The Last of the Red-Hot Vampires

I don't think even you can stop the people here if they wanted to hurt me. Can you?

Theo didn't answer me, but his sadness was all too evident.

"Not a death sentence." Terrin paused for a minute, looking from me to Theo. "That is, not in so many words. Your existence would not be destroyed, but you would be…incarcerated."

"Incarcerated here? In the Court?"

I suppose there are worse things in the world than being held prisoner in heaven.

Don't count on it.

Terrin shook his head.

"The Akasha," Theo said. For some reason, I shivered.

What's the Akasha?

It's another name for limbo. It's where banished demons go, a kind of holding cell of misery and eternal nightmare. You do not wish to visit it.

"Yes." Terrin's gaze moved to me. It was frankly assessing, as if he was weighing whether or not I was worthy of his time. Oddly enough, I wasn't offended by this. The days when I would feel outraged over the idea that someone might not consider me an equal seemed like long years ago. I sat, humbly waiting to see what information Terrin was willing to share, well aware that Theo and I were in a particularly precarious position.

Terrin seemed to make up his mind, nodding to himself. "When I conducted your second trial, I questioned your fitness as a virtue. You seemed to possess none of the knowledge, none of the skills needed to achieve success in the Court. And yet, despite the fact that you are charged with the murder of one whom you succeeded, my instincts tell me that you are telling the truth. I have seldom had cause to doubt my instincts, and I am loathe to do so now just because the evidence is to the contrary. The tale you told is unlikely, but not, I believe, impossible."

He believes us! That's a step in the right direction. I'm glad you picked him over the other seneschals.

I had little choice. He was the only one on the list of Court officials whom I recognized. I simply assumed that he must be privy to the situation regarding Hope.

"Can you help us?" I asked, trying my damnedest to look earnest and trustworthy.

"Not in any official way, no. But I can give you the information you seek." He leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs and steepling his fingers. "You are aware that the virtue named Hope has been missing and is presumed dead, given the note she left behind."

Theo inclined his head.

"Suicide?" I asked.

"No. Her note claimed she was the victim of a plan whereby her Gift would be stripped and given to a mortal—to you, Portia Harding."

Why does everyone but you address me by my full name? I asked Theo, momentarily sidetracked by something that had bothered me.

Names have power.

"One note is hardly evidence—" I started to say.

Terrin lifted his hand. "The note continues with a somewhat impassioned claim that several murder attempts have been made against her already, and that she feels the two acts are related."

"That's absolutely groundless!" I said, outraged. "I did not murder her. I have never plotted to take her power from her. I didn't even know who or what she was when I inadvertently summoned her!"

"So you have said." Terrin looked grim.

My heart sank at the circumstantial evidence that was being used to manufacture apparent guilt on my part. It was transparent and ridiculous, but I could see how people who didn't know me might imagine it could be true.

"It is only because no evidence of Hope's body has been discovered that you have been allowed to continue as you are, under supervision only rather than incarceration."

I've been supervised? By who?

I have no idea, but it wouldn't surprise me.

"This is absolutely asinine. It doesn't make any sense! Why would I want to kill a woman I'd never met?"

Terrin's gaze dropped. "The speculation is that, at some point, Hope returned to reclaim her Gift from you, and you killed her after a heated exchange." He raised his hands to forestall the objection that was on the tip of my tongue. "I am not the one you need to convince of your innocence, Portia Harding. I am simply telling you what is being said around the Court."

A dim rumbling sound warned of things to come.

Portia, control your Gift.