That wouldn’t normally have been an issue, but right now I was sweating and struggling and still barely holding my position. And then I almost lost it anyway. Because we suddenly got a new complication.

The portals occupied maybe the bottom quarter of the huge wall, with the upper having been empty just seconds ago. But I guess it was showtime, because a long rectangular image had just appeared on the rock face. It was as big as an old-fashioned movie screen, but if there was a projector, I didn’t see it.

What I did see was the interior of the consul’s ballroom, where a massive number of portals had just burst into being on all sides.

And it looked like something had finally gotten the other consuls’ attention. Because Ming-de’s little fans zipped back to their mistress, and Hassani rose to his feet, his eyes narrowing and his hand gripping the hilt of the blade at his side. The other consuls were there now, too, and they were also rising: a South Asian guy dressed like a Bollywood maharaja, and a Spanish-type in enough velvets and laces to give Radu a run for his money. I didn’t see Anthony, but I didn’t have a view of the whole room.

And it wouldn’t have mattered if I had.

Because the consul had just come out onto her balcony, and it was suddenly impossible to look anywhere else.

She was in gold, head to toe, in an outfit that made Liz Taylor’s Cleopatra look like a pauper. And I finally understood how she’d managed to successfully lead a Senate for centuries, when plenty of other, stronger vamps had failed. You might not like her; might even detest her. But there was something there. Call it what you will—authority, command, leadership—it was that indefinable thing that makes men throw themselves at impossible odds because their commander tells them to. And she had it in spades.

Of course, she also had something else: vamps have never had the same problem with bribery as humans. It’s considered everything from a performance enhancer to a loyalty inducer, depending on the size of the gift. And the consul had one of the biggest in history.

And she knew it.

Hard, cold, sublimely beautiful, she coolly surveyed the scene. And then those dark eyes flashed, and the perfect lip curled. And the low, sibilant words got right to the point. “If you wish a seat on my Senate, then bring me the head…of a fey!”

And just that fast, it was on.

An army of fey rushed through the portals; an army of vampires met them. And I turned to catch a split-second glimpse of two more vamps shooting into the fray, Louis-Cesare tucking into a graceful somersault and dragging a very freaked-out-looking Ray right along with him. And then they were gone, shimmering away into nothingness between one heartbeat and the next.

It was impressive, but not half as much so as the number of fey streaming through those portals. I guess Zheng must have thought so, too, because he was suddenly behind me. “Too many getting through.”

“Ray will have the portals rerouted in a few seconds.” I hoped.

“We don’t have a few seconds.”

“Yeah, but what can we do?”

“This,” he told me, and the next time I blinked, he was holding a fey warrior.

I hadn’t even seen him twitch, much less snake a long Gumby arm down into the pit and snare one, like a guy fishing off a dock. I saw it the second time, though, and saw the two fey go limp and collapse, their hair a bright spill against the dark rocks. Zheng had grabbed them by the neck, and he hadn’t bothered being gentle.

Neither was I as I frisked them for the weapons I knew I’d find: suspiciously human-style guns, because they were far better at delivering a payload in hand-to-hand combat than bows and arrows. Especially when complete with three rounds each of what I could only assume were spelled bullets. At least, I really hoped so, because this was going to look pretty stupid otherwise.

It didn’t look stupid.

I fired off a shot at the portals, and suddenly that whole end of the room was engulfed in a blizzard that—

“Whoa,” Zheng said.

“I guess the fey didn’t trust the help with the good stuff,” I said, watching blinding bands of snow lash the fey lines. “Too afraid it might fall into our hands.”

“Yeah. That’d be a shame,” Zheng said, and fired a round directly into the wall just below us.

We didn’t get a blizzard that time, but the effect was pretty spectacular just the same. The whole long expanse of rock iced up, like we were suddenly perched on top of a glacier. And sent the couple dozen blonds who’d spotted us, and started scaling the cliff like mountain goats, sliding right back into the crowd.

Zheng got another salvo off after them, but I didn’t see what good it did. Because I had to stop and deal with a group coming through the archway. You really can’t fault their reaction time, I thought, and shot the leader square in the face.

His skin turned blue and he staggered back, which I’d expected. And then an ice storm started up in the close confines of the hallway, which I hadn’t. In all of a second, the whole door had iced over, with a bluish white slab so thick that it looked like a glacier had suddenly decided to park itself there.

I laughed, because if you’re crazy, you may as well live up to it, and turned back to Zheng. Who didn’t appear to get the joke. Or maybe he was just concerned about the fact that fully half the freaking army had just broken off and were coming for us.

Because yeah, they couldn’t see us and didn’t know how many were up here, I realized, as Zheng fired his last bullet directly into the crowd.

Who, without missing a beat, raised long, shiny black shields above their heads, like they’d been expecting it. And maybe they had. Because the shields locked together, creating a slick, solid surface that gave the ice nowhere to go but out. And it did, spreading like frost over the dark water of a pond and creating an almost flat, hard surface.

Which another group of fey promptly jumped on top of.

“Shit!” Zheng said, grabbed my gun and fired again.

But not at them. Because even though they were climbing fast, something else was more urgent. Louis-Cesare and Ray were in trouble.

I could tell because I could see them, not clearly, but in fits and starts, little glimmers like a couple of ghosts, if ghosts made “oh shit” faces on the one hand and agitated French gestures on the other. And that sort of shit wasn’t going to go unnoticed for long.

Aaaaand it didn’t.

One of the fey in line for the portal nearest them let out a very inelegant squawk, and pointed. And Louis-Cesare and Ray looked up from arguing over Ray’s device to stare at the soldier in shock, as if they hadn’t realized they could be seen. And yelled at. And shot at, only the latter didn’t go so well because of Zheng’s bullet, which hit the floor near the line of soldiers the pointer was standing in and—

Yeah, that’s better, I thought, as a new blizzard tore through the lineup.

Except for the fact that that had been our last bullet. And that the fey below us had now achieved something that looked like a cheerleaders’ tower, composed of three tiers of black-armored warriors with death on their faces. And that the blizzard that was supposed to be helping Louis-Cesare and Ray was fizzling out for some reason, just like the other had.

I didn’t understand why until I noticed the shields of the fey clustered around them. Which instead of being shiny black, were now a blowing, snowy white, as a blizzard raged—beneath their surfaces. Somehow they’d trapped it, or most of it. The crazy winds and snow of a second ago had lightened to a few thin bands blowing across my vision, which did nothing to obscure the sight of Louis-Cesare and Ray fighting for their lives.

Louis-Cesare was showing the fey that he hadn’t been the European dueling champion for nothing. His form was fluid grace, liquid motion. If it had been slower, it would have looked like an exotic dance. But at speed it was easy to see the moves for what they were, violence doled out with deadly precision.

But it wasn’t enough, even though the fey hadn’t just shot him. I don’t know why. Maybe they didn’t want to waste the ammo or maybe he was too close to the portals, and they didn’t want to risk more going out of commission.

Or maybe they just didn’t want to admit that a single warrior could hold them off.

But he couldn’t, not forever. There were just too many and it didn’t look like he could manage that disappearing trick again. He was already defending instead of attacking, dodging and weaving and twisting, yet finding no opening because there was none to find. Just a solid wall of shields closing in, and swords flashing and—

And Louis-Cesare looking at me, searing me with his stare, for a long second.

Before he fell.

A cold wash of disbelief tore through me, like the blood had suddenly left my body all at once. And if I’d ever had any doubt about how I felt, it was gone in that second. When I couldn’t do a damn thing about it but scream my head off, a hopeless, horrified sound that hurt my own ears with the intensity of it.

But not as much as it seemed to hurt everyone else’s.

Suddenly the whole room went quiet. The portals were still running, still murmuring to themselves, like two dozen rushing rivers. The thin bands of ice were still blowing, making shush-shush sounds against the stone. But nothing else talked—or fought or moved. Even the fey coming over the precipice, the ones who had been about to swamp Zheng, were frozen in place, as if they’d all been hit by one of their own weapons.

But I didn’t think so. They weren’t cold and blue; they were simply stopped. Or stunned, I realized belatedly, as one of them fell off the wall and crashed to the floor, and just lay there, looking up with portal light gleaming in his wide-open eyes.

I stared at the fallen fey for a second, and then at Zheng, who was just as unmoving by the wall, face set in a snarl, fist raised. And then I moved. Over the wall and down what felt like a fun-house slide, three bumps of slick, icy shields and then a spray of snow over a cold, cold floor. And then through an army of frozen obstacles, not one of which was less than seven feet tall, with helmets that made them even taller.

It was like being in a shiny black forest, one that could suddenly come to life and kill me at any second, because I had no idea what I’d just done or how long it would last. But something told me to hurry, hurry, hurry, to the point that I was pushing soldiers over, jumping past their bodies, fighting and clawing and—and finding them. Both of them, Louis-Cesare bent over Ray, still trying to defend him, even with no fewer than five swords sticking out of his body.