigued by Marianne, though. “How did she move from spy to maid?”
“She was injured and we were friends from far back. It’s training. She wants to get domestic service experience.”
“For a spy?”
“It’s a useful method of getting access to a target.”
He reassessed the woman next to him. Estelle was a series of contradictions. She didn’t want the responsibility of seneschal but
had no problem spying on her own family. He’d seen her give orders—in the battle against the Dawning she’d been a natural leader. He’d also heard enough rumors about the vampire’s seneschal training to know it was intense, but Estelle shied away from official governance roles.
She could read minds, though. Why bother with spying?
“Why didn’t you do your head thing?”
“My head thing?” she echoed in confusion.
“You know. Read his mind.” Stephan wriggled his hand near his left ear.
She sighed impatiently. “First, as I have told you before and you insist on misunderstanding, I can’t physically do that.”
“You can force him to tell you about the meetings.”
“Again. As I have told you before and you insist on misunderstanding, I won’t morally do that.” She glared at him before turning her attention back to the road. “There are things we don’t do.”
“Even under duress?”
“I hardly think some self-important rich man’s delusions count as an emergency. I don’t need to go through the effort of trying to sort through his jumble of thoughts. Marianne put on the tracker, we’ll follow him and that’s that.”
Although Stephan nodded, he didn’t believe her. From what he’d been told, she’d been taught and tested since she was a child. She could get into people’s minds, subtly guiding them to do as she wanted. He stared at his reflection in the dark window. What was she doing to him now? He felt the same as usual, but how could he tell if he wanted to track her brother through Orlando, or if she’d covertly convinced him it would be a good idea?
Around Estelle there was no way to tell what his own thoughts were.
“Stephan. For the thousandth time, I am not fucking with your head.” Her voice was tight. “This is what I was talking about earlier.”
“I can’t know that.” He took a double take. “How did you know what I was thinking if you weren’t reading my thoughts?”
“You were frowning and rubbing your temples. Maybe you can’t know, but I can and you need to trust me. It’s the same way I can’t know if that’s your real self, or the guy in the shorts, or some other masque that I’ve never seen.”
He shook his head. “Apples to oranges. No matter who I am, the core of me is the same.” When a masquerada took on a masque, they took on personality traits that they believed the persona of the masque may have, but the self always remained.
“That’s a lie.”
“What?” He gaped at her. “Are you telling me how my own masquing ability works?”
“You’re not telling the truth when you give that I’m-the-same-but-different line,” she said.
His body tensed, causing him to wince as his aching arm reacted and shot a bolt of pain into his neck. “Please. Tell me more about my own life.”
She checked the tracker and turned on the turn signal with more force than was necessary. “I don’t think this is a useful discussion to have right now.”
“Really? I disagree. I think it is in fact a very useful discussion to have right now. Explain to me what I don’t understand about myself.”
She sighed. “I’ve already had this discussion with Caro and she agrees with me.”
Stephan wasn’t surprised that Caro would be the most open to such a crazy accusation. Caro was new to her masquerada ability—she’d been in denial about her heritage for most of her life—and she was learning about what she could do and what it meant.
“Caro is young,” he said.
“Which means she is also open to understanding what it means.”
“Go on.”
Estelle took a moment to reply. “You say your natural self is always the same but that you take on the traits of a persona. Those are mutually exclusive.”
“No, they’re not.”
“Yes, they are,” she said forcefully. “Miaoling told me she refused to take on the masques of certain people because she didn’t want to be tainted with their mind-set. She was afraid she would change.”
“Is that your point?”
“It is. If the core self, the true you, is always the same, then how can it be changed by a masque? Why would Miaoling avoid those masques unless she knew there was a risk?”
The only thing that stopped Stephan from leaving the car in a rage was the note of earnest inquiry in Estelle’s voice. He glanced over. She wasn’t doing this to take the piss, or simply score a point, he realized. She was confused.
That made sense. It was a difficult concept and one that made most arcana fear them. To outsiders, the masquerada were liars. They couldn’t be trusted because they didn’t obey the most basic of rules—how could you know who you were talking to? How could you trust them? This mistrust was part of the reason the masquerada were so strong. The arcane war generations ago had made the masquerada aware of the deep suspicion the others viewed them with and they had taken steps to protect themselves.
Eric had been trying hard to make alliances and build awareness of what it meant to be a masquerada but he was only one—albeit one very powerful—man. Obviously if the representative of one of their primary allies misunderstood, there was work to be done.
“I can’t speak for Miaoling, but I can tell you that I understand the sentiment. It’s not an unreasonable fear.”
“You’re saying she’s being overly dramatic?” Estelle asked coolly.
Danger zone. “No.” He considered his words. “Let’s leave her out of this because I can’t talk about her experience. When I take on a new masque, I see the world through that masque’s eyes, yes, but it’s how I, Stephan, would expect a person like that to see the world. I expect a white man or short man or huge man to have a different perspective on life so that’s what I see.”
The real problem was what it told a masquerada about oneself. He didn’t want to go into this. Taking on a masque was the most direct way to confront your own biases. The good, the bad, it all came from you.
“You were also born human,” she said stubbornly. “It could be different.”
“Could, but isn’t.” The whispers of the multitude rose up, distracting him.
“You’re getting upset.”
He felt a strange calm after she spoke and welcomed the silence in his mind. “What are you doing?” he demanded.
She jerked her gaze over in surprise at his tone. “Turning left? Fighting with you? Hunting down my brother? Take your pick.”
“You’re in my head. You’re trying to make me calm down.”
“No. I am not. This is all in your mind.”
“It’s you.”
Estelle deliberately edged the car to the side of the road before slamming on the brakes. “Stephan. I told you it is not me. What do you want me to do? No matter what, you don’t believe me. Do you want to go back to Toronto and name another liaison?”
He narrowed his eyes. Was she trying to get rid of him? “I need to know that I can trust you.”
Her expression didn’t change. “I see. You feel you can’t do that right now?”
“No.”
She nodded stiffly. “Fine. What would give you this trust?”
“I was told vampires have an oath as the fey do with their trees.” The fey oath was the most extreme he could think of. Cormac had broken his oath only after hundreds of years and to save his mate’s life. Stephan thought that was reasonable.
“We have a blood oath, yes. Will that make you believe me?”
“Yes.” That would do for a start.
* * * *
Estelle considered this. Since she never planned to use her compulsion ability to force him under her control, she lost nothing by committing to the oath. However, it burned her to give in. She’d be supporting his paranoia about vampires in general and herself in particular, as mind-reading, marionette-creating monsters.
Education wa
s the best way to help him face his issues with vampires. Had a vampire forced Stephan to do something against his will? Possibly. Like every group, vampires had rogues who reveled in their ability to control others. She could teach Stephan how to recognize if a vampire was using compulsion. The strongest, like Estelle, didn’t even have to be near their target, but she suspected Stephan would take this information badly.
“Back in the library you said you needed me to be on your team,” he said slowly. “I need you on mine.”
“I am on your team. I always have been.”
He breathed in deep and ran his hand along the car door. “I know you are. I know, deep down, that I need to trust that you’ll never come into my mind. It’s difficult.”
“Help me understand, Stephan.” The hell with tracking her brother. This was much more important.
“Let’s say for a long time, my mind was the only thing I had control of. I want to keep it like that.”
She undid the seat belt so she could twist over and look at him. Stephan was staring steadily out at the dark road lit by the headlights, but he turned his face toward her.
“You tried it on me before,” he said. “Over a cup of tea. So minor.”
“I remember. I was wrong.” She squinted out at the road. “It’s ingrained in me. I’ve been trying hard to repress it around you and the others.”
“I know.”
“I’ll give you whatever promise you need to feel you can trust me,” she said. “Even the blood oath.”
There was a long pause and he nodded. “That would work for me.”
Blood oath it was. She tamped down the small dart that nicked her heart. She’d hoped he’d believed in her but perhaps it was too much to ask. Slowly. She’d convince him gradually.
“Give me your wrist,” she said.
His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Because you want to do a blood oath and I need blood.” What did he think was involved?
He sighed. “Better walk me through this.”
She put on the hazards. “I take some of your blood, dab some of mine on your cut and say the oath. That’s it. We’re oathed.”
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