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Pemphredo at the other, while Enyo stood in front blowing toothpicks at the hapless bartender. Before we could make a move, Enyo blew another mouthful of tiny projectiles, leaving the poor satyr looking like a very unhappy pin-cushion. The woman screamed again as a forest of little red dots sprouted on his chest, and Casanova gestured for her companion to take her away. He went to rescue his employee and I followed to rescue him. The girls sometimes listen to me—when they feel like it—although I get the impression that I’m considered a spoilsport.
    Casanova sent the trembling bartender on a much-deserved break, while I placated the girls by fishing some cards out of my purse. It’s a standard tarot deck I received for a birthday present years ago that is charmed to act as a sort of metaphysical mood ring. It doesn’t do specifics, but its forecasts of the overall climate surrounding a situation tend to be eerily accurate. I was not happy to see the card that poked up from the deck as soon as I touched it.
    Despite the common misconception, the Lovers rarely has anything to do with finding a soul mate or even having a good time. The Two of Cups normally indicates that romance is on the way, but the Lovers is more complex. It points to a looming choice, one that will involve temptation and pain. And, like the depiction of the card in my deck— Adam and Eve being thrown out of Eden—the final decision will have huge consequences for everything that follows. Needless to say, it has never been one of my favorites.
    While I confiscated the remaining toothpicks and gave the girls their new toy, Casanova arranged for another bartender. Finally, we rendezvoused back at our table. “It all depends on your point of view,” he said, picking up the conversation as if nothing had happened. I suppose he’d dealt with worse over the centuries than a few bored grandmas. “Of itself, the geis is harmless. But then, so was Melusine’s—as long as it wasn’t broken. Your version merely causes devotion to one person. If nothing interferes with that relationship, both of you live happily ever after.”
    The fact that I might not want to live, happily or otherwise, in a magically induced state of mind was obviously not important. “What if something does interfere?”
    Casanova looked faintly uncomfortable. “Love is a many splendored thing, as I have cause to know. But it has its ugly side, too. If anyone or anything is perceived as posing a threat to the bond, it acts to remove that threat.” He saw my impatience and elaborated. “Say a person, nonmagical obviously, was to take an interest in you. A norm would be unable to sense the geis , so the warning would go unheeded.”
    “What would happen?”
    “It would depend. If the bond was new and the two of you had not spent much time together—if the amplitude, in other words, was set on low—maybe nothing. But the higher the volume, the more the interference would be resented. Eventually, one or both of you would move to eliminate the threat.”
    “Eliminate? You mean, as in kill?” My jaw dropped. Mircea must have been out of his mind.
    “It probably wouldn’t come to that,” Casanova assured me, and I felt my stomach unclench slightly. “Most suitors would exit quickly enough when you started screaming abuse, or your lover began threatening them.”
    Great, I thought as my stomach went back to its former knotted state. I could go cuckoo’s nest at any moment, thanks to Mircea’s idea of insurance. “But what if the originator of the geis wanted someone to seduce me?”
    It wasn’t an idle question. Mircea had sent a vampire named Tomas to befriend me when the Pythia’s health began to fail. Lady Phemonoe, the Pythia better known to me as Agnes, had realized she was dying and had begun the rites that would free the power to go to a successor. And that had started a whole new ball game. Agnes could initiate the ancient ritual, but only I could complete it—by