"Tell her the deal is off if she tries anything."
Billy streamed halfway out of the necklace to grin at me. "This has potential."
"And don't antagonize her!"
"Of course not." He put on his wounded face.
"That will not solve the issue at hand," the Consul insisted, ignoring my one-sided conversation. The snake's hood behind her flexed, a long, slow ripple that cascaded down into the gleaming caftan. I didn't know if that meant anything, so I ignored it.
"I've been working on a permanent solution." I had hoped to avoid bringing this up, considering how she was almost certain to respond, but I was out of other options. "There is a counterspell."
"There is not. Our experts all agree."
"Then your experts are wrong. The counterspell is contained in the Codex Merlini."
Marlowe was looking at me with dawning understanding. He'd been there when the Dark Fey king had given me the commission to find the damn thing, when I'd discovered it contained a way out of the geis. "You found it," he said softly.
I shook my head. "Not yet. But I know how to get it."
"You will tell me," the Consul said. It was not a question. "I will send for it, and if you speak the truth, I will order Lord Mircea released. You will remain here until it is brought to me."
"You don't understand," I said, trying to keep my temper. "It isn't somewhere, it's somewhen. I'm the only one who can get it. I've been working on it for almost two weeks now!"
The Consul just looked at me. For a moment, I was afraid she'd gone into one of her famous time-outs, which could last anywhere from a few minutes to a few days, but then she blinked. "Why should I believe that you wish to help one of us?"
"One of you?" I threw out my hands in exasperation. "Except for the blood-drinking thing, I practically am one of you!"
Her face broke into the first smile I'd ever seen from her. After one look at it, I hoped it would also be the last. "If that were true, you would be long dead for your defiance."
Okay. Death threats aside, we were making progress. "If I wished Mircea harm, why am I here?" I asked. "What punishment could I give him that would be worse than what he's already undergoing? If I wanted him to suffer, I'd just stay away. That's how you know I want to help."
"And what do you wish in return?"
Finally, we came to it. "I want Tami freed and the charges against her dropped."
"Cassie!" I heard Tami's excited whisper behind me, felt her eyes boring a hole in the back of my neck, but I swallowed the words I knew she hoped to hear.
She wanted me to demand that something be done about those damn schools the mages were running, but I knew better. The Consul might be able to pull a few strings over a single prisoner, but changing an entire area of Circle policy would be overreaching. She didn't have that kind of authority, and asking for something I knew she couldn't provide would only make me look like I didn't really want to help Mircea. I'd already asked for more than I thought I could get—stipulating that the charges be dropped instead of simply that Tami be freed. I wasn't going to do any better. Not tonight.
"In return, I will retrieve the counterspell and free Lord Mircea from the geis," I said instead.
The Consul didn't blink this time. "Done. But you will take one of us with you."
"I had planned to take Alphonse—" I began, but she cut me off.
"No. A senator."
I'd been afraid of this. Why settle for just saving Mircea when there was a chance she could get the Codex, too? Only that so wasn't happening. I hadn't gone through all this to put that kind of power into vampire hands. Fortunately, she hadn't specified which senator.
I smiled, and didn't even try to make it a nicer version than hers. "Agreed."
Chapter 19
I landed on Dante's rooftop two weeks in the past, and almost fell off. My feet were on concrete, but the bell of my skirt swung out over thin air. I grabbed the side of a turret hard enough to scrape skin, trembling slightly with the realization that a few inches to the left and I'd have landed on nothing at all. But I hadn't, I'd made it, and after a moment, I managed to pry my hands loose from the fake rock