The vampire started to stir after a minute. We took the time to throw it out a window and into the moat — I wanted to destroy the body, but we didn’t have the time.

  “Where did you see Olliard last?” I asked Hendry when that job was done.

  “He was setting up his equipment in different rooms of the palace,” Hendry said. “His apprentice, that puppet master, was giving him cover while Lisette helped.”

  We stood by a window overlooking one of the lake’s canals, where they ran under the palace itself. The Warder’s Keep, like the Fulgurkeep in Garihelm, was actually multiple castles connected by a system of bridges, the moat lying directly beneath.

  I considered the whole of the situation. Rysanthe was in the catacombs below when we arrived, drained of her vitality by Evangeline and guarded by Lillian Rue. But no other defenses so far as I could tell, just a trap for whoever came looking. Evangeline was with her guests in the ballroom, socializing, almost like she meant to bide for time. There were vampires in the castle, but they mostly seemed to be concentrated in and around the main hall. We’d barely run into any resistance since infiltrating deeper.

  And Olliard, Carus, and Lisette were also inside the palace, preparing some kind of alchemical explosive the vampire hunters had brought. Was it really powerful enough to destroy the entire structure and kill every vampire inside? I knew alchemy could accomplish an incredibly wide range of effects, and in some ways it was an even more powerful magic — I could almost hear Lias in my head correcting me, calling it a science — than the Auratic Arts.

  Still, it seemed extreme. There were innocents here. Servants, porters, nobles who only accepted the usurper’s invitation for fear of their lives and families. Would Olliard really go that far? It didn’t seem like the man I remembered from my journey to Caelfall, the man who’d saved a stranger’s life and grieved for the death of innocents.

  Two years was a long time. The man I’d encountered outside Fife seemed colder than the one I met before Caelfall.

  But that wasn’t all that was bothering me. Ildeban still hadn’t made his appearance, and retrieving Rysanthe had been too easy. And the way we’d found her… My gaze went to the wrapped bundle guarding the fleshless reaper. So small. She still hadn’t moved.

  Something didn’t taste right.

  “What’s the plan?” Hendry asked. I’d been quiet a while.

  “We’ve missed something,” I said. “But we have Rysanthe. We need to get her out.”

  “Lisette is still inside,” Emma said. She spoke lightly, but her voice held an edge of tension.

  “Tzanith and Penric too,” I agreed. “Whatever Olliard’s intentions, it’s going to put a lot of lives in danger.” Including our own, I thought, though I didn’t feel it needed saying aloud. “Hendry, how did your group get into the palace?”

  “We used a boat,” Hendry said. “There are docks on the cliffs, they connect to some storehouses.”

  Making a snap decision, I handed Rysanthe over to Hendry. “Get her out of here, both of you.” Emma immediately started to argue, but I cut her off. “No heroics this time. I’m not staying behind to sacrifice myself, but there’s more going on here. Get. Her. Out. I’ll find the others and make sure they get out as well.”

  Emma’s jaw worked in frustration, but she relented. She wouldn’t admit it, but I knew she was also worried about the others.

  “Come along, Hendry.” Emma started marching off, forcing Hendry to scramble to keep up. He threw a worried glance back at me, but only once.

  This was what the lance was for. I couldn’t be everywhere at once, and we had multiple objectives. Rescuing Rysanthe, and also delivering punishment to those responsible for her capture. I had not forgotten Urawn Aarlu’s second directive.

  “Vicar?” I asked quietly, lifting a hand to the pelt. It felt cool to the touch, and there was no response.

  He’d done a lot of evil. I’d been in my rights to simple destroy him back then, beneath Baille Os. And at the same time, he’d saved my life more than once. Where did those scales balance?

  “What would you have done?” I whispered under my breath, speaking to my other self. I felt the other presence in me, the one awakened when I accepted the guise of the Wyldedaler, stir. But it did not give answer.

  I needed to find Penric.

  I made my way back to the ballroom, and even as I approached I could tell something had changed. There were no longer parties of idle gawkers wandering the palace grounds, no more busy servants. Everything had become strangely still and quiet.

  I picked up my pace, but slowed again as I approached the ballroom and realized there was still music and conversation filtering out. The room looked more crowded, either more guests having arrived or simply the whole gathering condensing. There wasn’t any waltzing anymore.

  Tzanith, still glamoured as Lady Erthri, found me at the door as I stepped into the grand hall. She looked relieved to see me, and I let her slip an arm through mine as we melted back into our roles.

  “What’s going on?” I asked her.

  “Everyone is saying that the Queen is going to make a speech,” Tzanith told me. Then, seeing my face, she frowned. “You are yourself right now, are you not?”

  I still wasn’t entirely sure. “We found her.”

  Tzanith-Erthri’s cervid eyes widened. “Truly?”

  In hushed tones, I filled her in on everything that had happened since I’d left the ballroom. The elf listened with growing concern while the nobles around us also engaged in their private conversations. An air of expectation hung over the hall. All eyes were turned to the balcony opposite the entrance.

  I caught sight of Loveless Marcion and his wife. The foreigner caught my look and lifted a glass in silent toast.

  “Where is Penric?” I asked Tzanith. “He and Lisette can sense each other, he should be able to find her.”

  “I have not seen him,” Tzanith admitted. “I thought he went to look for you.”

  I let out a quiet curse. Before I could say anything else, a sudden hush fell over the gathered nobles. Tzanith and I both looked up to the balcony just as Evangeline Ark, Queen of the Bannerlands and Lady-Protector of Tall Carreweir, made her appearance.

  She was dressed as she had been during our dance, in checker-patterned finery of black and white, a long cape falling from her shoulders. Her skullcap glinted in the yellow light of the chandeliers, making her seem crowned in fire. I wouldn’t be surprised if a bit of Art was at work in her jewelry, a trick Rosanna had also been fond of to present a more regal aspect. Two guards in pristine white with halberds in their fists flanked the monarch.

  Evangeline placed a hand on the railing as all fell silent. That silence lingered, giving way to the stray cough, a few snippets of muffled speech.

  “What’s your game?” I asked under my breath. Tzanith tightened her grip on my arm. I could feel her nerves through that contact.

  When someone finally broke the silence, it wasn’t Evangeline. Instead, the voice of the herald who announced new arrivals boomed across the grand hall.

  “Lords and ladies, now announcing Count Laertes!”

  The speaker may as well have wrapped my heart in a fist of ice. The room fell into a deep, dead silence. At my side, Tzanith drew in a sharp breath.

  The doors drifted open, and there he was, stepping out of the moonlight like the avatar of an ill dream. His steps were slow, shuffling, the dull impact of a cane heralding each heavy step.

  The last time we’d met, the past year during the crisis in Garihelm, he’d been obscured by an unnatural darkness that left me with only an impression of what he looked like. But he wore no mask of shadows now, and I got my first good look at the Magi known as Count Laertes.

  He was tall, a giant of a man standing over seven feet in height even with a slight stoop. He wore a combination of rich robe and gown, dyed in deep blues and burgundies lined in silver fur. His gnarled, claw-tipped fingers clutched a black cane, and listless gray hair fell around the ruin of what once had been a kingly visage. He wore a short beard, slightly darker than his long hair, and his cheeks and eyes were deeply sunken, his flesh the color of ash. His eyes were milky spheres, seemingly blind, covered in a film that made me think of a dead fish.

  The wizard walked slowly, stiffly, like an old man with bad joints, yet every step held a terrible sense of gravity to it. The impacts of his cane against the marble floor echoed across the ballroom like distant grumbles of thunder. His steps made oddly hollow sounds, like I heard him from underwater.

  “It can’t be,” Tzanith whispered at my side. She sounded scared.

  “You know him?” I asked. This creature was dangerous. Possibly the most dangerous enemy I’d ever faced. During our fight at his sanctum, he had fended off me, Emma, and Hendry with ease, batted Faen Orgis away with his bare hand.

  “All my people know him,” Tzanith whispered. “Yours as well, though by another name. It was long before my birth, before the Exodus, but his is one of the west’s most accursed names.”

  Laertes of Ergoth ignored the hundreds of onlookers as he strode towards the ballroom's center. I could tell who was human and who was a night creature by the way they reacted to his presence — the mortals cleared out of his path with almost reflexive haste, their expressions confused or disturbed. But where he came near another vampire, they cringed back like intimidated wolves before a larger predator, baring their fangs in expressions that held more fright than challenge.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  When he reached the center of the gathering, the wizard stopped and lifted his dead eyes to the balcony at the top of the spiral stair. All other gazes followed his to the Queen, including my own.

  “Well, well!” the Queen of the Bannerlands spoke in a voice that echoed across the hall. “This is a surprise! To see one of the vaunted Magi crawling out of hiding to grace us with his presence!” She spread her arms out wide. “And to what does this gathering owe the honor of your company, Count?”

  Laertes’s voice was like his step — rhythmic, deep, rebounding off the walls with a wholly unnatural cadence. I’d never heard anyone else speak with his accent, and suspected no one still did, at least not among the living. “I come bearing a warning for you, Queen of the Bannerfolk.”

  Evangeline narrowed her eyes. Some murmurs ran through the onlooking nobles. I started to move along the edge of the room, trying to get a better position to watch and pulling Tzanith along with me. She seemed reluctant to get closer, but kept close to me.

  “Speak it,” the Vampire Queen said.

  Laertes settled on his cane and did not answer at once. He ran his filmy eyes over the gathering, his gaze lingering on Loveless Marcion and that female vampire in the red bodystocking and maroon cape.

  “This message is also for the ears of those from the west who think to trifle with the order of this world.” Laertes slammed his cane down on the floor once. “You believe the mortals have weakened, that they shall accept that which feasts upon them as their lords. You have misjudged, and should you continue your folly, you shall be destroyed.”

  More stirring. The intimidated nightborn took on a different aspect as I watched their reaction to the Count’s words, growing angrier.

  “Rich words from an old coward,” Evangeline drawled. “See how we dance and laugh together, o’ relic! Surely you saw the way my subjects have taken to the streets this night, how they fill the darkness above this city with fireworks and song. They do this because I have shown them strength!”

  She made a fist above the balcony railing, her crimson eyes cold as they stared down on the older vampire. “The fat emperor in Garihelm has failed my country. His witch empress retreats to the south to hide amongst her own. Even in the heartlands of our realms, demons attack our cities with impunity... Indeed, even the warriors of Heaven’s Choir fall before their strength! Among us here tonight are brave knights who saw what transpired at Tol. Is that not correct, Lord Alfonse?”

  One of the human lords amidst the crowd, a man in his fifties with a bearish build and an ugly scar that marred his face from hairline to cheekbone, stared for a moment at the queen before nodding grimly. “I saw it, Your Majesty. The Gorelion defeated an angel in the town square. There were other monsters too. It was a slaughter.”

  Evangeline’s gaze never left Laertes. “They have all seen that weak men and fleeting prosperity shall not save them in this new age. But I represented us in the Emperor’s summit! I fought in his tourney blade to blade with the Accord’s champions! I faced the dragon and felt its poison in my own flesh! I defied death itself for the sake of my people!”

  There were nervous murmurs across the ballroom. Evangeline heard them and bared her fangs, doing nothing to hide them. “That is right! I say it before all the lords and ladies of this gathering — I did die that day, and I stand before you now reborn, returned from death!”

  The stir of voices grew more feverish. Someone yelled out. “Blasphemy!”

  And other voices, taking up the same call. There were shouts of “Monster!” And “Heretic!”

  “You have defied the God-Queen’s law, Evangeline!” Shouted an old lord who must have been over ninety, old even for the Blood of the Houses, his voice quavering. “You will bring the Inquisition on us, perhaps worse!”

  “And they will find themselves hounded by wolves,” Evangeline said in a voice full of dread conviction. “I will defend you, my people, against any threat. Against the ailing king in Reynwell, against the demons in Elfgrave, even against the servants of God! I have shared my gift with some of you, but I say this now and plain; those who acknowledge me as your liege, I shall leave you in peace and defend you from creatures like that.”

  She pointed a sharp nail at Laertes. “As for those of you who defy me… You shall meet the fate of all cattle. This is a time of devils, my countrymen. I offer you one as your guardian.”

  I shuddered, and caught myself taking a step back towards the ballroom’s wall, deeper into the shadows.

  Tzanith must have understood my realization. “She has taken inspiration from you, I fear.”

  “Why the hell is he here?” I asked as I looked at Laertes, half speaking to myself. “Why go to all of this trouble to deliver a warning he has to know she won’t heed?”

  “Not all is as it seems,” the elf said in a grim voice. “The Magi are no fools, and they never draw attention to themselves without good reason.”

  They also weren’t averse to collateral damage from their schemes. I thought of Lias, and Reynard.

  Laertes waited until the voices around him had died down, his own gaze locked on the figure atop the balcony. He wasn’t saying anything, not trying to argue with her. Why? What was he here for?

  One of the guests stepped between the wizard and the queen. It was the female vampire I’d glimpsed a few times before, the one dressed all in close fitting red. She was tall, built like a tigress, her skintight clothing showing off her musculature even with the cape draped over her left shoulder. Her thin fringe of hair was so pale as to be nearly white, clinging to a rounded scalp, and she possessed even more scars than I did. They crawled over the dome of her skull in ragged lines, crisscrossed her lips, tore a notch out of one ear. Her eyes were the color of onyx glass, deeply black with centers that reflected the room’s light.

  “I greet thee, Wolf Queen.” She spoke in a clipped, guttural accent, another continental one I couldn’t pinpoint an origin to. By the deliberate manner of her speech, I guessed she hadn’t mastered Urnic common. “I am Raania af Torslowe. The corpse augurs of my homeland whispered of a newly risen pup in this country with ambitions longer than her fangs, yet I see before me a blooded warrior. Many would say that to spit defiance into the face of the Magi is folly…”

  The Torslowan glanced back at Laertes, and her disfigured face twisted with contempt. “Yet I say that I have grown tired of the caution of the old.”

  The tall woman threw her cape back, revealing that her left arm was missing near the shoulder, and sank to one knee. “Long have I sought a worthy master. If you would find use for it, Wolf Queen, then I shall offer you my rage.”

  Evangeline studied the kneeling vampire for a moment with calm appraisal. "I shall accept it, Raania af Torslowe."

  A moment's hesitation, then some others stepped closer to the balcony as well, following the Torslowan’s lead. They were the ones who did not belong with the Bannerfolk, whose outlandish clothing wasn’t just for show, who moved with a preternatural grace as they slid forth from their glamours and disguises. I recognized a ghoul among them, even older and more twisted than Captain Issachar of the Mistwalkers. He’d sewn fragments of bone into his own flesh, and he wore the skinned hides of his victims as a cloak. An elf with winter blue skin who seemed wrapped in a living cold stepped forward, and a skeletal creature with ghostly, transparent flesh and a gaping jaw that hung nearly to the center of its sunken chest.

  And more. Not many, less than a dozen all told, but to see so many unique nightmares in one place was beyond even my experience, worse than the gathering at Caelfall. They all faced the balcony and knelt.

  The only vampires who did not kneel were Loveless Marcion and his wife. He stood further back, sipping wine and watching the scene with bored indifference while Selene whispered excitedly into his ear.

  “I see,” Tzanith muttered.

  “I don’t,” I said. The back of my neck beaded with sweat. My plans for the night hadn’t included facing off with a baker’s dozen of supernatural predators from the darkest corners of the world.

  “Your guess that Laertes was responsible for Evangeline’s transformation might hold water, after all. By challenging her in front of these observers, he has given her legitimacy.”

  “If they’re all so scared of him,” I said, “why doesn’t he just tell them to fall in line?”

  “That would defeat the point, if my guess is accurate.” Tzanith watched the gathering with intense focus. “It seems to me that Laertes wishes for these others to follow Evangeline Ark. If he shows himself to be her master, then they will perceive her as unworthy of their attention. By offering dire warnings and implied threats, he instead shows them that she is worth listening to. My lady has used similar tactics to force the disparate tribes of the Sidhe to fall in line.”

  My hand curled into a fist. “So is he behind all of this, then? Is she actually calling any of the shots?”

  “That remains to be seen,” Tzanith whispered into my ear. “Either way, it seems as though the father has offered his daughter in darkness something of a coronation gift. Perhaps it is also a challenge to her? Should she fail, these others will tear her apart and make of her nascent kingdom a charnel house. And I expect he will simply stand back and watch.”

  If Laertes had turned Evangeline, then…

  It didn’t track. Her powers were too advanced to simply be the wizard’s spawn. And during that vision inside Estival Bawn, there’d been that voice offering her power — that hadn’t been his voice.

  Lord Alfonse, the crusader who’d been at Tol, come to a decision. His jaw set into a dour line, he also sank down to a knee to mimic the vampires.

  “All hail Evangeline Ark!” The old soldier roared. “All hail the Wolf Queen!”

  It didn’t happen all at once. There was hesitation from the onlooking nobles, more than a few who looked disgusted or enraged, but even more who simply looked scared. But a few began to kneel, then more than a few, a growing drumroll of clattering canes and banging knees striking the ballroom floor.

  When done, perhaps twenty or so of more than three hundred had not knelt. One of them was the wizened nobleman with the quavering voice who’d threatened Inquisition. There was a young couple, a man and his wife who held one another close and lifted their chins in joint defiance. Marcion and his bride also remained standing.

  Amelia Hare had not knelt, along with a group who I took to be her supporters.

  Evangeline looked at the scene with the cool indifference of an eagle overlooking its hunting grounds. Her red eyes landed on Amelia, and her mouth quirked in amusement. “Truly we live in storied times, when even hares will bear their fangs to wolves. If only Randal had your backbone, widow.”

  Amelia Hare clasped her hands together and lifted her chin to the Queen. “I will not sell my soul to evil. You have become the Adversary, Evangeline.”

  The Wolf Queen’s gaze became cold. “I have sold my soul to nothing and no one. I am as I have always been.”

  Raania stood then and turned to face Amelia and her allies. The fingers of her remaining arm flexed, drawing attention to nails sharp and hard as claws. She began to stride forward.

  I tensed, preparing to spring into action.

  Tzanith clutched my arm tight. “Do not be a fool! You will be torn apart.”

  I ignored her. There was no way I would just stand back and watch this happen. But before I could move, Evangeline herself spoke.

  “Leave them!” The Queen ordered.

  Raania paused and turned back to the balcony. “They cannot be allowed to leave this place and sow dissent.”

  Evangeline pointed to Amelia’s group. “They are my countrymen and my guests, here under the promise of my protection. I will not disgrace these stones by breaking guest right. Let them leave, if they wish! Let them spread word of this night far and wide.”

  Amelia looked shocked, having expected to die just then. “What game is this?”

  “No game,” Evangeline said calmly. “Go back to your castles. Should you stand against me, then I will make them as grave markers.”

  I watched the defiance drain out of Amelia. She slumped, exhausted, but recovered herself quickly and once more hate flickered in her face. She spun and began to stride towards the doors. Most of her supporters went with her.

  Laertes, who’d remained silent throughout this drama, turned and began to leave as well. Evangeline spoke to his back.

  “You could have a place in my court, wizard.”

  He did not stop moving. “You do not have your kingdom yet, Wolf Queen. We shall see what the dawn brings.”

  The moment he stepped into the moonlight, his form melted like a mirage and he was gone.

  What do I do? I asked myself. This was far worse than anything I’d imagined.

  A voice within me said, What you feel to be right.

  You are no help, I complained to that voice.

  The vampires and the nobles who’d chosen to submit to Evangeline turned back to face their monarch. One of the guards whispered into the Queen’s ear.

  “What is your will, Your Majesty?” Raania asked.

  Evangeline looked distracted a moment as her guard stepped back, but looked down on her subjects and answered. “I have offered safe passage from this place to those who came as guests. However, it has come to my attention that there are some within these walls who are neither loyal vassal nor guest.”

  She searched the room, and with uncanny accuracy found me where I lurked behind a column near the ballroom’s eastern wall. Her smile showed fangs.

  “As a reward to those of you who have taken me as your liege, I offer you this gift — the intruders are yours to hunt. You shall face no reprisal from me for tasting their blood.”

  A feral smile spread across Raania’s scarred lips. “We may have them for ourselves? You do not wish to capture them alive?”

  “A gift to you,” Evangeline confirmed. “The first of many.”

  That predatory eagerness passed over the other vampires as the whole collection of monsters stirred with disquieting energy. The very air seemed to stiffen.

  Tzanith hissed into my ear. “We must go!”

  Every one of the vampires in the ballroom flashed into motion. I’d hardly needed Tzanith’s command. My own boots drummed the marble floor as I fled that place, racing the dead to my companions before they were hunted down and slaughtered.