“Is the Hypnos as bad as they say?”
“Yes.” There wasn’t a moment of hesitation. “Worse even.”
“Bastards.”
“Keep your voice down,” I told her. “We’re supposed to be here as diplomats, remember?”
Magda snorted. “I’m not the diplomatic sort.”
I snorted back, feeling better. “I know.” Before she’d accepted me as a sister, Magda had been jealous of my closeness with her mentor, Kala. She’d tried to cut off my hair in a fit of pique. After I’d broken her fingers, she’d immediately warmed to me and had been fiercely loyal ever since.
“How is it over there?” I asked.
“The Drakes are all right, so far,” she grudgingly admitted. “But most of these courtiers don’t want us here.”
“Should I come back?” I wondered, concerned.
“As much as I’d prefer it if you were here, we’re fine. We’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll eavesdrop as much as I can until then.”
“Good.” She was exceedingly skilled at it. “I’ll do what I can here.”
“Watch your back.”
“You too.”
I slipped the phone back into my pocket and then searched the room for traps, cracks in the wooden shutter that might let in the sunlight, anything out of the ordinary. I even sniffed the blood in the fridge but it smelled fine. They would have thought me paranoid, but Hounds were accustomed to looking after themselves. Between Montmartre and his Host and the disdain of the rest of the vampire community, we couldn’t afford to let our guard down.
And I couldn’t sit in this room much longer. I had work to do.
“Come on,” I told Charlemagne, pushing open the door. “Let’s go.”
I had planned to go back downstairs but changed my course when I heard Lucy’s human heartbeat from the other end of the hall, around the corner. I found her standing at the window with Solange.
“Isabeau.” Solange searched my face with worried eyes. “Are you feeling better?”
I nodded. “Where’s your hunter?”
She flinched. “He went home. We thought it would be best.” Her eyes went from worried to warning. “He’s under Drake protection.”
“So am I, or so I’ve been led to understand.”
“Of course you are,” Lucy said, her nose pressed to the window. “Misunderstanding. No big deal.”
Solange quirked a half smile. “You might try complete sentences, Lucy.”
“Can’t. Busy.”
I was curious despite myself. “What are you doing?”
“Drooling,” Solange explained fondly.
“I totally am,” Lucy admitted, unrepentant. “Just look at them.”
Lucy moved over to give me space. She was watching five of the seven Drake boys repairing the outside wall of the farmhouse, under our window. I had to admit they made an impressive picture, handsome and pale and shirtless, muscles gleaming in the moonlight. I couldn’t help but look for Logan, but he was walking away.
Solange leaned back against the wall, bored. “Are you done yet?”
“Hell no,” Lucy said. She’d left nose prints on the glass. Nicholas smirked up at her. She blushed. “Ooops. Busted.”
“I told you they could hear your heartbeat,” Solange said. “Even from up here.”
“I can’t help it. Even if they all know they’re pretty and are insufferably arrogant,” she added louder. “Can they hear that?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” She glanced at me. “Yummy, right?”
“I’m sure Isabeau would rather recover, not ogle my brothers,” Solange said. “You remember how stressed you were after the Hypnos?”
“Please,” Lucy scoffed. “This is totally soothing.”
When Lucy finally let herself be dragged away from the window, we went down to the main parlor. One of the windows was boarded up and the smell of smoke was thick here as well. Lucy chattered away, which was a blessing. Solange seemed as reserved as I was, and without the cheerful human it would have been awkward and uncomfortable.
“Your tattoos are gorgeous,” she said. “I’m desperate to get one but Mom’s making me wait until I turn eighteen.” She made a face. “They pick the weirdest things to be strict about. I mean Mom’s got three and Dad has one. Doesn’t exactly seem fair, does it?”
My sleeveless tunic dress bared my arms, which ran dark with tattoos. It hadn’t been easy to get them to stay permanent. I’d had to get them all redone three times. Vampire healing tended to push the ink and charcoal out.
“I’ve never seen work like that,” she continued. “You didn’t just walk into a tattoo parlor, did you?”
“No, Kala did these with charcoal and a needle.” Most of them had been drawn in the ritual that dedicated me to her service. The first one they’d done before I’d fully awakened, after the dogs found me. It was a greyhound circling my upper left arm, catching his tail in his mouth, surrounded with Celtic knot work. All the Hounds had one just like it.
“Ouch.” Lucy winced at the thought of the slow tattoo process. Most of the others were also dogs chasing one another up my arms, accentuated with vines. “Still, they’re totally cool.”
“You’re not afraid of me.” It wasn’t a question but a statement. She looked surprised that I’d mentioned it.
“No. Should I be? You saved Solange.”
“Even vampires are nervous around the Cwn Mamau,” I pointed out. I wasn’t sure why I was insisting she be scared of me. I just hadn’t had a lot of experience with unconditional acceptance, not from the revolutionaries in Paris and certainly not from other vampires. I felt the need to poke at the odd experience, like a sore tooth.
“Because you wear bones and do weird rituals in caves and paint mud on your faces?” she asked, grinning. “Please, my parents do that all the time. They’re totally into shamanistic rituals and dancing naked under the full moon.”
“Explains everything, doesn’t it?” Solange glanced at me with a shy smile, inviting me into the moment.
“She is … unique,” I agreed.
“She’s also right here,” Lucy grumbled good-naturedly. “And even with my wimpy human hearing, I can hear you.”
It was all very surreal. If my life had taken a different turn I might have taken for granted sitting with girlfriends in fine silk dresses drinking tea and eating petits fours. As it was, I’d never done this before. I wondered what Magda was doing right now, if she was touring the caves or arguing with a guard. I’d wager arguing with a guard.
“Can I give you a word of advice?” Lucy asked.
“I suppose so.”
“You have a great French accent. If a guy asks you to wear a French maid’s costume, kick him in the shin.”
“Especially if it’s one of my brothers,” Solange agreed.
Charlemagne started to growl. I frowned at him, looking quickly around the room for the source of his alarm. I couldn’t find a thing until there was a thump at the front door. We ran for the foyer, Lucy considerably slower behind us. Solange looked through the peephole, then reached for the handle.
“Another gift,” she sighed. “Honestly, I thought once the worst of the bloodchange pheromones faded they’d go away.”
At the front stoop lay a package wrapped in red foil paper, white rose petals scattered around it. She reached down to pick it up but I grabbed her arm.
“Don’t,” I said. “It’s Montmartre. I can smell him on it.” I nudged her back, reaching for my sword. “Go inside.”
I didn’t wait to see if she’d listened, only kicked the door shut in her face. I was climbing off the porch when a pale shadow was suddenly at my elbow.
I only narrowly avoided decapitating Logan. He bent out of the way of my blade, graceful as a dancer. His pretty face was grim.
“There’s someone in the woods,” he said.
“I know. Host,” I added. I knew that smell, however faint—blood, lilies, and wine. Montmartre’s personal army always smelled th
e same.
“Stay here,” he ordered.
“I’m a Hound,” I told him. “This is what I do. You stay here.”
“Like hell.”
“Then stay out of my way.”
“Like hell,” he repeated.
We moved like smoke between the cedars and maple trees lining the drive, toward the fields bordering the forest. I kept my sword lowered so the moonlight wouldn’t flash off the blade and give us away. Charlemagne padded beside me, eager but silent. The trees towered over us in their mossy dresses, branches crowned with leaves and owls and sleeping hawks. The ground was soft underfoot, ferns touching our legs as we passed. Even the insects fell silent; not a single cricket or grasshopper gave away its position. Only the river sang quietly to herself in the distance.
Logan stopped, jerked his head to the right. I followed his gaze, nodded once to tell him I saw what he saw.
A single white rose petal, trampled into the mud.
For someone who wore lace cuffs when he wasn’t bare chested, Logan knew how to track. The wind shifted and my nostrils flared. The smell of bloody lilies was stronger now, thick as incense. We followed it, splitting up in unspoken agreement around a copse of oak trees. Logan went left, I stayed right. This, at least, was something I was comfortable with. Tracking the Host was what I did. It sat easier on my skin than polite conversation and royal politics. I was almost looking forward to it.
There were two of them left, though it smelled as if there’d been more. They were quick, but not quick enough. Logan went ahead to block them off and I crept in behind them. One of them hissed.
“Do you hear—”
He didn’t finish his question. Instead he spun on one foot to face me with a leer. I didn’t waste time leering back, only leaped forward with my sword flashing.
“A Hound whelp,” he spat. “A little far from home, aren’t you?”
“No farther than you.”
He swung out with a fist, confident of his strength. I danced backward, cocked an eyebrow in his direction.
“Serving Montmartre’s made you fat and lazy,” I taunted him. His face mottled with rage and he roared, attacking again. Anger made him clumsy and easy to avoid. I flitted around him like a hummingbird. Charlemagne stood to the side, waiting for a command.
Logan engaged his companion before they could join forces. “Quit playing with him and finish him,” he grunted, ducking a dagger strike.
The Host who was trying his best to dismember me had a similar dagger, curved and nearly as long as a sword. There was no crossbow, no gun loaded with bullets filled with holy water. It was a favorite among the Host, stolen from fallen Helios-Ra agents. This one, though, was dressed for hunting and infiltrating, not battle. I noticed these details dispassionately, concentrating on staying light on my feet. Our movements grew faster, more vicious until we must have looked like a blur, just a succession of colors, like paint smears on a wet canvas. Logan dispatched his opponent, ash settling on the nearby ferns. He bent to pick something up out of the clothes left behind.
I parried a stab at my heart, the chain-mail patch sewn into my tunic jingling faintly. I aimed for his head, moving with deliberate and deceptive slowness. He blocked it, leaning back instinctively. I took advantage of his position and the momentum of my swing and jabbed at his lower leg. I caught him by surprise and he stumbled back, cursing. Blood seeped down his leg, splattered into the undergrowth. I moved in for the kill but he was gone, running through the woods. I probably could have caught up to him, could certainly follow the trail of blood droplets.
Which was the point.
Logan wiped blood from a cut on his arm, shaking his head.
“You’re as good as they say you are,” he said. “I’m surprised you didn’t dust him.”
“Better to give him a few minutes’ head start.”
“Why’s that? Didn’t your mother teach you it’s rude to play with your food?”
“I wouldn’t drink from him if I was starving. He’s wounded and he’ll go back to his pack. If we’re lucky that cut won’t heal until he’s led us there.”
Logan stared at me, then at the thick green undergrowth. Even slowed down, the Host would be moving fast enough not to leave footsteps. Not flying exactly, but certainly a speed-enhanced float, which was difficult to track.
Much more difficult than tracking a trail of blood, even in a forest thick with the scents and markings of various vampires and assorted animals. Logan whistled through his teeth.
“I’m definitely impressed.” He reached for the phone in his pocket. “Let me make a call and then let’s get the bastard. What the hell did they want this time? Solange has already turned.”
“Montmartre,” I said flatly. “They were leaving a gift for your sister at the front door.”
“Son of a bitch. Is this a Host symbol?” He showed me the small wooden disk he’d plucked up out of the ashes of his attacker. It was engraved with a rose and three daggers. “The assassin who tried to dust my mother tonight had a tattoo like this.”
“I’ve never seen it before,” I said.
“There’s something else going on here, something we’re missing.” He spoke curtly into the phone and then tossed his hair out of his eyes. “Let’s go.”
“I can do this alone,” I assured him. “I’m quite capable.”
“Mmm-hmmm,” he murmured noncommittally.
We went swiftly, but not so swiftly that we’d catch up before he’d had a chance to lead us anywhere interesting. It was uncomplicated work.
The surprise came in the form of a piece of fabric, pinned to a narrow birch tree, gleaming pale as snow. The silk was indigo, faded with age and encrusted with silver-thread embroidery. The delicate stitching showed a fleur-de-lys and the frayed end of a tattered ribbon.
I knew that scrap of cloth, knew it intimately.
I shivered, reaching for my sword again.
CHAPTER 6
France, 1788
Her mother’s dressing room was Isabeau’s favorite place in the entire château. She loved it even better than the dog pens and the stables, even more than the locked pantry where the cook kept the precious blocks of chocolate and jars of candied violets. She wasn’t allowed in either room, so she tried very hard to be quiet and unobtrusive, perched on a blue silk stool as her mother’s maids flitted in and out with various cosmetics and gowns.
Her mother, Amandine, sat at her table, applying rouge to her powdered cheeks. Her hair was pinned under an elaborate white wig laden with corkscrew curls and bluebirds made out of beads and real feathers. Isabeau had heard stories of Marie Antoinette’s beauty and the stunning displays of her hairpieces, some with ships so tall she had to duck through doorways. Isabeau couldn’t imagine the queen could have been any more beautiful than her mother was tonight. When she was old enough, she would wear ropes of pearls and sapphires in her hair as well, and silk-covered panniers under her gowns.
Amandine’s underclothes were made of the finest white linen and silk, ornamented with tiny satin bows. The gown she had chosen for tonight’s ball was indigo, like a summer sky at twilight. The buttons were made of pearls and the silver-thread embroidery paraded fleur-de-lys from hem to neckline. The St. Croix annual ball was famous throughout the countryside; aristocrats traveled from as far away as Paris to attend. At ten years old, Isabeau was too young to join in but finally old enough to escape her nurse’s attentions. She had already staked out a perfect hiding spot, inside a painted armoire with a cracked keyhole. She’d be able to see all the fine gowns and the diamond cravat pins and the pet poodles on gold-chain leashes. She bounced a little in her excitement. Her mother’s glance slid toward her and she stilled instantly.
“You’re very pretty, Maman,” she flattered.
“Thank you, chouette.” Amandine smiled at her in the mirror, clasping a necklace with three tiers of diamonds, pearls, and a sapphire the size of a robin’s egg. She took a sip of red wine, dabbing her lips delicately with a hand
kerchief.
“I think you’ll be even prettier than the queen. And our house is so much better than Versailles.”
Amandine looked amused. “Do you think so, chouette?”
“Everyone says so,” Isabeau assured her proudly. “They say the nobles pee in the back staircases, Maman! We would never pee on the floor.”
Amandine laughed. “You are quite right, Isabeau.”
“Except for Sabot,” she felt obliged to admit. “But he’s only a puppy.”
Amandine’s head maidservant plucked the gown off the hanger. “Madame.”
Amandine stood up to let another maid tie her panniers into place and secure her corset. The gown slipped over the top. Isabeau scuttled forward to lift the hem so it wouldn’t catch on the edge of the vanity table. It was surprisingly heavy and she wondered how her mother could stand so tall under all that weight. Her wig tipped precariously to the side and she caught it with one manicured hand.
“Francine,” she said. “We’ll need more pins.”
“Oui, madame.”
When the wig was secure again, Amandine turned to admire herself in the long cheval glass.
“Oh, Maman,” Isabeau breathed. “Tu es si belle!” When she was grown-up, she was going to wear lip color and a heart-shaped patch on her cheek, just like her mother.
Amandine smiled. “I remember watching your grandmother prepare for balls.” She reached for a hair-ribbon-length piece of cloth just like her dress. “Here, petite. I didn’t need this after all. You may keep it.”
Isabeau took it with a wide surprised smile. “Merci.” She rubbed it against her cheek reverently. She followed her mother out through her bedchamber down the mahogany steps, staying behind the maids. Her father, Jean-Paul St. Croix, waited at the bottom of the staircase. The duke was perfectly arranged, from his rolled wig to the gold buckles on his heeled shoes.
“Ma chere,” he greeted Amandine. “Spectacular as always.”
Isabeau kept close to the maids, sneaking behind a potted cypress tree when they abandoned her for other duties. She ran to the ballroom as fast as she could, ducking around footmen bearing jugs of wine and champagne, and servants carting gilded chairs and baskets of sugared fruit. She crept into the armoire, which usually stored excess table linens. Every single piece had been needed for the buffet tables at the back of the room and the more formal dining room across the hall, so the cupboard was empty. She fit perfectly inside once she’d drawn her knees up to her chest. She left the door open a sliver; it was even better than peering through the keyhole.
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