Stephan barely saw Estelle for the next two days. He was busy shuttling around Wavena’s court meeting other vampires in a series of meet-and-greets that were high on formalities and low on substance. He assumed the real meetings would take place after Estelle took on her official role.
Eric’s stylist sent down a suit that arrived the day of the ceremony. “A tux?” he asked Eric on the phone.
“Lucy didn’t want you to embarrass us,” Eric said. “You’re our ambassador.”
“I’m the liaison,” he corrected.
“Oh. Must have forgot to tell you. You’re my official ambassador now. Congratulations.”
“C’mon. Why?”
“Because.”
There was no point arguing with Eric. “Any news on the couple who met with Felix?” He’d emailed the photos to see if they could find a match. Estelle had not been able to confirm their identities.
“Not yet.”
“No word about Jimmy either?”
“Nada.”
There was silence as both men considered this. Finally, Eric spoke. “See what you can learn at the invocation, then come back to Toronto.”
“Will do.”
They hung up. An hour later, Stephan was in front of the mirror painstakingly going through Lucy’s step-by-step print-out instructions on how do a proper bow tie. He wished she’d put in one of those clip-ons, but the stylist would probably pass out with horror at the idea. When he was done, he checked himself over. He was in his usual masque: tall with reddish-brown skin and shaved head.
His image shimmered. Reflected back was a man who he hadn’t seen in a long while. Short and squat, with heavy shoulders and a neck thick with muscle. He struggled with the bow tie, ripping it off so he could breathe, and heard a seam rip in his jacket.
Then he stared at his true self, how he’d looked when he was human centuries ago. His younger brother had been tall and slender, with chestnut skin, the model of male beauty. He’d always twitted Stephan about it, telling him it was good he could masque to a handsome man. Stephan would turn himself into an almost twin of his brother to make him laugh—that was the masque he used most often now. His brother had the admiration and he had the women he wanted—but he didn’t have the authority that Stephan did as firstborn. Neither cared. When Stephan had been chosen to bear the gift of masquing, his brother had hugged him and said he was glad Stephan would be there to look after his family until the end of time.
The end of time ended up being a hundred years.
Stephan shifted back, unwilling to look any longer at the man he’d used to be. It was too difficult to stare into those permanently grieving eyes. At least as Stephan he’d allowed himself the space to become a man who had hope. He was a man who had a name, not a man whose name had been ripped from him, along with everything else he’d valued—family, home, freedom.
Adjusting his shirt and retying the bow with shaking fingers, he thought again of his final image of those little children, the last of his brother’s kin. He’d managed to pinpoint where he thought his village had been, but there was nothing left, destroyed by the predations of the Europeans. It was reasonable to assume he had relatives, grand nieces and nephews somewhere on the continent, perhaps even here in North America. But he would never know, having been unable to find them after decades of searching. The devastation was so intense, the loss so grievous that even hundreds of years later, it was like a black hole in his soul.
Again, the multitude rose up on his mind and he did his best to thrust them away. He couldn’t take their pain on top of his own. It was too much.
Stephan squared his shoulders and tucked his phone into his pocket. He had spent enough time thinking about his brother over the years, reliving the truth and dreaming of alternatives. He finished re-knotting his tie as a knock came at the door. “Mr. Daker? The car is ready.”
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.