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I think she’d just implied that I wasn’t as good in bed as Belle Morte, but I wasn’t entirely sure that’s what she meant, and I didn’t care. She could insult me all she wanted. Insulting me was less painful than so many other things she could be doing.

“Belle Morte is sickened at the sight of me,” Asher said, finally, “she avoids me in all things.” He motioned at the painting that Angelito was still holding up. “This is how she sees me. How she will always see me.”

Musette swayed her way back to stand in front of Asher. “To be least among her court is better than ruling anywhere else.”

I couldn’t help myself. “Are you saying it’s better to serve in Heaven than rule in Hell?”

She nodded, smiling, seemingly oblivious to the literary allusion. “Oui, precisement. Our mistress is the sun, the moon, the all. To be parted from her, only that is true death.”

Musette’s face was rapturous, glowing with that inner certainty usually reserved for Holy Rollers and television evangelists. She was, indeed, a true believer.

I couldn’t see Damian’s face, but I was betting it was as carefully blank as the rest. Jason was staring at Musette as if she had sprouted a second head, an ugly, spiky second head. She was a zealot, and zealots are never quite sane.

She turned to Asher with that radiance still suffusing her face. “Our mistress does not understand why you left her, Asher.”

I did. I think everyone in the room did, except maybe for Angelito and the girl who was still standing on the other side of the couch where Musette had put her.

“Look at the painting of me as Vulcan, Musette, see what our mistress thinks of me.”

Musette didn’t bother to look behind her. She gave that Gallic shrug that meant everything and nothing.

“Anita does not see me that way,” he said.

“Jean-Claude cannot look at you without seeing what was lost,” she said.

“The time when you could speak for me, Musette, is long past. You do not know my heart, or my mind, you never truly did,” Jean-Claude said.

She turned to him. “Are you truly telling me that you would touch him, as he is now? Be careful how you answer, Jean-Claude, know that our mistress has seen deep into your heart and mind. You may lie to me, but never to her.”

Jean-Claude was quiet for a time, but finally he told the truth. “We are not currently together in that way.”

“See, you refuse to touch him, as she refuses to touch him.”

I loosened Damian’s arms enough so I could move more easily. “Not exactly,” I said, “sorry, but it’s my fault that they aren’t a couple.”

She turned to me. “What do you mean, servant?”

“You know, even if I was, like a maid, I know enough about polite society to know that you don’t call a maid, simply, maid. You don’t call a servant, servant, not unless you truly have never interacted with servants.” I folded my arms across my stomach, looking puzzled on purpose. Damian’s hands stayed lightly on my shoulders. “Is that it, Musette? Are you not an aristocrat, after all? Is it all pretend, and you simply don’t know any better?”

Jean-Claude gave me a look that she couldn’t see.

“How dare you!” Musette said.

“Then prove you are noble, address me at least like someone who has truly had servants.”

She opened her mouth to argue, then she seemed to hear something that I couldn’t hear. She let out a long breath. “As you like, Blake, then.”

“Blake is fine,” I said, “and what I mean is that I’m not entirely comfortable with this bisexual thing. I won’t share Jean-Claude with another woman, and definitely not with a man.”

Musette did that head to the side movement again, as if she’d spied the worm she intended to eat. “Very good, then Asher has no tie to any of you. He is merely your second.”

I looked from one vampire to another, only Jason looked as confused as I felt. The vamps were acting like a trap had been sprung, and I didn’t see it yet. “What’s going on?” I asked.

Musette laughed, and it wasn’t anywhere near as good a laugh as Jean-Claude or Asher were capable of. It was just a laugh,