“Louis-Cesare will not be found guilty,” Mircea told me. “Anthony will use this to force him to remain on the European Senate. They have no desire to lose their champion.”
“Which doesn’t help us, Mircea!” Marlowe exclaimed.
Much as I hated to admit it, I could kind of see Marlowe’s point. The vamp world worked because it had a defined hierarchy; everybody knew his or her place and stayed in it. They didn’t have a choice, because there was always someone above them in rank and power to ensure that they did so. Except for the consuls, who were pretty much a law unto themselves. The only ones policing them, if it could be called that, were the other consuls.
Of course, that made the other consuls their only real rivals, too. This was getting really scary, really quickly. But at least it explained why everyone was going quietly out of their minds over that stupid rune.
“So that’s why you were angry with Louis-Cesare earlier tonight. You thought he’d deserted you to… what? Run his own game?”
Mircea shrugged. “It seemed unlikely. He had not been invited to the auction; I could not conceive of how he had learned of the stone’s existence. And it would have been out of character for him. But then—”
“That kind of power corrupts quickly,” Marlowe finished for him.
“Indeed.”
“And that’s why you asked Radu to bid on Naudiz—you wanted it to build a Senate to your liking.”
“Not just to our liking,” Mircea said. “To our necessity. We cannot afford constant power politics, bickering and infighting during a war. We have to be united—something that will not happen if candidates under obligation elsewhere win the right to a seat on our Senate.”
“You didn’t know about the stone until a few days ago. What were you planning to do before?”
“Kit and I have been working to ensure a favorable outcome, hand-selecting candidates who are not only of a like mind politically, but who have no outside ties and have a good chance in their matches. It has been a difficult search, but we believe we have found our champions.”
“Yet no one can stand against an invincible opponent!” Marlowe reminded him. “I don’t care how good they are; if anyone at that damned auction has the rune, it’ll skew everything. Ming-de isn’t the only one who can play power games.”
“But if we find the rune, we find the killer,” I realized. “Setting Louis-Cesare free to challenge for one of your empty seats.”
“A fact that would make me feel a good deal better if the matches did not begin tomorrow night,” Marlowe said.
“It’s also a short suspect list,” I pointed out. “I think we can eliminate Ming-de. She won the auction; she would have had no reason to steal her own property.”
“Unless she knew the rune’s provenance,” Marlowe argued. “She may have doubted her abilities to keep it from being reclaimed by the fey, even should she pay for it. But if it was supposedly stolen before it reached her hands…” He shrugged.
“You’re a sneaky son of a bitch.”
He smiled. “Thank you.”
“Ming-de is not what anyone would call naive,” Mircea said sardonically. “It appears that we cannot rule anyone out at present. Other than Radu, who was there on my behalf.”
“But we have to add back in Cheung,” I said. “He wasn’t here for the auction, but he could have murdered Elyas. He was chasing Louis-Cesare and me half the night, trying to recover Ray. After he lost us, he could have returned to the club and questioned some of Ray’s servants. And if any of them mentioned Elyas, he had plenty of time to come here.”
“Five then,” Mircea said. “Ming-de, Geminus, Lord Cheung, the mage Lutkin andsubrand.”
“I need about six hours sleep; then I’ll start on the list,” I told him.
“No,” Mircea said flatly. “I told you all of this to avoid your involvement, not to solicit it. You needed to know how high the stakes were; now that you do, you must understand that—”
“I understand that you need all the help you can get!”
“You have a number of useful talents, none of which will work on anyone on that list!” he told me, suddenly angry. Or maybe he’d been so all along and just hadn’t shown it. Mircea was one person whose emotions I’d never been able to read with any accuracy. “You will not get in to see them, and if by some chance you did, they wouldn’t tell you anything.”
“The vampires, maybe. But I can talk to the mage—”
“I am not concerned about the mage. If he wants the stone for personal protection, all well and good. In that case, it will not interfere with the outcome of the competition. But you will stay away from the rest, the fey prince in particular.”
“Why does everyone assume I plan to go aftersubrand? I’m insane, not stupid.”
“I have never assumed you to be either. But you wish to help your friend.”