"I'm not sure," I finally said. My voice was hoarse, but I couldn't seem to clear my throat. "Possibly…" I finally managed to swallow. "It may have been the 1880s.”
Someone uttered a profanity, but I didn't see who. It was as much as I could do to keep even part of my concentration on the Consul. The heat of Mircea's body and the horror at what I'd done to him were causing chaos in my emotions. Passion and guilt struggled for dominance, but fear was making a strong showing, too. My stomach contracted viciously.
The Consul did not look pleased. “The geis went dormant after you left, unable to complete itself without you," she mused. "And when the two of you encountered each other again, you were only a child-too young for it to manifest. But when you met as adults, it activated and its power began to build.”
I managed to nod. Mircea had been caressing my hand to keep contact between us, stroking the bones in my wrist and sliding down to massage my palm with his thumb. But now he'd graduated to running his hands up and down my arm, as if craving more contact. And everywhere he touched left what felt like liquid pleasure behind. It soaked into my skin, making me as giddy as if his touch was an intoxicant, and maybe it was. I didn't know how the spell worked, only that it was far too good at what it did.
All I wanted was to stay there forever, the geis flowing around us like a dazzling waterfall. I knew it wasn't real, that it was just a spell that had had far too long to take hold, but it was very hard to care. When in my life would I ever feel like this again? I'd had twenty-four years of reality and never even come close. Wasn't a lie this good worth something? My body's answer was a resounding yes. Only, some tiny voice whispered, that wasn't really the question, was it? Not was it worth something, but was it worth everything, because that was what the spell demanded.
And that it couldn't have.
"The person who initiates the spell controls it," the Consul was saying. "But you left it untended for more than a century.”
"Not intentionally!”
She arched a perfect eyebrow and repeated the unofficial vampire code. "We are discussing outcome, not intent." Vamps are extremely practical about such things. The results of an action are always more important than whether or not harm was intended. And the result of my action was catastrophic.
"What about the original spell-the one Mircea put on me?" I asked desperately. "If he removes it, maybe the… the effects will lessen." And buy us time to find a mage who could lift the duplicate.
"That has already been tried, Cassandra," the Consul informed me patiently. "The spell is proving remarkably… resilient.”
"It won't break?" I tried to wrap my mind around that, but Mircea was making deep thought impossible. I tried to step out of his embrace, just long enough to clear my head, but he gave an inarticulate sound of protest and pulled me closer.
"It will not," the Consul said mildly.
I gave her a look meant to scald, uncaring for the moment how stupid that was. If she wanted to help Mircea, she was doing a lousy job of it. According to Casanova, the spell would grow faster with Mircea and me in close proximity, and we couldn't get much closer than we currently were. Soon, neither of us would care about anything else. And that meant there would be no one to stop Myra. I was beginning to see how my vision could easily come true.
For a moment, I contemplated trying to explain the situation to the Consul, but I doubted she'd believe me. I had zero proof to offer, and vamps aren't exactly known for taking things on faith. I moved slightly so that I was momentarily hidden from her sharp gaze and met Mircea's eyes. He'd thought to bring the shoe, which meant that, at some point, he must have figured out what had happened. I just hoped he remained lucid enough to understand what I needed to tell him.
" Myra," I mouthed. The mages were out of earshot, and with no magic they couldn't use enhanced hearing. But the vamps would hear any conversation just fine.
Mircea gazed at me for a long moment, and I could almost see him putting the pieces together. How much he understood I didn't know, but he'd been with me when Myra and I first met. He knew she'd tried to kill me and that she'd gotten away. And he'd heard me call her by name in London, assuming he remembered so minor a detail after so long. I frankly doubted it. He would probably guess that she was up to the same tricks, but not that he was her new target. And I had no way to tell him.
Not that there was much he could do even if he did know. Mircea might be able to defend himself in the present if forewarned, but Myra could attack him in the past. The fact that he was still here was proof she hadn't yet succeeded, but if I didn't remain sane enough to stop her, that wouldn't be true for long. History would rewrite itself, without Mircea in it. And with Myra as Pythia.
After what felt like a year, Mircea gave a slight nod. "Two minutes," he said silently. I stared at him in confusion until I figured out what he meant. He was telling me when the null bomb would wear off.
He was going to let me go.
I gazed at him in disbelief. "What about you?" I mouthed. He shook his head. I didn't know whether that meant he couldn't tell me with such limited communication or whether he didn't want me to know. I realized I was gripping his arms hard enough to bruise, had he been human. But it was only when I let go that a spasm of pain crossed his face. I felt an echo of it myself, a physical ache from the lessened contact, and had to force myself not to reestablish it.
"You must go," he said silently.
I swallowed. The second geis was new to me, but it had had a century to take hold of Mircea. If I felt like this, and the spell had had only a day to get its claws into me, what was he experiencing? Even if the Consul was right, and it had toned down after I returned to my own time, it had still been there, slowly maturing over decades. And judging by his reaction, when it woke up, it had done so with a vengeance.
The thought of deliberately putting him back in that hell was excruciating, but what other choice was there? I had to deal with Myra or we were both dead, and I couldn't take him with me and risk continued exposure. I looked up at him, letting my remorse show on my face. "I know.”
He closed his eyes and his arms clenched around me for a long moment. I pulled him to me, kissed him and immediately the pain receded. The geis was satisfied as long as we were in close contact, and I knew why. I could almost feel the bond between us strengthening, the energy humming happily everywhere we touched. It was contented now, but what would happen when I left? I'd felt the agony he was in when I arrived and doubted this brief meeting would relieve the craving for long. In fact, it might make it worse, like offering a starving man a single bite of bread.
Mircea slowly opened his arms and pulled back. I had been expecting it, but the pain still almost drove me to my knees. I somehow kept my feet, but only half stifled an agonized noise. Wild shudders of shock radiated from my center, shaking me violently, and my hands went ice-cold. I hunched my shoulders against the blaze of longing that shook me, and wrapped my arms around myself to keep them from dragging him against me.
Casanova had made it sound like the bond was a slow progression, growing in stages over a long period of time. But ours wasn't acting that way. Maybe because it wasn't exactly new, at least on one side, or maybe because it had accidentally been doubled. All I knew was, it was vicious.
Mircea was standing close enough to give the impression that he was still holding me. The pain had cleared my head like smelling salts, allowing me to understand why. Although he might be willing to release me, the Consul most certainly was not. I'd refused to become her puppet, had stolen valuable merchandise from her and had placed her chief negotiator under a dangerous spell. The fact that the latter, at least, had been inadvertent was irrelevant from her perspective. I wondered what she had planned for me if her mages couldn't break the spell. Based on Mircea's action, I could make a good guess. Few spells outlive the demise of the caster. And if I wasn't going to be her pet Pythia, she had no vested interest in keeping me alive.