When Victor and Robert exchanged shocked looks, I knew my plan had backfired. Victor wasn't going to give me insight. Instead, I'd been the one to just yield valuable information. Damn, damn, damn.
He turned his attention back to me, his expression speculative. "So. Eric Dragomir wasn't the saint he so often played."
I balled my fists. "Don't slam her dad."
"Wouldn't dream of it. I liked Eric immensely. But yes . . . if this is true, then Tatiana is right. Vasilisa technically has family backing, and her liberal views would certainly cause friction on a Council that never seems to change their ways." He chuckled. "Yes, I can definitely see that upsetting many people—including a murderer who wants to oppress dhampirs. I imagine he or she wouldn't want this knowledge to get out."
"Someone already tried to get rid of records linking Lissa's dad to a mistress." I again spoke without thinking and hated myself for it. I didn't want to give the brothers any more info. I didn't want to play like we were all working together here.
"And let me guess," said Victor. "That's what you're trying to do, isn't it? Find this Dragomir bastard."
"Hey, don't—"
"It's just an expression," he interrupted. "If I know you two—and I feel confident I do—Vasilisa is desperately trying to clear your name back at Court while you and Belikov are off on a sexually charged adventure to find her brother or sister."
"You don't know anything about us," I growled. Sexually charged indeed.
He shrugged. "Your face says it all. And really, it's not a bad idea. Not a great one either, but not bad. Give the Dragomir family a quorum, and you'll have a voice speaking on your behalf on the Council. I don't suppose you have any leads?"
"We're working on it," I replied evasively.
Victor looked at Robert. I knew the two didn't have any psychic communication, but as they exchanged glances, I had a feeling they were both thinking the same thing and confirming with each other. At last, Victor nodded and turned back to me.
"Very well then. We'll help you." He made it sound like he was reluctantly agreeing to do me a big favor.
"We don't need your help!"
"Of course you do. You're out of your league, Rose. You're wandering into a nest of ugly, complex politics—something you have no experience with. There's no shame in acknowledging that, just as I'm not ashamed to admit that in an irrational, ill-planned fist fight, you would certainly prove superior."
Another backhanded compliment. "We're doing just fine. We have an Alchemist helping us." There. That would show him who was out of whose league. And, to my credit, he did look slightly impressed. Slightly.
"Better than I expected. Has your Alchemist come up with a location or any lead yet?"
"She's working on it," I repeated.
He sighed in frustration. "We're going to need time then, aren't we? Both for Vasilisa to investigate Court and you to start tracking this child."
"You're the one who acts like you know everything," I pointed out. "I figured you'd know something about this."
"To my chagrin, no." Victor didn't really sound all that put out. "But as soon as we get a thread, I assure you, I'll be essential in unraveling it." He walked over to his brother and patted Robert's arm comfortingly. Robert stared back adoringly. "We'll visit you again. Let us know when you have something useful, and then we'll meet up with you."
My eyes widened. "You'll do no such—" I hesitated. I'd let Victor escape in Las Vegas. Now he was offering to come to me. Maybe I could repair that mistake and make good on my earlier threat to him. Quickly, I tried to cover my lapse of speech. "How do I know I can trust you?"
"You can't," he said bluntly. "You've got to take it on faith that the enemy of your enemy is your friend."
"I've always hated that saying. You'll always be my enemy."
I was a bit surprised when Robert suddenly came to life. He glared and stepped forward. "My brother is a good man, shadow-girl! If you hurt him . . . if you hurt him, you'll pay. And next time you won't come back. The world of the dead won't give you up a second time."
I knew better than to take the threats of a crazy man seriously, but his last words sent a chill through me. "Your brother is a psycho—"
"Enough, enough." Victor again gave Robert a reassuring pat on the arm. Still scowling at me, the younger Dashkov brother backed off, but I was willing to bet that invisible wall was back in place. "This does us no good. We're wasting time—which is something we don't have enough of. We need more. The monarch elections will start any day now, and Tatiana's murderer could have a hand in those if there really was some agenda going on. We need to slow down the elections—not just to thwart the assassin, but also to give all of us time to accomplish our tasks."
I was getting tired of all this. "Yeah? And how do you propose we do that?"
Victor smiled. "By running Vasilisa as a candidate for queen."
Seeing as this was Victor Dashkov we were dealing with, I really shouldn't have been surprised by anything he said. It was a testament to his level of craziness that he continually caught me unprepared.
"That," I declared, "is impossible."
"Not really," he replied.
I threw my hands up in exasperation. "Haven't you been paying attention to what we've been talking about? The whole point is to get Lissa full family rights with the Moroi. She can't even vote! How could she run for queen?"
"Actually, the law says she can. According to the way the nomination policy is written, one person from each royal line may run for the monarch position. That's all it says. One person from each line may run. There is no mention of how many people need to be in her family, as there is for her to vote on the Council. She simply needs three nominations—and the law doesn't specify which family they come from."
Victor spoke in such a precise, crisp way that he might as well have been reciting from a legal book. I wondered if he had all the laws memorized. I supposed if you were going to make a career of breaking laws, you might as well know them.
"Whoever wrote that law probably assumed the candidates would have family members. They just didn't bother spelling it out. That's what people will say if Lissa runs. They'll fight it."
"They can fight it all they want. Those who are denying her a Council spot base it on one line in the law books that mentions another family member. If that's their argument, that every detail
must
count, then they'll have to do the same for the election laws—which, as I have said, do not mention family backing. That's the beauty of this loophole. Her opponents can't have it both ways." A smile twisted at Victor's lips, supremely confident. "I assure you, there is absolutely nothing in the wording that prevents her from doing this."
"How about her age?" I pointed out. "The princes and princesses who run are always old." The title of prince or princess went to a family's oldest member, and traditionally, that was the person who ran for king or queen. The family could decide to nominate someone else more fitting, but even then—to my knowledge—it was always someone older and experienced.
"The only age restriction is full adulthood," said Victor. "She's eighteen. She qualifies. The other families have much larger pools to draw from, so naturally, they'd select someone who seemed more experienced. In the Dragomir case? Well, that's not an option, now is it? Besides, young monarchs aren't without precedence. There was a very famous queen—Alexandra—who wasn't much older than Vasilisa. Very well loved, very extraordinary. Her statue is by the Court's church."
I shifted uncomfortably. "Actually . . . it's, um, not there anymore. It kind of blew up."
Victor just stared. He'd apparently heard about my escape but not all of the details.
"It's not important," I said hastily, feeling guilty that I'd been indirectly responsible for blowing up a renowned queen. "This whole idea about using Lissa is ridiculous."
"You won't be the only one who thinks so," Victor said. "They'll argue. They'll fight. In the end, the law will prevail. They'll have to let her run. She'll go through the tests and probably pass. Then, when voting comes, the laws that govern those procedures reference a family member assisting with the vote."
My head was spinning by now. I felt mentally exhausted listening to all these legal loopholes and technicalities.
"Just come right out and put it in simple language," I ordered.
"When voting comes, she won't be eligible. She has no family to fulfill the role required at the actual election. In other words, the law says she can run and take the tests. Yet, people can't actually vote for her because she has no family."
"That's . . . idiotic."
"Agreed." He paused. I don't think either of us ever expected to concur on something.
"Lissa would hate this. She would never, ever want to be queen."
"Are you not following this?" exclaimed Victor. "She won't be queen. She
can't
. It's a badly written law for a situation no one foresaw. It's a mess. And it will bog down the elections so badly that we'll have extra time to find Vasilisa's sibling and find out who really killed Tatiana."
"Hey! I told you: There's no ‘we' here. I'm not going to—"
Victor and Robert exchanged looks.
"Get Vasilisa nominated," said Victor abruptly. "We'll be in touch soon on where to meet you for the Dragomir search."
"That′s not—"
I woke up.
My immediate reaction was to swear, but then, remembering where I was, I kept my expletives inside my own head. I could make out Dimitri's silhouette in the corner, alert and watchful, and didn't want him to know I was awake. Closing my eyes, I shifted into a more comfortable position, hoping for true sleep that would block out the Dashkov brothers and their ridiculous schemes. Lissa running for queen? It was crazy. And yet . . . it really wasn't much crazier than most of the things I did.
Putting that aside, I let my body relax and felt the tug of true sleep start to take me down. Emphasis on s
tart
. Because suddenly, I felt another spirit dream materializing around me.
Apparently, this was going to be a busy night.
ELEVEN
I
BRACED MYSELF, EXPECTING TO see the Dashkov brothers appear again with some last minute "advice." Instead I saw—
"Adrian!"
I ran across the garden I'd appeared in and threw my arms around him. He hugged me back just as tightly and lifted me off the ground.
"Little dhampir," he said, once he put me down again. His arms stayed around my waist. "I've missed you."
"I've missed you too." And I meant it. The last couple days and their bizarre events had completely unhinged my life, and being with him—even in a dream—was comforting. I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him, enjoying a small moment of warmth and peace as our lips met.
"Are you okay?" he asked when I broke away. "No one'll tell me much about you. Your old man says you're safe and that the Alchemist would let him know if anything went wrong."
I didn't bother telling Adrian that that probably wasn't true, seeing as Abe didn't know we'd gone freelancing with some backwoods vampires.
"I'm fine," I assured Adrian. "Mostly bored. We're holed up in this dive of a town. I don't think anyone will come looking for us. I don't think they'd want to."
A look of relief spread over his handsome face, and it occurred to me just how worried he was. "I'm glad. Rose, you can't imagine what it's like. They aren't just questioning people who might have been involved. The guardians are making all sorts of plans to hunt you down. There's all this talk about ‘deadly force.'"
"Well, they won't find me. I'm somewhere pretty remote."
Very
remote.
"I wish I could have gone with you."
He still looked concerned, and I pressed a finger to his lips. "No. Don't say that. You're better off where you are—and better not to be associated with me any more than you already are. Have you been questioned?"
"Yeah, they didn't get anything useful out of me. Too tight an alibi. They brought me in when I went to find Mikhail because we talked to—"
"I know. Joe."
Adrian's surprise was brief. "Little dhampir, you've been spying."
"It's hard not to."
"You know, as much as I like the idea of having someone always know when you're in trouble, I'm still kind of glad I don't have anyone bound to me. Not sure I'd want them looking in my head."
"I don't think anyone would want to look in your head either. One person living Adrian Ivashkov's life is hard enough." Amusement flickered in his eyes, but it faded when I switched back to business. "Anyway, yeah. I overheard Lissa's . . . um, interrogation of Joe. That's serious stuff. What did Mikhail say? If Joe lied, that clears half the evidence against me." It also theoretically killed Adrian's alibi.
"Well, not quite half. It would have been better if Joe said you were in your room during the murder instead of admitting he's a flake who doesn't remember anything. It also would have been better if he hadn't said all this under Lissa's compulsion. Mikhail can't report that."
I sighed. Hanging out with spirit users, I'd started to take compulsion for granted. It was easy to forget that among Moroi, it was taboo, the kind of thing you'd get in serious trouble for. In fact, Lissa wouldn't just get in trouble for illicitly using it. She could also be accused of simply making Joe say whatever she wanted. Anything he said in my favor would be suspect. No one would believe it.
"Also," added Adrian, looking dismayed, "if what Joe said gets out, the world would learn about my mother's misguided acts of love."
"I′m sorry," I said, putting my arms around him. He complained about his parents all the time but really did care about his mother. Finding out about her bribery had to be tough for him, and I knew Tatiana's death still pained him. It seemed I was around a lot of men in anguish lately. "Although, I really am glad she cleared you of any connection."