Midnight's Daughter(103)
It was crowded with offerings of food that I didn’t examine too closely and barrels of beer stacked to the ceiling. Radu’s bottle looked insignificant by comparison, like something a troll might drink for a chaser. I was nonetheless searching for an opener when the bottle was taken smoothly out of my hands.
“You are going to miss the eulogy.” The smoky voice was rich with fondness. It was almost certainly fake, but it still tugged at my heart. Damn it. I silently passed him a glass.
The eulogy ended up being a series of stories, each more outrageous than the last, that followed one another in quick succession. They and the beer lasted well into the night, as we were joined by an endless stream of visitors. Children came with their parents, fell asleep on fathers’ shoulders, listened entranced with their heads in mothers’ laps. Benny was remembered, drunk to, admired. Every crafty deal was praised, every shady transaction celebrated with toast after toast. Tears glistened on cheeks even as people roared with laughter. I didn’t know if this was normal for Faerie, or if, being so far from home, people naturally drew together. Either way, Benny received quite a send-off.
Mircea had found us a perch in the middle of a family of trolls, and ended up holding a small child on his lap. He looked totally at home, as if he babysat trolls every day. The long, slim hands soothed the restless child with ease, until she fell asleep with her head on his shoulder. I glared down into my empty glass and got up to refill it.
“I guess we won’t be doing one of these for Drac,” I said a few minutes later, draining my third mug of beer. Radu’s wine was long gone and the Fey beer was the only alcoholic beverage around in unlimited quantities. It had a kick like bootleg moonshine, but despite my very serious wish to get drunk, it wasn’t obliging.
“This is for family,” Mircea chided.
“Drac was your brother,” I pointed out tersely.
Mircea handed the sleeping child to her mother, who simpered at him past a luxurious brown beard. He took my hand and pulled me outside, into the garden Olga cultivated in the tiny space between buildings. It had a porch swing in a corner, facing a slate patio with a few tubs of greenery. Enough light seeped through the slats in the office blinds to stripe the patio in orange and umber, while the full moon on the pavement turned everything else silver.
“He wasn’t a brother,” Mircea said. “He was a disease, from which the family suffered for centuries.”
“So that’s why you killed him?”
Mircea watched me, eyes liquid black in the dark. “I thought your Fey friend did that.”
I gave a laugh so hard it hurt my throat. “Don’t try it. Drac grew up fighting you; there’s no way he could have mistaken Caedmon’s style for yours.”
I should have read the signs sooner: Drac accepting Mircea without question, Mircea calling him “Vlad” when Caedmon had never heard that name, the fear of fire no Fey would have had. But it hadn’t been until I’d spoken to Caedmon that I figured it out. ?subrand had jumped him halfway around the house, trying to finish what he’d started and remove his main obstacle to the throne. Caedmon joined the party only after the excitement was over, once he and Heidar had beaten the bastard into submission.
“Louis-Cesare asked me to take a look at your mysterious Fey,” Mircea said, not attempting to deny it. “He thought Caedmon might really be ?subrand or Alarr, bringing their war into our world. And because of the work I do for the Senate, I have met both of them.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I did not kill Vlad, Dorina. The lovely Olga did that.”
“After you maneuvered him into position.” He raised a brow and I scowled. I wasn’t in the mood for games tonight. “I’ve never seen you fight that poorly,” I said flatly. “You wanted him to die, but you didn’t want to do it yourself. Why?”
“Because it was what he wanted.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He wanted to die by my hand. Wanted to force me to do what I blamed him for, and fracture the family yet again. I denied him that.”
“What family?” I asked, my voice bitter.
“We were a family, Dorina, however dysfunctional. We watched each other’s backs; we killed for each other; we saved each other’s lives again and again. And, yes, sometimes we hated each other. But we did not betray each other. We did not prey on each other. Only Vlad did that.”
“Radu attacked him first.”
“No.” The air between us suddenly felt tangible. “The family was broken long before that.”
I swallowed, the fear in my throat thick enough to taste. I’d asked to meet him—demanded it, really—but now I wasn’t certain it had been such a good idea. Maybe if I just let it go, refused to acknowledge those stupid dreams as anything important, I could ignore it all a while longer.
Cool fingers closed on my wrist. The odd lighting cast strange shadows on Mircea’s face, leaving him lean and elegant, but also austere and forbidding. I decided I wanted another drink. “Dorina… be very sure.”
“It’s my right to know,” I said automatically. Taking the opposite side from Mircea was so ingrained that it was out before I’d really decided anything. And then it was too late.
“I left her,” he began simply, without preamble. “I saw to it that she was financially secure, but I left. I couldn’t begin to comprehend what had happened to me; how could I ask her to do so? I didn’t want to see her turn away when she realized… what I had become.”