Some of the fey appeared through the trees, and here and there the bright blade of a sword caught the bloody light from the lanterns, gleaming seductively. I had a sudden impulse, a mad desire to fly at them, to find out if they were as good with an edged weapon as I’d always heard, to see if they could blood me before I—

What the hell was wrong with me?

“What did you do?” Claire shouted.

“I…wasn’t thinking,” Louis-Cesare said. “I was furious that he would dare…I wanted to protect her.”

“Then why is she like this?”

“I did not ask permission.”

“What?”

“To champion her. I did not ask.”

“Why does that matter?”

“Because, in doing so, I treated her in a way I would not have my own kind,” he said bleakly. “To assume that she needed protection was to imply that she is inferior, that she cannot protect herself. It…” He licked his lips. “Another first-level master would have eviscerated me for that.”

“But Dory isn’t a master—she isn’t a vampire at all!”

“Part of her is. And that part recognized the insult.”

More fey had gathered around as they spoke, and despite what some crazy part of my brain thought, I had seen them fight before, and I definitely wasn’t interested in seeing it again. But I was glad they were here; if I went off, if I lost the inner struggle, I wasn’t sure Louis-Cesare could hold alone. Not that he didn’t have the ability, but the monster that lived in my veins didn’t know pity, didn’t understand compassion. He did.

It could prove a fatal weakness.

And not just for him.

“Get away from me,” I told Claire, my voice thickening.

“I don’t understand,” she said frantically. “I should be able to absorb this, I should be able to help—”

“Get away!” I grabbed her arms, shaking her hard enough to cause the ponytail to collapse and spill bright red curls around her face. Hard enough to make her listen. “Get in the house. Get to the kids.…Don’t let me in. Promise!”

She nodded, her green eyes wild and frightened. Because I’d never before hurt her. Because she’d never before understood that I could.

I shoved her away, abruptly enough that it sent her staggering. And as soon as I lost that touch, the clouds that had been building on the edge of my vision rushed in. I wasn’t going to win this. I’d been here too often not to know. I wasn’t going to—

“My apologies.”

The soft words cut through the storm about to overtake me, like someone had hit a pause button. The rage was still there, a seething, boiling mass, just at the edge of my vision. And that’s where it stayed, long enough, at least, for me to look down and see Louis-Cesare kneeling—kneeling?—on one knee on the ground in front of me.

He looked like some kind of medieval warrior, waiting to be knighted. Or maybe a particularly brawny Renaissance angel. His head was bowed, the gleaming auburn hair falling on each side of the strong shoulders, the nape left vulnerable and unprotected. It was the archaic vampire sign of penitence, left over from some time when they’d liked to get dramatic about things. It had never been altered, although it wasn’t seen much these days. When it was, it was done by a servant to a master, if the master was particularly old or particularly traditional.

Or between equals, when the offense was particularly severe.

It was, in essence, giving the other a distinct advantage if he or she wanted to hurt you, or even kill you. Because the neck was one of the few vulnerable spots that vampires and humans shared. But I didn’t want to hurt him, I thought, even as my eyes fixed on that defenseless flesh. I could practically feel the blood running through it, could all but taste it, warm and fresh and coppery sweet on my—

God!

I stumbled back a step, but Louis-Cesare didn’t move. He stayed in the same position, head down, eyes lowered. “Zheng-zi treated you with more respect tonight than I did,” he said quietly. “And he is supposed to be your enemy. You are right to be angry. It was your blood and I should not have interfered.” He finally looked up, blue eyes dark and somber and completely sincere. “I will not make such an error again.”

And just like that, the world slammed back to normal, so fast it left me gasping.

And I wasn’t the only one.

“What the hell just happened?” Claire yelled. Right before she fell to the ground, clutching at the soil that swelled up under her fingertips. And then kept on swelling, a boiling mass of dirt and grass and leaves, and one lone plastic cup being fast churned to pieces.

I didn’t understand what was going on until light started shining through the cracks in the earth, bright beams that stabbed the darkness and lit up the overhanging canopy of trees in spots, like tiny strobes. But it wasn’t electric, wasn’t anything I’d ever seen before. Except, I realized, in the ley lines.

It was power, pure magical energy, and since nulls didn’t make any, there was no need to guess whose. Dhampirs don’t make magic, but we are magic, as much magical beings as the creatures that spawned us. Only I’d never have guessed that that much was inside me—or had been, before Claire decided to try to swallow an ocean.

And failed. It was getting bigger, that roiling ball of power, leaking out of her because she couldn’t absorb it all. And I guess she realized that, too, because she suddenly screamed and lost her grip, and something huge boiled away under the ground, like a torpedo through water.

Headed straight for the fey camp.

People screamed, bodies dove or jumped or were snatched out of the way, and the fire pit went up like a bomb, exploding into burning chunks as whatever-it-was raced underneath. It kept on going for another dozen yards, looking for all the world like some kind of huge, radioactive mole. Right up until it slammed into the fence.

I don’t know why it stopped there, why it didn’t just keep on going, doing no telling what kind of damage in the neighborhood. Maybe it was because the fey had enchanted the fence, or at least the vines flowing along it. Or maybe it had just hit exactly right, like lightning to a rod. But whatever the cause, it crashed into the fence like a freight train, in one burst of sound and violent white light.

And then the whole thing exploded.

But not in the normal sense.

Vines swelled like inflating balloons, going from the size of a finger to the size of tree trunks in an instant. The flower bunches dotting them here and there detonated all in a line, like living firecrackers. We were suddenly showered with what looked like confetti, covering half the yard in fluttering, flying petals. The part that wasn’t already covered in smoldering wood or burning tents.

I stared at Claire, who stared back at me, and then we both looked at the visitors, who were standing in a swirling snowstorm, looking around in wonder. And didn’t say anything. It was left to Jacob to sum up the evening.

“Whoa,” he said, eyes wide behind his glasses. “You folks really know how to party.”

Chapter Eighteen

Darkness, angry clouds boiling between buildings, and no electric lights that hadn’t been shot out long ago. Not a good part of town. Not a part where people liked light being shed on their activities.

Didn’t matter. Nature thumbed its nose at human preferences, sending the lightning that flashed overhead, strobing the dark street and the small alley that branched off from it with searing white. And causing the graffiti on the walls to practically leap off the old bricks.

The aftereffects lingered, crowding the small space with strange symbols in brilliant neon. They hung in the air for a moment, like bright banners, beautiful, ethereal, almost tangible. And then slowly faded.

I didn’t mind.

I didn’t need them.

The alley wasn’t dark to me. Mold grew over the old bricks, etching them with patches of teal luminescence that were slowly consuming the paint, blurring the letters with a more subtle message. A trail of muddy water ran down the middle, like a ribbon of emerald light. The edges of garbage cans, stacked outside a restaurant, glowed in a rainbow of colors, with layers of decomposing food stretching back for days. The cat huddled under some steps was a vibrant blob of crimson. The streaks some human in a hurry had dribbled on one wall were a smoking purple, like the rooftops of the buildings on either side, slowly releasing the last heat of the day.

All was visible, all was light.

But nothing was as bright as the small, glowing footsteps, like puddles of gold, that I was following.

They wove across the muddy width of the alley, so clear, I thought I could have reached out and touched one. Could have picked it up out of the muck and held it in my hand. Could have—

A door opened up ahead, sending a bright, artificial beam into the night, a river of smelly ozone that drowned all the other, fainter lights. Like a wash of acid across a floor. It made me want to flinch, to hiss like the cat under some stairs was doing, before it turned its bushy tail and leapt into the night.

But I didn’t. I didn’t move at all. I was hugging a wall, already in shadow, and the light served only to increase it. The wedge of deep blue-gray around me deepened to inky black, the open door providing additional contrast.

Not that it mattered. The human standing silhouetted in the rectangle of light was as night-blind as they all were, and cocky. So much so that a cigarette dangled from his lips, its deep red tip bright even against the electric field behind him. He may as well have had a target on his chest.

But I didn’t take advantage of it. He wasn’t the one I wanted. But he smelled like him.

A memory stirred.

A hand gripped my chin, cold, hard, alien. I hissed and tried to bite, and it was snatched away. Someone scowled; I couldn’t see it, but I could hear it in his voice. “What is this? Are you mad?”

“I thought you might find it…exotic.”

“Exotic?” The voice was incredulous now. “What are you trying to pull?”

“Nothing, my lord, nothing. But you always say you want the unusual, to keep an eye out—”