“It’s not safe if it takes over,” I told him shortly.
“Takes over . . . what?”
I waved the wineskin around. “Her. Her life, her family, her garden, her kid. Everything. Everything that matters, anyway.”
“Dory. What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about getting your life stolen, right out from under you. About thinking you’re finally someplace that almost makes sense. You have people around that you care about, and who seem to care about you. You’re in a good place, or as good as you’re ever likely to be, and then—bam! It’s all gone. Not because you made a mistake, not because you got something wrong, but because life just decided that today, you lose.”
No matter what you do.
Caedmon took the wineskin away. Just as well. It was mostly empty now anyway.
“Are you drunk?” he asked me. He looked concerned.
I lay on my side, pillowing my head on my arm, and sighed at him. “I wish.”
“Then make some sense—please. I am starting to worry about myself.”
“So is Claire.”
“Claire is worried about me?”
“No. She’s worried about her other half. The one that’s getting stronger every day, to the point that stuff is starting to happen. It was hard enough to manage when it was younger, and smaller. But now . . .”
“Power isn’t an asset,” Caedmon said, like he finally got it.
“Not when you can’t control it.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, just looked at me. And then reached over to brush a bit of hair out of my eyes. I was sleepy, so I didn’t object, and his expression softened.
“Maybe it isn’t about control.”
“What else is there?”
“Letting go.”
I just lay there, silently, because that didn’t even compute. Or maybe I was just too sleepy to figure it out. I yawned, and he smiled again, a little ruefully this time.
“You’re never what I expect.”
“What do you expect?”
“Tonight?” He leaned over to kiss my cheek. “Nothing. Go to sleep, Dory.”
It was the last thing I remembered.
Chapter Fourteen
Mircea, Venice, 1458
The rain hadn’t stopped; if anything, it was heavier now, splashing down on the canal and the top of Mircea’s gondola. It should have blotted out the lights on the palazzo ahead, just as it had smothered the moon and gutted the torches outside the other great houses they’d passed. But the palazzo defied the weather, burning so brightly that it almost appeared to be on fire, with every window flooded with light and flickering with the moving shadows of guests.
The gondola hit the dock, a gentle bump, and Mircea leapt out. To no reception, because the guards who should have been there were huddled under the loggia, trying to stay out of the rain. And mostly failing; the wind kept blowing it in the sides.
One of them glanced at him uninterestedly as he approached, hurrying through the wet with his cape clutched around him. He should have been known to them, after the numerous times he’d visited during the past two months, but there was no recognition in those eyes. A vampire not even twelve years out of the grave wasn’t worth remembering.
He did not ask how old they were. He didn’t have to. The bright silver breastplates with the Medusa-head design, the rich green silks, and the short-bladed falchions they wore were all impressive, but less so than the power they were radiating. Which threatened to burn him even yards away.