Jonas frowned. “They were lucky, then, that Tony decided to kill them!”
“Luck had nothing to do with it,” I said, and watched his eyes widen.
He had no idea.
“True seers are rare,” I reminded him. “And my parents had stressed my abilities enough that Tony’s desire for one was at a fever pitch. He didn’t really understand how visions worked then; I think he was under the impression that I could ju
st turn it on whenever he wanted, making him big bucks.”
“And giving him reason to kill your parents?”
“Not at first. But vamps don’t see things the way we do. My father worked for him; my mother and I lived on his estate; we were all under his protection. As far as Tony was concerned, I was already his. But when he commanded that I be brought to court, my parents refused.” I shrugged. “The outcome was predictable.”
“It doesn’t sound predictable to me. To just assume—”
I shook my head. “They didn’t assume anything. Tony had bugged the cottage—he was always paranoid—forcing my father to have to come up with a spell to control what he heard. But, for some reason, Tony had never considered that the reverse might be true. After all, who would be crazy enough to bug the office of a psychotic master vamp?”
“Your father,” Jonas said dryly.
“Yep. And Tony’s second-rate mages never found it. That’s the problem with cheaping out—you get what you pay for.”
“But that left their child in the hands of a murderer,” Jonas said, sitting forward. And then cursing and drawing his blanket back around him, after it slid off one shoulder.
“You sound so appalled.”
“But . . . their child. In the hands of one of those things—”
“That’s why it was perfect. Mages stick with mages. Deliberately putting a child into a vampire’s hands wouldn’t even occur to most people.”
By Jonas’ expression, it clearly wouldn’t have occurred to him.
“And they never intended for me to stay there,” I added. “The idea was for me to hide out at Tony’s for a few years, during which time he had every reason to keep me healthy, and then to be discovered by Mircea. My father had visited him, supposedly as Tony’s emissary, but really because he wanted to get a look at him—and at his security. He liked what he saw.”
“But they couldn’t have known that Mircea would take you, or even find out about you!”
Sometimes I forgot that, while Jonas knew more about magic than I probably ever would, he didn’t know shit about vamps. “Remember how I told you that Tony already considered me his, because a human who worked for him had me?” I asked gently.
Jonas nodded.
“Well, that applies doubly to vamps and their masters. Usually, someone like Mircea won’t come swanning in and just scoop up one of their children’s toys—it’s considered poor taste. But if that toy is a valuable asset—especially a game-changing asset like a possible Pythia? Hell yes, it’s gone. And Tony knew that.”
“Yet he managed to keep you a secret for years.”
“Because I was only four when my parents died. Tony essentially lost me at eleven, when one of his own people ratted him out to Mircea. It actually went pretty much like my parents had thought.”
“Even with the Spartoi?”
“Yes. They knew my mother was all but drained, and that seers rarely see anything true about themselves. As hard as it might be to believe that a second-rate gangster had managed to kill a goddess, if they saw it happen, and verified the reason—Tony said that Dad had been cheating him—well.” I flipped a hand. “They thought it would work.”
“And it did.”
“For a while. The Spartoi didn’t know of my existence, because Tony kept my identity a closely guarded secret. He was afraid that, if anyone ever found out who I was, they’d tell the Pythian Court and he’d lose his prize. And because I don’t think they expected it. Even after I surfaced again as Pythia, it took the Spartoi time to accept that the goddess most famous for her virginity had actually had a child.”
“Still, they could have sent you to us! We’re the rightful guardians—”
“And gotten me killed? We found a Spartoi in your organization, remember?”
He scowled, but didn’t argue, because he couldn’t. One of the Spartoi, who could look human enough when they wanted, had infiltrated the Circle’s public relations office, because it got all the scandal first. They’d expected my mother’s spell to eventually unravel after her death, and when that didn’t happen, they’d started looking for a reason.