Konstantin studied us through the bars. He looked stunning. If the night in the cage affected him, he would never let us know.
“I’m glad we’re finally in control of ourselves,” the prince said.
I didn’t take the bait. I just looked at him.
“Shut up and listen,” Alessandro told him. “I’ll keep it brief, and you can fill in the gaps.”
Konstantin gave him a go-ahead wave, a gesture at once elegant and dismissive. Arrogant jerk.
“We know that as of last year, Arkan refined the last two samples of the Osiris serum, achieving a stability rate of twenty percent,” Alessandro said.
Linus had been livid when he’d found out. Up until last year, Arkan’s modified serum killed the majority of his volunteers. Now they had a roughly one in five chance of surviving with their bodies intact and new latent powers activated.
“Arkan is building a network of allies by secretly supplying the serum to Houses with failed vectors and duds. He had been very careful in his selection, but last summer he got greedy. He gifted a sample to House Dolgorukov. Aleksei Antonovich Dolgorukov is the current Minister of Defense. Arkan wanted to buy a future favor.”
Arkan was screwing around with a family in the highest strata of Russian society. He must have been sure the serum wouldn’t kill its recipient, except his chances of success were still only twenty percent. It was a huge risk. His arrogance was getting the best of him.
“House Dolgorukov has two magic bloodlines,” Alessandro continued. “Pattern and precognition. The two work together, making the Dolgorukovs excellent strategists. Inna Dolgorukov, the eldest of three scions of the House, was born without magic, a fact House Dolgorukov went to great lengths to hide for seventeen years. How am I doing so far?”
“Wonderfully,” Konstantin told him, his voice dry.
Of course they would hide it. Primes married for magic, and they liked the guarantee that their children would be as powerful as their parents. Without powers, Inna’s odds of marrying someone in her social circle were nil. She’d spend her life on the sidelines, pitied and feeling useless, while her relatives wielded power and influence.
Not only that, but her very existence put the future of her family in doubt. In the eyes of the magic elite, she was an indicator that something went terribly wrong with the genetics of House Dolgorukov. If her parents could produce a dud, so could her siblings. Instead of a sure bet, marrying into House Dolgorukov would suddenly become a gamble.
“But that’s not all there is, is it?” Alessandro said. “You like genealogy, Konstantin. Remind me, how are your family and House Dolgorukov connected?”
“Inna’s mother is my aunt,” the prince said in a flat voice.
“On which side?” Alessandro crooned.
“On my father’s,” Konstantin said.
Oh shit. Inna’s mother was the sister of the czar. Inna’s lack of powers didn’t just mar her House. It tainted the Imperial dynasty.
“At seventeen, the odds of her manifesting powers are basically nonexistent,” I thought out loud. “Sooner or later, she would have to get married, and the Imperial family would likely kill her to keep her lack of powers secret. That’s why her parents went to Arkan for the serum. They were desperate.”
“You think the worst of us,” Konstantin said. “Inna was going to have a quiet life away from the public eye.”
“No.” I shook my head. “No matter how quietly she lived, her genes would always be a threat. The dynasty must appear bulletproof. One carefully worded article during a time of crisis, and suddenly there is a fatal flaw in the bloodline of House Berezin. Killing her would be cleaner. A convenient accident during this quiet life, in some remote place—a wrecked car, an unfortunate fall from a horse, a drowning. Nobody can prove that she had no magic by examining her corpse.”
Konstantin leaned forward. “That’s the second time you surprised me since we’ve met, Ms. Baylor.”
Oh, you haven’t seen anything yet.
I glanced at Alessandro. “What happened? Did Arkan’s serum kill her?”
“Not right away. She survived the exposure and got her magic.”
“What was she?”
Alessandro smiled without any humor. “Prime venenata. A very strong, very unstable venenata.”
Dear God, the serum had given her Runa’s talent. She could poison an entire city block in minutes.
“Nobody in House Dolgorukov knew how to handle a venenata,” Alessandro continued. “Especially since Inna had no training. They tried to find the right tutor. Meanwhile, Inna had to hide her powers and pretend that everything was fine. The Dowager Empress is fond of socials. Inna, one of her favorite grandchildren, was always invited. During the last Spring Social in March, Inna took offense to something Duchess Minkina said to her. Her powers spun out of control.”