"You’re not that easy to infuriate." Margrit’s gaze darted across the room to find Tony again. Alban followed it, then looked back at her.

"Are you trying to infuriate him?" His voice was low.

"No, but it will. I’m not trying to play jealousy games. It’s just the situation." Margrit passed a hand over her eyes without touching them, for fear of smearing her makeup. "We were together for a long time, Alban. I can’t help thinking of him. Having you and Janx and Malik-mostly you and Janx-here tonight couldn’t be more of an in-your-face snub to Tony. I don’t want that, but there wasn’t any way to avoid it."

"We could leave."

Margrit laughed. "That’s twice in one evening you’ve been impetuous, Alban. I think the world is coming to an end."

"Does that mean you don’t want to?"

She looked over the room, then rose on her toes to curl her hands against Alban’s shoulders and steal a kiss. "It means it’s a fantastic idea. Talk with Kaimana. Let me dance with Janx. I’ll meet you on the rooftop when we’re done."

"I thought I would have to seek you out." Janx accepted Margrit’s offer of a dance with a flourish and bow, and swept her onto the floor in a waltz, disregarding the four-four time of the music being played. She clung to the dragonlord, trusting his lead over her own feet.

"You’ve been hovering around Kaaiai so much I didn’t think you were going to seek anyone out. Unless you were planning to ask Tony to dance."

Janx looked toward the police-detective-cum-security-agent and shook his head. "Ah, no. I have somewhat more respect for the location of my teeth than that. I don’t like him being here," he added less blithely. "Your friend Anthony is a thorn in my side, Margrit Knight, and the more time I spend in his presence, in Eliseo’s, in yours, the closer he comes to finding threads to bind us all together."

"Threads like Russell? Or my mother?" Margrit’s voice sharpened more than she thought possible, bringing Janx’s gaze back to her, surprise lightening the jade of his eyes. They slowed on the dance floor, in part because the music ended, but more because Janx was absorbing what she’d said.

"Russell Lomax. Rebecca Knight." He breathed the names with admiration. "Oh. Oh, Eliseo. Oh, Margrit. Oh, my dears. For Vanessa? For my men? Is this the story you’ve concocted? It’s very good," he whispered. "So good I wish it were mine to tell." New music started up, this time an actual waltz. Janx moved with it automatically, still watching Margrit with respect and regret. "I am outplayed on every side."

Something new came into his eyes, a constrained uncertainty. "Stoneheart believing I arranged the mugging in the park to draw you back into our world. This game of tit for tat played in lives that touch all of ours. You, my dear girl. Cutting the wind from under my wings in the matter of Malik’s safety, and ensconcing yourself in Eliseo’s camp. I have not been so well stymied in three centuries and a half." His hands, usually cool, had warmed, and color stained dark shadows along his cheekbones. "I should like very much to be as conniving as you think me to be, but this one time, I fear I fall far short of your expectations. I had not yet thought out my retaliation for Patrick and the others."

His lip curled suddenly, revealing a too-pointed canine. "I’ve lost five men, and Malik not among them, no thanks to Alban. He was attacked a little while before dawn this morning."

Margrit stumbled over her own feet. "Malik was?"

"By someone who knew how to fight djinn. Three humans. Unfortunately, his enthusiasm for revenge outweighed his common sense. They’re all dead, and among our other failings, we fairy tales cannot speak with the dead."

"He didn’t tell me that." Margrit’s ears, heartbeat drowned out music and voices alike. Malik’s tension, his approach, his offer, made abrupt sense. Made sense, except in no way could she imagine why he might think she would protect him. The disconcerting thought that he imagined her responsible for his assault, and therefore capable of calling it off, passed through her mind and left her shaky with confusion. "Not that I know why he would."

"Aside from the two of you having quite the little interlude on the dance floor?" Janx asked. Margrit nodded, though the dance hardly constituted grounds for exchanging intimacies with the djinn. "And Alban couldn’t tell you," Janx went on, voice growing colder, "because he’d abandoned his duty."

"Because Malik had threatened me. My family." Margrit shook herself, upsetting her steps in the dance. Janx steadied her, his expression still cold. "Are you sure Malik didn’t just kill some poor sons of bitches, and invent a story to make Alban look bad and himself look beleaguered?"

Janx smirked. "You give him too much credit."

"Maybe." Margrit glanced across the dance floor, seeking, but not expecting to find, the djinn. "If you didn’t send him after Russell, why’d he threaten my family?"

"At a guess? Two of us will vote against the selkie in our quorum." Janx shrugged, then assumed a superior expression and measured, lecturing tones when Margrit wrinkled her forehead. "The gargoyles won’t shatter tradition, especially not with Stoneheart holding the vote. Even if they’ve changed enough to accept half-breeds, he’s been apart too long to know it. Kaimana himself can’t vote. There will be a tie."

"So?"

"So then we must turn to the sixth in our quorum." Mischief replaced the solemnity of his words. "You hold the decisive vote, Margrit Knight."

"That’s absurd." Margrit had no strength to put behind the objection. "I’m human."

"As are they. It gives your opinion power. Either way you choose, the weight is significant, my dear. Either way, you change a people’s history forever."

"It’s everybody’s history," Margrit breathed. "All of the remaining Old Races’, even humanity’s. Even if most of us never know it. If I say they’re Old Races, then the injunction against breeding with humans is shattered." Her heartbeat picked up speed, warmth spreading through her body. "That allows you all to go forth and be fruitful."

"God was angry when he said that," Janx said unexpectedly. The heat building in Margrit’s cheeks broke with her laughter.

"Yes, he was." She laughed again, then ducked her head in thought. "Oh. Oh, so if I’m not there, if my boss has been murdered, or my family’s been hurt, or even if I’m just afraid something might happen, and stay away…"

"Then the tie holds and the selkies are rejected. There must be a majority." All of Janx’s humor drained away as well, leaving him as solemn as she’d ever seen him. "I’m afraid I wouldn’t be above the plot you’ve accused me of, but this once, my dear, I ask that you believe me."

"Is that your third favor, dragonlord?"

Something in Janx’s gaze became shuttered, as if Margrit’s light question had struck deeper and more painfully than she’d imagined it could. "Must I make it so?"

The question hung between them for a few heartbeats before she groaned. "I’m going to regret this, but no."

"Thank you." Gratitude larger than the answer warranted infused Janx’s response.

"There’s something I don’t understand."

"Only one thing?" His voice regained to its usual teasing charm. Margrit wanted to elbow him, but her hands and arms were caught by the frame of the waltz. She rolled her eyes instead. Janx’s smile sparkled.

"There are more djinn than any of the rest of you, right? So maybe I can understand why they wouldn’t want to take the path the selkies have. But why preemptively condemn everyone else? I know it’s tradition, but you’re dealing with an ancient law whose reversal could save your people. All of you."

"It might, if we chose to intermingle the bloodlines."

Astonishment widened her eyes. "Why wouldn’t you?"

Janx shrugged as he spun her in a wide circle. "Look at your own people’s racial divides. You shouldn’t have to ask."