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I stood with my back pressed against Jean-Claude. When he’d drawn Damian and me in, he’d turned us, like a dance movement, smooth and inevitable, so that we stood in the circle of his arm. Jean-Claude held us both. My hand had just slid around Damian’s waist and drawn him in against the side of my body as if we fitted together from shoulder to hip. His own arm traced my shoulders, his hand cupping my arm, and again we fitted together in a way I didn’t remember. Jean-Claude’s arm was around Damian’s shoulders, his other arm encircling Nathaniel, who was cuddled against his side, so that one arm traced the front of my body. I wasn’t sure where Nathaniel’s other arm was, but I knew that Asher was still at Jean-Claude’s back.

Columbine stood just on the other side of the pulpit in her motley clothing, all red, blue, white, and black, edged with gold. Her tricorn hat was gold, with only a cluster of multicolored balls to echo the colors in her clothes. Her human servant stood at her back, all in black. He looked like a shadow beside her brilliance.

“You are very good, Columbine,” Jean-Claude said. “I did not even feel you roll our minds. Your magic is very subtle.”

“Such a pretty compliment, thank you.” She gave him a low curtsey, holding the small half-skirt of her pants outfit to the side as if it were a much longer piece of cloth.

I should have been nervous, at the least, but I stood there in the circle of everyone’s arms, and was so relaxed. It was a little like you feel when they give you drugs before an operation, calm, almost a liquid warmth, as if you could float away on it. Part of me thought, It’s what they do to you just before something really painful happens. But the thought just drifted away on the warm calm.

“You attacked the audience as a diversion,” Jean-Claude said in that voice that could make your skin shiver, but it didn’t make me shiver. It was as if whatever he’d done to us, the people he was touching, protected us from that voice.

She laughed, but it had none of the touchable quality of Jean-Claude and Asher’s laughs. Even through the near anesthetic haze that he had created around us, the laughter felt flat, human even. Or maybe the reason it sounded flat was the anesthetic haze. I couldn’t tell whether I was still able to sense a little through what Jean-Claude had done, or if his power was protecting me from her.

The laughter died abruptly on that crimson mouth. She stared at us with eyes that were gray and as serious as death. “Oh, no, Jean-Claude, it wasn’t a diversion, but I admit that I may have underestimated you, and your servant. If I could have won the audience from her, then I would have had enough power to defeat you easily.”

“And now?” He made it a question, with a lilt of his voice.

“I think a more direct assault on you, personally, is needed.”

“If you are too direct, then you will simply be executed,” he said, his voice mild.

“My power can be subtle, but do not be deceived. I too can be direct. As direct as the power you hold in your arms with your raven-haired servant.”

She gestured with one slender hand, and the man behind her stepped forward. He took off one glove and laid his bare hand in hers. “You are not the only master whose touch awakens more power in their servant, Jean-Claude,” she said.

“I did not think I was,” he said. His voice was as mild as her own, but his power was not mild. His power riffled through us, as if we were cards in his hand. What should he play? I’d had Jean-Claude drive the metaphysical bus before, but I’d never felt it like this, never been so aware of how terribly aware he was of his power, of my power, of the power we all offered him. He was vampire, which meant he was a cold power, a thing of logic, because emotions do not trouble the dead. He shifted through our talents, like Edward would have looked through his gun safe. Which gun will do the job? Which will make this shot? I had a moment to feel a thrill of fear, a thread