“So you want to be as precise as possible in thralling someone?”
Raphael shook his head. “It’s impossible to think of all contingencies. That’s why intent matters. If you don’t know exactly what you need, keeping instructions open-ended will allow the person to fill in the gaps in a logical way. Like if you thrall someone not to recognize you, they won’t suddenly do so in an hour. Once you leave, this specific thrall would likely wear off unless the intent is different.”
That didn’t fully make sense. I had a number of questions, but we had limited time for me to practice, and I didn’t want to have to go through this all again if Raphael decided I needed more practice.
“You can let your arm down,” I told Flo.
Her arm dropped. From there, it was suddenly easy. Her right arm rose again, then her left joined it.
We went through several more exercises. Rise onto tiptoes, hop on a foot. Point to where she kept her favorite shoes. The worst was asking her questions while she tried to resist. I could see her bite her cheek, trying to keep from answering, but her answers came all the same.
It was nothing overly personal. How long she’d been an actress, what her favorite role had been.
It made me feel dirty.
“Are we done?” I asked, exhausted.
“Yes.” Raphael pressed off the side of the wall to come by my side.
“You picked up on that surprisingly quickly,” Demos said, almost begrudging. A dozen coins from Demos’s pocket joined the existing pile.
Flo gave me a wide grin. “I guess I’m a lucky charm.”
I failed to return it, and her playful expression turned serious.
“Chin up, Sam. Hardly the worst role I’ve played. One time, I spent a whole season as a little orphan in a musical. I was thirty-three.”
I gave a tight nod, and Flo returned it. She went and pocketed the pile of silver before turning to the door. “Are we all set, then?”
“One last thing.” Raphael stepped in front of Flo. “You will forget that we came here and why. Instead, you will think you have been recuperating in your room this entire time and dozed off. If anyone brings up the fact they saw us enter, you’ll only vaguely recall discussing praise for your performance. By neither word nor deed will you tell anyone the nature of training performed here.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Samara
“You can’t do that,”I stammered. “She didn’t agree.”
Flo was looking off, paying little mind to us.
“It’s a liability. He’s thralling her to keep you safe,” Demos countered.
“She didn’t agree,” I repeated.
Raphael still held Flo’s gaze. “Would you prefer I simply kill her?”
“Of course not,” I snapped. Anger was rising in me, fierce and raring. How could he think this was okay? Lifting an arm, a leg, was one thing. Tampering with her mind was another altogether. “Besides, Demos would have to step in. Killing someone would surely count as behavinguntoward.”
Demos raised his hands. “Technically, I only agreed to intercede based on your thrall.”
Technically. It was a word for cowards, and Demos was no coward. But he was loyal to Raphael, so I focused on the vampire king.
“Be reasonable.” Strategic, analytic. Raging would get me nowhere. “When she regains her wits and sees a stack of silverand the only thing she’s told is that a bunch of vampires, two of whom were male, came to visit her, what do you suppose her conclusion will be?”
I stared at Raphael, willing his mercy to win out over ruthlessness.
Be the male I know you are. The male I couldn’t bring myself to poison.
The change in Raphael was subtle, almost imperceptible. A slight sag of his shoulders, which I hadn’t realized went so stiff at my objection.
