Estelle stood on the threshold of the Ancients’ crypt. She’d come alone this time, and now that she was here, she wondered if it had been a smart decision. At least the crypt was monitored. If Vincenzo killed her, security would know.
Of course, she’d be dead but nothing was perfect.
The two were unchanged but the feeling in the air changed as she approached Vincenzo. You returned.
She’d replicated the experiment. She wasn’t sure if it was a positive or negative finding.
“I did. I wanted to see if I was dreaming.”
You may be. I wonder that myself, what is a dream and what isn’t.
“You said Cressida was closed to you. What of other seneschals?”
Most are closed. They do not want to see what they are not ready to cope with. You are young and unsure.
“Thanks.”
You are welcome. He didn’t seem to notice her sarcasm.
“What do you want from me?”
To talk. He sounded honestly surprised. My beloved and I need nothing. But company is welcome.
“Really?”
You may be young but you are suspicious. He sounded approving. Come, let us talk and that is all.
“You’ll enter my mind to try to escape, as Paulina did.”
You will try to kill us, as Cressida once did.
“She never did.” Did she? Cressida said nothing of this to Estelle.
She felt we were too great a risk.
“I don’t believe it.”
Yet it is true. I do not judge you by her.
“I shouldn’t judge you by Paulina. I get it.”
Perhaps there is one thing. There is a disturbance in the air that we don’t understand, my beloved and I, but it discomfits us.
“Yangzei? There is a masquerada Ancient out.”
A long pause. That makes sense. Thank you.
“Do you know him? Did you know him?”
Only stories. He was a legend when we were already old. A soul-thief and evil.
She left soon after that, not sure of what she was trying to accomplish in the crypt. Was Vincenzo luring into a false sense of complacency? Once her guard was down, he would attack?
He seemed calm, though, and happy with his lot, as long as Lucia was with him.
She was thinking about it when she arrived back at the library. Raoul met her with more information about Dawning possibilities. He’d been unusually helpful. She hadn’t realized how good a researcher he was. She had the Dawning’s location, or at least the one where her brother might be, narrowed down to three based on the details Raoul could remember from conversations with Felix and cross-referenced with other data he’d gathered. One was in Mexico and two were in Texas.
“What do you know about Lucia and Vincenzo?” she asked.
“They were lovers before the madness, I know that, and they chose to go to their underground rest together.”
“What about their lives before they slept? I know the legends.” Lucia had been a queen and Vincenzo her general-lover. “Are they true?”
He pointed to a shelf of books. “We don’t know. All of those are permutations of their story.”
She’d look later; now it was time to work. Estelle’s email had filled with messages from countless families clutching their pearls and complaining that Agata had not shown them the proper respect. When Estelle quizzed them further, the only think they could point to was a tone, or expression. She spent many hours soothing hurt feelings.
What it came down to, Estelle knew, was that Agata had the nerve to act as though she was equal, even superior, to the vampires who surrounded her. They didn’t like that. Neither did Estelle, for that matter, but if she had to cope with feeling insignificant, so did they. Not that any of the lithu’s rumored monstrous traits had appeared. Beside the hideous nails and not eating at all, there were very few differences between Agata and an everyday vampire. She deleted another message. The glass door opened before Estelle could even turn around. Agata marched in, her curly hair held back in a ponytail so tight it pulled the edges of her eyes to the side of her hairline. As usual her face was clean, shiny, and grim.
“You missed our meeting,” she said.
Estelle glanced at her watch and groaned. “I’m sorry.” She waved around at the objects covering the room. “I’m right in the middle of something.” As usual. Her calendar was triple-booked. It was totally possible she had decided to go after her brother simply to get away from the constant beeping of her calendar app.
“You will tell me what is so important that it consumes all of your time.” Agata sat bolt upright at the table and stared at the books strewn across its surface.
Having worked more with Agata, Estelle was no longer surprised that her deputy’s statements ended up sounding like a command from God. Agata was simply a very confident, very powerful woman who saw no point in wasting time with any sort of feel-good language. She also made no secret of her contempt for what she saw as vampiric weakness, frivolity, and superficiality.
Estelle tried to shove away the feeling of ineffectiveness Agata caused in her. “I am going after my brother and while I’m gone, you’re going to be in charge. Obviously, this is confidential and you are not to tell others.”
“No.”
“No?” What?
“No. You may not go. This is selfish. Your role is here and your purpose is to make decisions to benefit all of your people. Send someone for your brother.”
There was no one else she trusted to do the job. Her mother had been calling several times a day, wanting know why she hadn’t found Felix yet. Estelle shook her head. “He is my brother and my responsibility.” She couldn’t risk the damage to her family’s reputation if it was known what Felix had done.
“Your responsibility is to your queen and clan.”
“There is more at play than my brother.”
“Tell me.”
There was no point in getting into a back and forth about this. Estelle squared her shoulders. “No. You are my deputy and I gave you an order. You are not to question me about it. You are not to disobey. Am I understood?” She didn’t even bother to make it sound like a question and it felt…good? Kind of cathartic.
Cords bulged out on both sides of Agata’s throat. “You do not command me.”
“Incorrect. I do.”
“I will inform the queen.”
Estelle bared her fangs. “You will regret it. This is my decision to make as seneschal.”
Agata bowed, resentment clear in every line of her body. There was a long silence.
Then the lithu simply left.
Estelle stared at the empty doorway. Damn it, this was why she didn’t want to be in charge. Just let her do her own thing, not responsible for anyone but herself. She chewed her lip, wondering again if she was making the right decision. Both Agata and Stephan thought it was a bad idea but that was evened out by her mother and Raoul on the other side. She fished around in her pocket, hoping for a coin to toss. She wasn’t cut out for this.
She shook herself. There would be enough time for that later. She’d promised she would get her brother and she wasn’t going to go back on her promise. She had a useless brother to find before Wavena found out and grounded her.
There was no time to wait.
* * * *
On his second morning back in Toronto, Stephan came down the stairs to find Caro with the door wide open to the snow, feeding a slender black cat.
“Good morning,” she said as she stood. The cat purred and did a figure eight around her ankles. “Congratulations on being ambassador,” she added. “I keep forgetting to tell you.”
“Thanks.” Stephan glanced down. “What’s up with the cat?”
“I’m earning its trust,” she said, indicating a bowl of cat food near the door. “It’s a stray and I want it.”
“I think a cat has to want you.”
“Thus the treats and the pets.”
“Makes sense. How was the island?” Caro had been up north for the last few days.
“In good spirits.”
They went into the kitchen where Cynthia was working. The cook pointed to the huge farmhouse table in the middle of the room. One side was covered with flour, sugar, and little scraps of pastry. Caro picked one up and nibbled at it absently while Cynthia put huge cups of coffee in front of them with some sticky cinnamon rolls.
“So spill,” said Caro, pouring milk into her coffee. “What’s going on with Estelle?”
Stephan told her about the invocation and the new lithu deputy and Felix’s disappearance. Her eyes widened when he mentioned Raoul’s request.
“Interesting,” she said.
“Why?” He took a second bun.
“I’ve been working with Isindle lately, doing more research on the Ancients. It’s quite a story.”
“The fey myths are different from ours,” Stephan said.
“True, but the madness affected them as well.” Caro twisted her cup back and forth on the table. “Yangzei told Miaoling he was only a test.”
Stephan remembered. “That his handlers were preparing to raise their own.”
“Iverson was the one to raise him but it looks like he had a deal with the vampires,” said Caro. “The eastern queens. It fell through.”
“It could be the lithu,” Stephan said. “They made contact with Estelle’s brother.” He described the visit to the fire-bellowing bar.
“I want to go there,” said Caro dreamily.
“Get Eric to take you on your anniversary. Raoul’s the head librarian and he wants access to Miaoling and our archives to learn more about our Ancients.” He considered. “Ancient, I suppose, since we only have Yangzei.”
“Miaoling’s too busy. I’ll talk to him.”
Now that he’d completed his promise to Raoul, he could move on to more interesting topics. “Yangzei,” he prodded.
“In my research I found a strange diagram. It had fey writing and Isindle recognized a spell that she called, a…” Caro paused and looked up to the ceiling, trying to recall. “Huiniun.”
“What?”
“A banishment. We think we can use it on Yangzei to send him to a sort of in-between prison. The fey have their own Ancients in a similar realm.”
Stephan took a deep breath, knowing as always that this very good news would be accompanied by very bad news. It was the way of the world. “What’s the catch?”
“Another Ancient has to wield it,” said Caro.
This wasn’t so bad. Stephan regarded her suspiciously. “That’s all?”
She smiled mirthlessly. “Not quite. Whoever wields it will be sent to the prison as well.”
Damn. That was a hell of a catch.
Help us.
His head jerked back as he jumped to his feet. Cynthia and Caro stared at him in astonishment. “Stephan?” Caro asked.
He could have sworn he heard a man’s voice but now it was overwhelmed by the familiar rising and falling wave of the multitude.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Need to get my hearing checked.”
The women turned back to the conversation as he let his mind drift slightly. The voice—the man—could he really hear it in that murmur of sadness? No, not even when he concentrated. It was unpleasant feeling, listening for the voices in his mind. They drew him in with the hundreds of stories they were dying to tell, wanting to be free. More often now, the hatred they had for Yangzei filled him until he could barely quell the murderous thoughts.
“Don’t you think, Stephan?” Caro turned to him.
The phone rang, thankfully tamping down the voices in his head. “Speak of the devil,” he said. “Hello Raoul.”
“Estelle’s gone.”
“She what?”
Raoul’s voice crackled out. The connection was terrible. “She left. You should hear the gossip.” He sounded thrilled.
Like he cared about the gossip. “Where did she go?”
“No one knows.”
“Raoul. Right now I am sixteen hundred kilometers north in a different country. I am getting on the first plane to Orlando. If you don’t have some answers for me when I arrive, I’ll kill you.”
“Not very nice language from an ambassador.”
“Fuck off.”
“She’s gone to find Felix. She thinks she knows where the Dawning is.”
The blood drained from Stephan’s head. “The Dawning?”
“She thinks she’s located one of their bases.”
“Tell me.”
“Cancun. I have no more details than that.”
Mexico. Tom might be there. Why didn’t she tell him what she was doing? She’d had plenty of chances—they talked every day. She’d made passing reference to what she called her research project but had never indicated this was what she was looking for. The way she described her days gave the impression that all she did was go to meetings.
What else was she hiding from him? He could have helped her. Gone with her, if she’d been open with him.
“Ambassador.”
He brought himself back to the conversation. “Sorry. What?”
“Did you remember your part of the bargain?” Raoul was serious now, with none of the superior, mocking tone that usually layered his conversation.
“I spoke to Caro.” He gave Raoul her email so Caro could reply at her own pace. “She wants to talk to you. You’ll need to do that before you get access to the Pharos head.”
“It’s only research,” Raoul warned.
“Right now, that’s enough. Send me over anything Estelle was looking at.”
“Will do.”
They hung up.
“Excuse me,” Stephan said. Caro and Cynthia didn’t stop him as he ran out.
Estelle didn’t answer her phone, text, or email. Stephan tried another dozen times before he booked the next flight to Mexico. He went to root out Eric, who sat in the war room squinting at a map. “I need some exercise,” he said abruptly. Raoul said it would take several hours for him to gather the information to scan to Stephan. Sitting around the house waiting for Estelle to call back or Raoul to get information would kill him.
Eric leapt to his feet, scattering his papers. “Christ, let’s go. I’m dying.”
“Running?” asked Stephan. They both looked out of the window, where the snow was falling in large, white flakes—as it had been for the last two hours.
“Climbing,” said Eric.
Within minutes, they were in the car. Eric insisted on driving and Stephan didn’t fight him. It was pleasant to be chauffeured around by his nominal boss and oldest friend.
“How long have we known each other?” he asked abruptly. The climbing gym was only a few minutes’ drive, but the day was so blustery that a car felt like a necessity. He thanked God that Cormac, Miaoling’s annoyingly environmentalist fey mate, wasn’t here to make him feel bad.
Eric grinned. “Too long. Look at that. Someone’s biking in this weather.”
No surprise. Toronto had a small set of diehard cyclists who grimly insisted on riding through the winter. Stephan had once seen a guy pick up his bike, carry it over a two-foot snow pile, and hop back on.
There was a short silence, then Eric said, “Why do you ask?”
“Making conversation.”
“Bullshit.” Eric parked on a side street and they got out of the car. The wind cut through Stephan’s jacket and he thought longingly of the Florida sun. Or Cancun heat.
“Estelle made a comment the other day,” Stephan said. “That we changed with our masques, more than we admit.”
“What did you say?” Eric slung his equipment bag over his shoulder and stuffed his hands deep into his pockets. Both men bent slightly against the wind.
“Shit, that it’s not true! She didn’t get that the core of us remains the same. She said Caro agreed with her.”
“I think Caro does,” Eric said calmly “I think I might, too.”
Stephan stopped dead. “What?”
Eric made a face and paused. “Do we really have to have this discussion here? In this weather?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. I think there’s a bit of truth to it. People treat us differently based on how we look.” He pointed to Stephan. “Tell me if this masque gets the same attitude as when you’re Richard.”
“No.” Being a pudgy white man was a wholly different experience than a tall black one.
“Imagine years and years of that. It has to change you. Like a tree molded by the wind.”
Eric started walking again and after a moment, Stephan followed him.
“Only if you remain in that masque for long enough.”
“True enough.”
“Estelle doesn’t know this is a masque,” Stephan said suddenly.
Eric didn’t pause. “Do you think she would care?”
“I don’t know.”
“Look at it this way, then. Would you be the same man today if you had decided to never change from your natural self? Had you lived your life mostly as you were before you were turned? What if you were a black woman? A Korean man?”
This was uncomfortable and Stephan was glad that they were at the climbing gym and conversation had to turn to topics safe for human ears.
It took him a while to get back into the groove but when he did, it felt fantastic. The shoes, with their stiff soles and pointed toes, fit like gloves. It had been a while, so his fingers started to burn from gripping the holds on the wall. His arm was weaker than it had been, yes, but that was no surprise; at least he could go through a full range of motion.
“To the upper left,” called Eric from the ground. “Stop trying to take the hardest way up.” Stephan glanced up and saw it. A few more moves and he was at the top, ready to be lowered down on the rope.
“Nice,” complimented Eric.
Stephan prodded at his forearms, which were as hard as granite and traced with veins. “We need to come more often.”
He’d forgotten how much he enjoyed climbing. He couldn’t look down at the ground—relative immortality had not taken away his instinctive fear of heights—but it was sheer delight to get out of his own head and focus on the next hold, the next climb. He even managed to forget about the presence of the multitude, sometimes audible, always there, as he worked his way up the walls. It was bliss.
“I think I’ve got one more in me,” said Eric, panting. He had finished a wall with serious overhang and was plucking at the knot that tied him into the belay rope, fingers trembling.
“Me too.” Stephan tied in and they checked each other over. He chose an easier wall, wanting to go out feeling strong. His arm felt surprisingly good, but he’d felt a few twinges the last climb.
Exertion complete, they changed and went over to Clinton’s for a beer, a long-standing tradition. “Nachos,” Stephan ordered as an afterthought. Bad weather made him hungry.
Eric waited until the drinks came before he leaned back and stared at Stephan.
“So?”
“So what?”
“C’mon.” Eric’s eyebrows rose high. “I was waiting for you to tell me on your own time, but since it looks like that’s not going to happen, I need to ask.”
“Estelle is gone. We think her brother was abducted by the Dawning and taken to Mexico. She put her deputy in charge and left without telling anyone, although I would have helped her if she’d asked.”
Eric nodded, taking it all in stride. “Of course you’re going.”
“Tomorrow.” He’d be in Cancun tomorrow, right at Estelle’s side. Where he belonged.