Stephan opened the door and smiled at the woman who waited for him. “Let’s go,” he said. He followed her through the corridors, sparing only a quick look at the Bernoff. His escort handed him into a long black car, and he settled back.
On one of her very quick visits, Estelle had given him an overview of the court so he had a general idea of what to expect, though her description had not managed to cover its sheer grandiosity. It was everything he hoped for and more, with huge marble pillars, priceless art on the walls, and ornate thrones set up at the far end of the huge, cavernous ballroom.
“Ah, Ambassador.” Estelle’s father strolled up, looking resplendent in his own tuxedo. Stephan hadn’t mentioned his new and unwanted promotion, but apparently the word traveled fast. Beside Renault, Estelle’s mother wore a simple green gown that even he could tell was prohibitively expensive. Not to mention the diamonds.
He responded with a smile, and polite compliments.
Renault looked around the room and nodded with arrogant satisfaction. “An excellent turnout today. I offered to cater the event from our hotel chefs, you know. Excellent opportunity for us, especially Felix.”
He might as well have been talking about a celebrity wedding, but Stephan murmured a sycophantic agreement. Estelle’s parents would be good guides in this environment, and he wouldn’t let his pride or personal feelings get in the way of finding out what he needed to know. Many of the vampires in this room would be friends with Madden—or had been friends with Madden—and it would be wise to use this opportunity to discover how many of them were also traitors.
Renault guided him through the crowd. Like the masquerada, vampires hailed from all corners of the globe and Wavena was known for the diversity of her court. Stephan had heard that the eastern queens lamented the loss of some of their best people to Wavena, resenting that she could so effortlessly offer them an environment so superior to their own. “Queen Wavena has quite kindly agreed to sit us together,” he said. “I thought it would be good for you to have someone on hand to explain the intricacies of the ceremony.”
“There’s Lady Nadia,” exclaimed Helene as she pointed to a vampire who was bent and gnarled with age. Stephan had never seen a vampire this old. Too bad it was rude to ask somebody’s age—it would be fascinating to know how many centuries Nadia had seen. A thin veil covered her eyes and with a shock, Stephan realized it was because she had nothing but empty sockets. At some point in her long life, someone had decided it was necessary to gouge the woman’s eyes out. A tall vampire stood close to act as her guide. When he turned, Stephan recognized Raoul, the head librarian.
Beside him, Renault and Helene held a hurried whispered conference before Helene trotted over to Lady Nadia and bowed her head in a gesture of respect. “We thought we would ask Lady Nadia to come sit with us for the ceremony, as we have the best seats,” confided Renault. “She has great influence, and of course Raoul is one of Felix’s greatest friends.”
Speaking of Felix…Stephan made an unhurried, thorough examination of the room. It was hard to believe Felix would be anywhere but with Raoul or the group of loudly laughing young men constantly checking to see if anyone paid them attention as they stood in the center of the ballroom, but he was nowhere to be seen.
“Where is he?” he asked casually. Not that he cared, but he wanted to make sure he was ready for the insults when Estelle’s brother came by.
Helene’s brow creased as she followed his gaze around the room but she rallied well. “I’m sure he’s with some friends,” she said. “He’s very popular, you know.”
“He would never miss his sister’s invocation,” added Renault. “This is important for all the LaMarches and it would be an insult to the queen.”
Nothing about offering support to his sister. Before Stephan could reply, a majordomo appeared and announced in a booming voice that the crowd should take their seats.
The LaMarches ushered him into the ceremonial ballroom—a totally different and even more impressive room than the apparently non-ceremonial ballroom he’d been in—and to the front row. There was a surprisingly simple dais at the front of the room with a single red marble table holding a long box.
“Lady Nadia. Please let me introduce Ambassador Stephan Daker.” Stephan rose and bowed to the elderly vampire, who gave the briefest of nods before turning to Raoul.
“There is the oddest smell in the air,” she said in a surprisingly thick Spanish accent. “Perhaps we should sit elsewhere.”
“Of course, Auntie.” Raoul offered his elbow and led the old woman away through a sea of silence.
As Stephan resisted the urge to sniff theatrically at the vampires surrounding him, Renault broke the awkward atmosphere by turning abruptly to the man sitting next to him. “Will you be coming to the reception after, Keenan? I hear the queen has brought in that viola duo from New Orleans.”
That was enough to get the chatter going again. Stephan didn’t care because he was too busy watching Raoul watching him and speaking into his aunt’s ear. She was powerful and influential, and if her jewelry was any indication, rich as Croesus. A woman like her would be in the middle of intrigue. She reeked of it.
So she didn’t like masquerada? Or was it him? Racially diverse the court may be, but he wasn’t naïve enough to think everyone appreciated such an environment.
Didn’t matter, either way. The feeling was mutual.
* * * *
“Stop fidgeting.” Wavena slapped down Estelle’s hand as she tried to readjust the heavy robes for what felt like the hundredth time.
“Sorry.”
Wavena tilted her eyes up toward the ceiling, covered with a richly painted mural of a Greek landscape. It wasn’t quite an eye roll, but Estelle knew her queen was losing patience. She almost didn’t care. Almost. Her self-preservation kicked in.
“Did you know Nadia’s here?” she asked.
Wavena frowned. “I haven’t seen that miserable crone in a hundred years. Why now?”
“Obviously she’s a fan of mine.”
This made the queen laugh so hard that her tiara nearly toppled down from the curls piled on her head. “Tell me another, Estelle.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Then have your deputy keep any eye on her.” The queen raised her eyebrows. “You’ll have to delegate the work, seneschal. Cressida would have done more of that with you had she survived.” Her lips creased with pain.
Estelle had no idea who her deputy would be but she kept her mouth shut. Over the last two days, the queen had made some fairly clear comments that Estelle was going to be seneschal, no matter what she thought about it, and she was going to make the queen proud. This was said so matter-of-factly that it gave Estelle a lump in her throat. Wavena’s support was touching. It would have been more affirming had it been accompanied by fewer comments on how much Cressida would be missed.
Estelle thought of the work ahead of her and pinched her arm, hard, as fear compressed her lungs. She couldn’t make a mistake. There was too much riding on her now. The war…
Wavena turned to her and smiled. “Are you ready?”
“I—” Was now the time to tell the truth? Probably not.
The queen must have seen a flicker of doubt in Estelle’s expression, because she leaned in slightly. “I am giving you this role because you are ready for it,” she said. “Have faith in yourself.”
“Cressida should be here.”
“Yes, but that’s irrelevant. She’s not and you are.” Wavena took Estelle’s hands in hers. “She taught you well. I think she would have been proud.”
Wavena turned away when an aide called for her attention. Estelle adjusted the robes yet again. “Have faith” sounded good, but what did that mean? She’d never truly led before. While Cressida was seneschal, she controlled everything while Estelle, on the edge of a breakdown, left to find a job that she
could do successfully. Now she was going to be on her own to win a war. People were looking to bring her down. Maman had been very clear about that, relaying all the gossip she heard from her friends. Estelle tried to ignore it, but Maman had so often been right. She’d been the first to tell Estelle she wasn’t fit for the seneschal training and had moved to Florida only on Wavena’s command, complaining the whole time about how disruptive it had been.
She could leave. She could wriggle out of these robes, kick off the shoes and run for the door.
She could…she wouldn’t. It was her duty. She’d been trained for decades for this very moment and she could no more refuse it than she could fly. Cressida would have never stood for that. She’d already been losing patience with Estelle’s delayed return to the fold from working at JDPR.
Please let me not screw this up. Please let it all be okay.
A crash of drums rolled through the waiting room. Wavena laid a hand on her shoulder and looked into Estelle’s eyes. “By the way, keep your composure,” she said. “Remember—what happens is necessary.”
What was necessary? Before Estelle could ask, Wavena turned and nodded to the group waiting by the high doors.
When they were thrown open, Estelle took a deep breath and followed the queen out. Time for questions later. Although there were three hundred vampires in the room, she heard not a single sound apart from the brush of her robes on the crimson carpet. Like Wavena, she kept her head high and her gait slow and smooth. Luckily, she held a ceremonial dagger—the symbol of the seneschal minor—so she didn’t have to decide how to place her hands. Every eye was on her but she refused to look away from the dagger in her hands until she reached the front.
There Stephan sat, looking so good in a tux that she stumbled slightly. He immediately moved as if to help her but relaxed when he saw she was fine. She couldn’t do more than glance at him, though, because Wavena had reached the dais and was waiting for her.
They’d been through the ritual a dozen times, but each time the role of her new deputy had been played by a stand-in. Estelle wasn’t worried about it. There were only a handful of trainees who could be granted the responsibility and they were all friendly and sensible. Not a Madden among them.
She was so absorbed with her own thoughts that she was surprised when Wavena held out her hand for the dagger.
This was it.
Everything was about to change.
Wavena exchanged the dagger for the sword. “Estelle LaMarche. Do you accept the responsibility of this sword?”
“I do.” She was proud her voice didn’t shake.
Wavena rhymed off the series of responsibilities that bound her as seneschal and which the rushing in Estelle’s ears blocked her from hearing clearly. What she did hear were the final lines.
“With this, I name you our seneschal major, Lord of the Crimson Sword. Welcome to your new life.”
Then it was done. Wavena continued and she looked at Estelle with so much meaning that Estelle’s stomach erupted in butterflies.
“You will need a deputy.”
From behind the curtain appeared a woman Estelle had never seen. A vampire from another clan? That was rare, but not unheard of.
“Agata Kay. I name you seneschal minor and an embodiment of partnership between our two people.” Wavena handed Agata the dagger as the room became, if possible, even more quiet.
Partnership? Estelle looked at Agata closely. At her skin. Her fangs.
Her long, unretracted fangs.
Her minor was a lithu.
Chapter 13
Gasps of disbelief alerted Stephan to the fact that something in the ceremony was not going as expected. He’d been distracted by Estelle’s serious face as she took on the responsibility for Wavena’s entire military. The moment she’d taken the sword and held it high, he’d had to stop himself from cheering.
“Is that thing what I think it is?” muttered Renault beside him.
Helene, frantically fanning herself with a program, nodded. “A lithu. My baby’s deputy is a lithu.”
Stephan dredged his memory. The lithu were vampires, but as he remembered it, they were vampirus extremus—no light, miserable, and scary. Yet the woman on the dais stood under the chandeliers without bursting into flames.
Ignoring the whispers that filled the room, Estelle spoke the ritual welcome in her clear voice and passed over the dagger before she took the other woman’s hand as she gazed out into the audience. She said nothing but her message was clear: they were a team.
“I can’t believe it,” said Helene. “A lithu. What was Wavena thinking? How could she do this to us?”
Stephan was amused to note that the queen was now simply Wavena.
“The war with the Dawning must be going worse than we thought,” murmured Renault. “If we need to ally with those monsters, things are bad indeed.”
Estelle looked over in their direction and Stephan gave her a discreet thumbs-up. She ghosted him a wink then put her serious face back on.
Wavena concluded the ceremony as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened and the vampire elite stood en masse and turned to each other in a frenzy of gossip. By the time Stephan made it to the door, Estelle’s minor had been identified as a disinherited princess, a mutant, a vampire raised by lithu, and Wavena’s hidden daughter. Naming her as seneschal minor was a triumph, a disgrace; an action to be feared and one to be lauded.
The only thing everyone agreed on was that Estelle was going to have her hands full.
Stephan followed the crowd into the reception, where he took a glass of champagne and began to float around. The room was too crowded for him to move very quickly and he soon realized to his glee that vampires were lightweights when it came to alcohol.
It took several minutes of dedicated drifting until Stephan found a conversation worth spying on. Two women, both beautifully adorned with jewels, were on what looked like their second glass of wine. They stood near a small table that Stephan casually leaned on as he pretended to look at his phone.
“Could you believe the look on Nadia’s face?” said the woman wearing the red gown.
“Not surprising, was it?” The second woman flagged down a waiter and took another full glass. “When you think of how much money she gave Madden. Well.”
“Gave Madden? What does Madden have to do with the lithu?” Red Gown looked around furtively. “Keep your voice down.”
Damn. Stephan inched closer, eyes on his phone.
“James told me that Sylvia told him that she heard Madden was the one behind those lithu attacks.”
“What attacks?” Red Gown sounded honestly bewildered.
“Oh, my dear. Did you honestly not hear? Vampires have been going missing. The lithu have to be behind it.”
“I heard that’s been going on. Why, though?”
“Who knows?”
They were joined by two other women and the conversation turned to vacations, gowns, and investments. Stephan took his leave. Some interesting tidbits there, and he wanted to see if he could find more. To the left at the far side of the room he saw Raoul standing with Lady Nadia. The wicked part of him wanted to go up and greet them, but there was little point. He’d heard enough insults over his life and had a fairly good grasp of the wide breadth of topics that people could find to be hurtful about.
A hush fell over the people in the ballroom and he turned to see Estelle, her deputy, and the queen standing in the door. They waited for the reluctant applause to eventually fill the room before they walked in and then, as if they had discussed it in advance, moved to separate areas. Although Stephan knew it would be useful to watch Agata and the reactions of those around her, he couldn’t take his eyes off Estelle.
Estelle always had a presence. She was a woman who could take command of the room simply by being in it. Correction—she could command when she wanted
to. At other times she would melt back and simply watch with that observant gaze. Now, in this ballroom, at this moment, it was as if she was followed around by an invisible spotlight. Stephan watched with growing respect as Estelle worked the crowd. A small touch on the arm here, a laugh with a group of men in tuxedos there…she made sure to connect with each person who crossed her path and the vampires in the crowd waited eagerly for her to acknowledge them.
What was interesting, Stephan noticed, was that no one stopped her for an extended chat. Whenever Eric attended any social situation, he was immediately mobbed and forced to listen to hours of inane comments, thinly veiled requests, and flat-out demands. He looked around for the queen and Agata and saw the other two women also wandering through the crowd without being pulled into conversation. Was this a vampire thing? Was it something specific to an invocation?
“They need to speak with everyone who attends, otherwise someone will complain of being slighted.” Raoul the librarian came up beside Stephan holding a glass of red liquid. Stephan refused to look too closely but comforted himself with Estelle’s comment that vampires didn’t like dead blood. “Since there are so many of us, if they actually stop, we will be here until tomorrow.”
He didn’t ask Raoul how he knew what Stephan was thinking, but tried to keep his mind clear. Hard to tell who was a mind reader these days. “Shouldn’t you be with Lady Nadia?” This could be his chance to get closer to the woman.
“Funny you should say that,” Raoul said. “She sent me over to fetch you.”
“With those exact words?” Stephan decided not to take offence. When in doubt, remember Hanlon’s razor and assume ignorance instead of malice. “I thought she found my presence an abomination.”
Raoul shrugged. “I wouldn’t take it too personally,” he said. “Auntie lives off hate and bile. I think that’s part of the reason why she’s alive. She should have died years ago.”
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