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I ran suddenly sweaty palms along the slick leather of my uniform pants. Crap. The last thing I wanted to get caught up in was Fury politics. They could make mortal politics seem downright friendly. “Ah, well, you haven’t exactly been a frequent fixture on the scene around here lately.” When her features tightened, I felt honor-bound to defuse the situation. “You never call, you never write. I was beginning to think you’d dumped me.”

Annoyance battled amusement on her face, until her sense of humor came out the victor. She placed a hand on my back and urged me toward the massive double doors on the far side of the room. “What, and give up on the best Tisiphone I ever sponsored to the Sisterhood? I don’t think so.” Her expression sobered once more. “I’ve had—other matters to tend to. Matters of grave importance. Now then, you didn’t suffer through the miserable journey to get here just to chat with an old friend. What news is so important you had to bring it in person?”

We reached the entrance intended to shock and awe all approaching supplicants. And believe me, it worked. The cold, white marble doors towered over even the tallest of supplicants and spread out farther than four Furies with arms spread out could reach. It brought to mind ancient Greek and Roman architecture, and for good reason. This place was as old as—older than—those now-crumbled mortal ruins.

I shot Stacia a sideways glance. “Someone’s trying to kill me?’

She bared her teeth in a feral grin. “Now then,
there’s
a novel concept”

I couldn’t help returning her smile. As the arcane community’s closest thing to a police force, Furies were no strangers to people wanting to kill them—me especially. I tended to maim first and ask questions later. “Someone mortal.”

Her lips tightened into a thin line of disapproval. “Ah. The Accord then.”

That’s what I loved about Stacia. No bulishit with her; she just cut right to the chase. Mortals trying to kill Furies could only spell trouble for the already-shaky mortal-immortal peace treaty.

“Exactly.” I gestured toward the doors. “Is the Conclave in session?” Time flowed differently in this place, dictated by the whims of the Elders who conducted most of their business here rather than in the mundane realm. The only guaranteed method of ensuring complete discretion from both arcane and mundane alike. Spies couldn’t make it here—or survive long—if they tried. Few would be stupid enough to risk it.

“The Lesser Consensus is, yes.”

I relaxed. Good. The fewer Elders present to bicker with each other, the better. “Shall we, then?”

She sent magic flowing through the doors with a flick of her fingers. They immediately responded, rumbling open as ancient stone doors brushed ever-so-slightly against ancient stone floor. I took a deep breath and stepped forward. Fourteen Elders—five members of each Fury class when Stacia was added to their number—sat around three sides of a solid mahogany table arranged in the center of the room.

Fourteen pairs of identical, faceted green eyes watched expressionlessly as I strode across the room, the red, low-heeled boots I never went anywhere without ringing against the tiled floor. Stacia shot me a reassuring look before taking her place near the head of the table. That left me to claim the single chair at the foot of the table,

separated from the next closest chairs by a good half dozen feet. The hot seat.

My palms grew even sweatier when I recognized this session’s Moerae, a thin-faced Russian named Ekaterina, the youngest Elder by far, seeing as how she’d been born barely a century ago. She took great pride in rubbing her position in the face of other young Furies. I shuddered inwardly. You couldn’t
pay
me to be an Elder. Not that this little fact had ever mattered much to Ekaterina. She’d nearly lost her position to my mother—and, now that Mom was gone, had transferred her animosity to me. Joy, joy.

Ah hell, she’s gonna make this a lot harder than
it
needs to be.

Ekaterina waited a half minute longer than courtesy dictated before acknowledging me with, a nod.

She spoke in barely accented English, the language most arcanes had adopted as a common tongue for conducting official business when Latin crashed and burned a couple centuries earlier. Yeah, so the mundaries had given up. on that dying language long before the arcanes, who take that whole beating-a-dead-horse thing way too seriously.

“We trust you have an excellent reason to appear before us, unsummoned and without first petitioning for an audience.”

Yeah, she was definitely going to be a pain in my ass. By custom, she should have granted me the courtesy of a title, whether as formal as
Tisiphone
(the class of Furies responsible for solving most homicides) or as simple as
sister.
“A reason of grave importance, Moerae. It touches the Accord itself.”

Expression flickered across their faces at last. Elders shifted in their seats, formal robes swishing against chair legs as they exchanged glances, voices muttering softly before the Moerae gestured for silence. “Explain yourself.”

So I did, starting with the discovery of the false Fury and ending with the ambush at the precinct. I tried to keep my recitation dry and factual, not wanting the heat of emo tion to lessen the impact of my words. Once finished relating the day’s events, I fell silent, glancing from Elder to Elder, trying to see which were sympathetic to my news and which were not. Not an easy thing to do; they were true experts at the ice-queen routine.

Ekaterina leveled a blank stare my way. “Have you further testimony to give?”

“No, Moerae.”

“Very well, then. You may return to the antechamber until you are sent for.”

I blinked, mouth dropping slightly open. Wait. She was dismissing me without the usual Q&A session? “But—”

Her fists clenched on the table before her. “That will be sufficient, Tisiphone. We will send for you if we have any questions.”

My gaze flew to Stacia, who gave me a silent look of warning. I fought for composure, pushing back from the table and retracing my steps of moments before. Something was
beyond
rotten in Denmark.

The doors seemed to slam shut more forcefully than usual, though that was probably my imagination.

The missing flunky now inhabited a desk across the antechamber, fingers flying over the keys of a laptop computer as she sorted through e-mails from earthbound Furies that would run the gamut from petty complaints about their current posts to noteworthy news gained while performing their various duties.

And a pile of petitions from sisters requesting official audiences with the Conclave. Yeah, technically speaking I should have sent advance warning before dropping
by for our little chat But screw formality.

My
news hid been too urgent to wait, dammit.

When Rage welled up anew, I summoned Nemesis and Nike into physical form to help ground myself.

I let my gaze roam around the antechamber, settling it on the flunky seated behind the sleek, contemporary cherry desk loaded with office accessories that could have—and probably had—come straight from Staples. The ultramodern laptop looked newer, and more expensive, than the battered model I used at home. As usual, the incongruity of finding the mundane amenities nestled among the ancient architecture had my lips twitching in amusement. And wasn’t it ironic as hell that the seniormost Furies, who generally eschewed mixing with mortals more than necessary, didn’t hesitate to use the best technology humanity could provide?

This time I really did cool my heels, settling into a cushioned bench, fingers tapping against thighs’ in random rhythm. Gods, they really needed to pipe in some elevator music or something.

I began to rack my brain, trying to figure out what I could have done differently to get the Elders to recognize the urgency of the day’s events. I felt sure that the fake Fury corpse showing up, my suspension, and the attempt on my life were related—and those events were probably only the tip of a sinister gods-bedamned iceberg. The Elders should have shown
some
sort of emotion in response to my testimony, even if only unwillingness to connect the dots I’d painted for them.

Inevitably, my thoughts turned back to Vanessa and that long-ago conversation that had proven to be our last. She’d been so excited as she packed for her first solo mission, but I’d done my best to burst her bubble. As usual.

“Nessa, it’s just too soon for this. You’ve never done a stint this long, or so far away, especially not solo. And after that whole fiasco with Andre Carrington—”

Her eyes took on a brownish tinge. Annoyance. “No fair bringing Dre into this, Riss. We haven’t heard from him in over a month, now. The restraining order—”

Frustration had me stalking right up to her and allowing anger to color my own eyes. “Restraining orders don’t always protect women from jealous psycho exes, Nessa. I’ve learned that the hard way working with the PD.”

She rolled her eyes. “PD, schmee-dee. You and your obsession with the mortal police.”

My frown deepened. “The ‘mortal’ police, Ness? We were both fully mortal not even a decade past, and you sound like a crotchety Elder already. That attitude is what sparked the Time of Troubles to begin with.”

Vanessa’s hands jerked as she tried to jam the suitcase lid down on the scraps of fabric poking out.

“Don’t throw that mortal PR at me, Marissa. Call it what it was—the War.”

I waved a hand in the air. “Not the point, Vanessa.”

Another eye roll. “No, the point is that you have the mistaken impression you are bigger and badder than everyone else in the world and that we need you to wipe our asses.”

My mouth dropped at Vanessa’s blatant crudity. Usually, I was the one to engage in that sort of imagery. Nemesis and Nike, twined around my waist because I’d had the mistaken impression Vanessa would listen to. me as an older Fury, if not as her friend, sent a blast of amusement through our bond. A succession of images flashed into my mind, indicating Vanessa had learned from my example well. Too well...

Renewed humor flowed through our bond in the here and now, echoing that of years before. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, ladies, you tried to warn me how
that
one would go.”

Something about the remembered conversation had my eyes narrowing. Back when Nessa disappeared, I’d been
so
sure that her jealous ex had abducted her, corroborating evidence or no corroborating evidence. When his uberexpensive, uber-slimy attorneys managed to thwart my every attempt to get his ass investigated more thoroughly, that’d only made me all the more determined to nail it to the ground someday. But if, like I was beginning to suspect, mortals were involved in the attempt to pass off the fake Fury corpse as Vanessa, things might be way more complicated than I’d ever suspected.

I let my mind chew over things while I waited. And waited some more. My stomach growled long before the wait was over, which meant several hours had

gone by. I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at the double doors, willing them to open, then nearly fell off the bench when they actually did.

They opened only far enough to allow Stacia to slip past. Her feet had barely cleared the doorway when it shut with surprising speed. She beckoned me to fall in step, heading for the exit on the other side of Flunky Numero Uno. The fact that I couldn’t read her mood disturbed me. She may have possessed the typical Elder poker face, but she’d taught me everything I knew about being a Fury and I could usually read her like a book.

Our boots clicked loudly as we made our way down the Palladium’s winding corridor that separated the Conclave behind us from the living quarters of the Elders to the left and the common areas to the right. I opened my mouth to speak three or four different times, then decided to let her break the silence first. She waited until we reached the room housing my ride back home.

Slamming the door behind us, Stacia turned to me with intensity burning in her eyes. Her voice sounded equally urgent when she spoke. “Be careful, Marissa.”

I frowned. “What did the Conclave decide, Stacia? Are they sending you back to assist me?”

Her expression grew shadowed. “I’m afraid not. They decided that any action now, barring sufficient proof of some mortal plot, could be seen as our violating the Accord. As such, you are to return to your post and carry on with your normal duties.”

My mouth dropped nearly to my chest. “What the hell do you mean, resume my normal duties? Did they hear the part where a mortal tried to kill me and then committed suicide rather than be taken into custody?”

Stacia’s left hand stroked the serpent on her right arm while the fingers on that hand tapped against her thigh. “Oh, they heard you, Marissa. They even believe you. They’ve just chosen to sit on their collective asses for the time being.”

“So what, they expect me to go home and wait to be assassinated in my sleep?”

She stepped forward, taking my hands into her own. “Officially, we can give you no other orders. Not officially.”

I paused, mulling over her deliberate repetition. Stacia usually spoke with an economy of words,, rarely saying anything twice. “And unofficially?”

Her lips twisted into a half smile. “Did you hear the part about ‘barring sufficient proof of some mortal plot’?” She squeezed my fingers tightly. “Go find the proof we need, Marissa. It’s high time someone put the mundanes back into their proper place.”.

Hot damn. That was as good as permission to do whatever I needed to get the job done. I didn’t pay too much attention to Stacia’s comment about putting the mundanes into their “proper place.” Elders, especially those who thought in terms of centuries rather than years, tended to conveniently forget the fact that all Furies started out as mortals until their abilities manifested and they were sponsored into the Sisterhood. As Stacia had sponsored me when my mother could not.

I turned toward the vortex of magical energy waiting to return me to the subway tunnel, nerves jangling as I realized just how vulnerable the ride would make me. Especially if someone had managed to tail me earlier and now lay in wait to ambush me upon my return. Suddenly, getting off in a different area of the subway than I’d gotten on seemed a
very
good idea. I nodded decisively... “You can depend on me, Stacia.”