"Kinda put a damper on things."
Nick glanced at Pritkin, who sighed. "Go." Nick didn't need to be told twice. Maybe he was tired of research, too.
His diminutive companion rolled her eyes and went back to ostentatiously ignoring me. The pixie, named Radella, was a liaison from the Dark Fey king. By «pixie» I mean a tiny, foul-tempered creature who made even Pritkin look diplomatic, and by «liaison» I mean spy. She was here to do two things: drag Françoise back into slavery and make sure I didn't cheat on the deal I'd cut with her king. He wanted the Codex, too, and figured I was the gal to get it for him. The pixie looked like she was starting to have her doubts.
She wasn't the only one. I'd agreed to the king's proposal for a number of reasons. I'd been in his territory and under his control, so saying no might have been very unhealthy. I'd needed room and board for a friend, a vampire named Tomas, in the one place where even the Senate's long arms couldn't reach. And the king had promised me help in solving the biggest riddle of my life.
Tony had always avoided telling me anything about my parents. My guess was that he'd assumed I might be a little upset if I learned about the car bomb he'd used to kill them, thereby allowing him to keep my talents all to himself. Or maybe he'd just felt like being a bastard. He always had liked combining business with pleasure.
It was the same vindictiveness that had led him to decide that merely killing my father wasn't good enough. He'd been an employee of Tony's, one of the humans kept around to manage things in daylight, but he'd refused to hand me over when ordered. And no one ever told the boss no and got away with it. So Tony paid a mage to construct a magical trap for my father's spirit, allowing him to continue the torment from beyond the grave.
I hoped to pry Tony's trophy from his cold dead fingers someday, but that required finding him first. And my last trip into Faerie had proven that I was no match for the Fey. Without the dark king's help, I would never get anywhere near the bolt-hole Tony had found for himself. And for some reason, the king wanted the Codex as much as I did. A fact that worried me more than a little whenever I let myself think about it.
"What happened to your neck?" Pritkin demanded.
My hand went to the scarf I'd tied over the puncture marks. One edge of the gauze pad I'd put over the wound was sticking out above the chiffon. Trust Pritkin to notice, and to comment. "Cut myself shaving."
"Very funny. What happened?"
I hesitated, trying to think up a good lie, and Pritkin snorted. I sighed. "Mircea happened."
"Where is he?" Pritkin was halfway to his feet before I shook my head.
"Relax. I went to him, not vice versa."
"You went to him? Why?!"
My fingers made patterns in the dust on a nearby book's cover. The skin below was old and flaking, and looked vaguely reptilian. I pulled my hand away and resisted an impulse to wipe it on my skirts. "I accidentally shifted."
"How do you accidentally—"
"Because it's getting worse!" I tried to read his scribbled notes, but they were in some language I didn't know. "Any luck?"
"No." He saw my expression. "I told you this could take some time."
"And what am I supposed to do in the meantime? I'm sick of waiting tables and doing fill-in work for Casanova. Some days I feel like I'm going out of my mind!"
"Going?" the pixie muttered.
Pritkin was staring at the stacks of books as if they'd just insulted his mother. He finally pulled out a huge blue one from the bottom of a pile. "You aren't in any immediate danger, as long as you don't have any more ‘accidents' involving Mircea."
"And what about him?" I demanded. "It's getting worse."
"He's a master vampire. He can take it."
Instead of replying, I reached across the table to remove the top from the small white pot by Pritkin's elbow and looked pointedly inside. The inch of liquid it held was faintly green, with a pleasing floral scent. Chrysanthemum, as a guess. I glanced up to see him giving me the evil eye.
"Don't think I don't know it was you."
I'd had Miranda start replacing the black syrup he called coffee with something more organic two days ago, after the last time he got tanked on caffeine and bit my head off. I was pretty sure he was cheating, but I didn't call him on it. I honestly didn't think he could survive without his daily fix—or, to be more accurate, that nobody could survive him without it.
"You're the best argument for decaf I've ever seen," I said. "And, honestly, you don't find anything weird about eating bean sprouts and tofu and drinking twelve pots of coffee a day—?"
"My record is six."
"And I thought you Brits liked tea. But maybe water would be—"
He snatched the pot away. "I need that!"
I got a better look at him and decided he might be right. He might have had a chat with a shower recently, but not a long one. His eyes were red, and when he moved his head just right, the light showed a fine coating of reddish-blond stubble on his cheeks and chin. Add that to a T-shirt and jeans that he appeared to have slept in, and he was looking rough, even for him.
"You need to get some sleep," I heard myself say. "You look like crap."
"And who will handle things then?"
"Nick and me." Pritkin shot me a look and I bristled. "I'm not a trained researcher, but there has to be something I can do."
"Yes, you can get me some damn coffee!"
I told myself that throwing something at his head, however richly deserved, wouldn't help matters. He'd probably dodge anyway. "The vampires heard a rumor that the dark mages might have the Codex."
"How helpful. Did Mircea tell you that before or after he almost drained you?"
"Rafe told me."
"Good to know you're keeping up with the family."
"What is your problem?"
Pritkin ignored me. "I don't suppose ‘Rafe' also had an address?"
"No. But you must have some idea—"
"Dark mages never stay in one place for long. If finding them was easy, we'd have destroyed them by now!"
"There must be rumors."
"There always are. And by the time the Corps hears them and sends a team in, the dark have long since decamped—and often left us a nasty surprise."
The «Corps» was the official term for the war mages, the enforcement arm of the Silver Circle, who tended to be a lot more fanatical about their jobs than human police. They really did have a license to kill, and they believed in exercising it. I didn't want to deal with any group that regularly made the Corps look bad. But if they had the Codex, I didn't have much choice.
"You're not going to find them in dusty old books," I pointed out. "What are you doing down here?"
The pixie flipped over a page in one of the larger volumes. She had to plant her feet and use both hands to manage it. "We'd explain," she panted, "but it requires words of more than one syllable."
"Trying to find another solution to that geis of yours," Pritkin replied.
"By doing what?"
"By attempting to create a spell that can break it." He wasn't even looking at me as he said it, but had already gone back to scanning another arcane passage.
I reminded myself sternly that Pritkin was a friend. It was easier to think of him that way than to be constantly frustrated by the fact that I wasn't allowed to murder him. "We already know where the counterspell is. It's in the Codex!"
"The geis was doubled, if you recall," Pritkin said curtly.
"Then we'll cast it twice!"
"Magic doesn't work like that. Do you recall what happened when you went back in time and met a Mircea who did not yet have the geis?"
"It jumped from me to him," I said impatiently. Pritkin hardly needed to ask, considering that he'd been there at the time.
"Doubling the spell and setting up the feedback loop you now have."