Adam’s gray suit was Mercy’s favorite of the suits she had picked out for him, claiming that his choices of business wear were deliberate attempts to downplay his looks. He’d worn it this evening for Mercy, with a black shirt and his brown-and-silver tie. She wouldn’t know, of course, but he did. He would have sworn that no one except he himself had known which suits he’d packed, or which one he was going to wear until he had it on.

Even so, Marsilia’s semiformal dress was silver with brown trim. Stefan’s suit was a pale brown, and he wore it with a gray shirt and a silver-and-black tie. Larry’s suit was black and silver with a silvery waistcoat, and his shirt and tie were brown. Honey wore a dark brown dress trimmed in black that wasn’t as formal as Marsilia’s even though it covered less.

Contrary to type, Elizaveta had chosen to dress all in black. She usually dressed like a fantasy-novel version of a Russian grandmother who’d been raised by the Roma, complete with multiple skirts, scarves, and jewelry in bright colors.

Mercy had told him once that she thought that Elizaveta had once been a beautiful woman, not just attractive, but world-class beautiful. Tonight, he understood exactly what she meant.

Adam wasn’t interested in fashion as an art form, but he understood how he could use it as a weapon in the business world against men and women who used wealth to judge power. That meant he knew men’s fashions, but also that he didn’t pay any attention to women’s clothing except to note whether it looked good on Mercy or not—which put him one up on Mercy, who didn’t pay attention to fashion at all.

Not that women didn’t use clothing like a weapon in the business world, too, but because he never judged people by the richness of their clothing, he was free to ignore the fashionable weapons of the opposite sex. But that indifference left him without words to label the outfit Elizaveta wore.

It was silk—he knew fabric, and silk had a recognizable smell and a sound as it slid over itself. It was black, and it was formfitting, and Elizaveta wore it with style, whatever it was, because it didn’t fit neatly into the categories he knew: dress, pants, suit.

It began with a long, tailored shirt that hung down to her knees while it sprouted embroidery that was black but also iridescent. Beneath the shirt, her skirt was narrow and slitted up to midthigh on each side to allow for movement. She went barefoot for reasons of her own—probably related to magic. Her feet were lovely, with manicured and polished (in sparkling silver) nails.

She was old—nearly, he thought, as old as he was, and unlike werewolves, witches aged just like regular humans. But she had muscle and not an extra ounce of anything else on her frame. He’d always known she was strong because he watched the way people moved. He hadn’t known that her body was beautiful. She’d toned down the makeup from pancake to ballroom, and it suited her. She did not dress to minimize her age—she didn’t dress to minimize anything. She didn’t need to. She looked exactly like what she was: beautiful and deadly.

The only two of his people left out of the fashion show were his pilot and copilot, who trailed behind the rest of them. They were still wearing the semi-uniform business garb they’d flown in—black slacks, white dress shirt, and green tie—though for all Adam knew it was a second set of identical clothing. Still, they didn’t match everyone else, so that was something.

Their guide to dinner—a female vampire clad in a tuxedo—had been under the impression that “the help” would be dining in the kitchen with the rest of the human staff. Adam had put the kibosh on that.

Harris had put his neck out a lot farther than Adam or he had planned when the vampires insisted that they leave the plane. Adam wasn’t about to let Harris or his copilot run around loose in Bonarata’s seethe without protection. They would eat with his party in reasonable safety.

They had waited while the vampire had texted someone. As soon as the return text came, she’d agreed to the “additions to dinner”—a phrase that made Larry grin and mock-snap his teeth behind the vampire’s back.

The arrangements for dinner had distracted Adam, so he hadn’t noticed the black, silver, and brown theme until they were following their guide through the halls. Far too late to run back and change into his blue suit.

Adam wasn’t entirely certain that the color coordination wasn’t an accident. But instincts (and a hint of guilt in Honey’s face) told him that this whole performance had been planned behind his back—up to and including the way that Marsilia clung to his arm.

All this drama was in keeping with the vampires and with Marsilia, anyway. Adam was an old soldier who, like good boots, could be polished up and given a shine—but in the end he was happier being a weapon than an art piece.

This was the second time Marsilia had changed their approach without checking with him. If that was how she wanted to play this, he’d feel free to do the same.

In any case, the entrance was wasted because the room was empty. With a murmured encouragement for them to await Bonarata here, their guide executed a quick bow and left.

Adam surveyed his people rather grimly.

Stefan broke first—probably because he was enjoying himself. “I told you the color thing was a bad idea,” he told Marsilia.

“Not here,” Adam said, though their guide was gone. His ire was appeased, not by Stefan’s apology. With Bonarata apparently claiming the right of making a grand entrance, the whole drama had been mostly a wasted effort. Punishment enough to suit the crime, he thought.