QUESTION 1: I’ve been wondering, since Cassie’s mother was a child of Loki and thus ‘one of the three monsters of chaos’ in Norse mythology, would this technically make Cassie the Demi-goddess of Chaos? I’m not sure if titles are passed down like that with the gods, but it just seemed like a rather appropriate title for her to me ;)
Lol, I like it! Actually, demigods in the Greek tradition only occasionally had titles, but whether Cassie has the name or not, she certainly lives up to it!
QUESTION 2: Demons can receive ‘gifts’ or new skills from each other during an energy exchange. Is it possible for a person with no demon blood to benefit from a power exchange with a demon/part-demon?
Yes, technically. But it would depend on the recipient having enough power to use whatever it is that they acquired, which won’t often be the case. Which is why demons don’t mind exchanging energy with whomever has a useful skill they might like to have; most of the time, they aren’t really offering anything in exchange.
QUESTION 3: I would like to ask about Rasputin. I thought he may be inspired to the historical person, like the other historical figure in your novels, but the ‘Mad Monk’ died in late 1916 and as in Death’s Mistress Dorina inferred that Louis-Cesare’s elevation to first-level and subsequent elevation to senatorial seat in a century and a half was extraordinarily quick. I wondered how it could happen that Rasputin came to rival with the consul’s power in less than a century or if I misunderstood something.
The point made in Touch the Dark, when Rasputin was introduced, was that he didn’t die in 1916. He was poisoned, shot, stabbed, beaten and thrown in a freezing river, but couldn’t die because he was already dead, and had been so for a while. Which also explained his hypnotic-type abilities in gaining power over the Romanovs, and his healing of their hemophiliac son. Rasputin in Cassie’s universe was a vampire long before his convenient “death” in 1916, right before he would have been lynched anyway, with the advent of Lenin et al.
QUESTION 4: Does Rafe still paint? If so, is his new work known in the current time as his own or as someone new that we might recognize? What does happen to his new paintings? Sold, or only displayed in never-seen-by-norms places such as MAGIC?
Of course he still paints. He did Cassie’s ceiling, didn’t he? But having new paintings by a major talent like Raphael suddenly appear (and art historians can easily recognize a master’s style) would not do a lot for the continued anonymity of the supernatural community. Especially not when they were painted with modern pigments! So yes, his new works are kept within the sup community, and many within the family.
QUESTION 5: You said before that vampires or “immortal” beings in general wouldn’t be affected by Cassie’s time waves because they don’t age, but as I understand it, from the explanations on the book, the time waves make time in a certain area pass faster, so if a vampire or a fey or a demon were hit by one they wouldn’t age, but wouldn’t they die of starvation? Since it would be like they had gone hundreds of years without eating anything (be it food or blood or anything else).
Fun question, thanks! Actually, it would depend. First, how strong is the wave? Cassie has a limited ability here, and the stronger the wave, the more exhausting it is for her. Of course, even a minor wave might kill a human, by making fifty or a hundred years pass by in a moment. But it might not affect a demon that much. And as for vampires…well, that’s when it gets interesting.
Let’s say Cassie is feeling good, hasn’t already been in a fight and isn’t hurt or tired or whatever (yeah, I know, fat chance, right? But just for the sake of argument here). And let’s say she hits a vampire with a major time wave, something strong enough to make hundreds of years pass for them in a few moments. Now the question is, what kind of vamp is it? If such a wave hit a very young vampire, then yes, it might kill him or her. Although even that is uncertain, because vampires can draw extra energy from family in emergencies. But a baby would have a limited ability in that area and might not be able to compensate fast enough. But what if a major time wave hit a master?
In the case of a master, especially a senior master, they would immediately draw from their entire family’s energy, combining the strength of dozens or perhaps even hundreds of other vampires with their own. And some of those vamps would be masters, too. That’s one reason masters are so damned hard to kill, and why Mircea, for example, could withstand being freaking electrocuted in ETN. On his own, he might have died, but he wasn’t on his own. No senior master ever is. Their families are like extra battery packs, and can feed them a lot of power in extremis.
As for demons, they don’t die of starvation, they simply get weaker. So a major wave might give Cassie an advantage over them, but again, it would depend on the demon. They’re like camels with energy, gorging in good times and storing it up for lean ones. So whether said demon would be weakened enough to be an easy kill for her after the wave would depend very much on the demon. And that’s not the kind of thing best left to chance!