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I’d never put it to myself in those terms, and for a moment, I swear, my heart stopped beating. At that skipped beat, I drew the gaze of at least half the vamps in the room. Eric’s eyes widened as he looked at my face. And then my heart beat again, and the moment was over as if it never had been. But Eric’s hand twitched on the desk, and I knew that he would not forget that second, and he would want to know what it meant.

“So you think the trial will be held?” Eric asked Andre.

“If the queen had been going to the summit as the ruler of New Orleans—New Orleans as it was—I believe the sitting court would have negotiated some kind of settlement between Jennifer and the queen. Maybe something involving Jennifer being raised to a position of power as the queen’s deputy and getting a large bonus; something like that. But as things are now . . .” There was a long silence while we filled in the blanks. New Orleans wasn’t as it had been, might never be so again. Sophie-Anne was a lame duck right now. “Now, because of Jennifer’s persistence, I think the court will pursue it,” Andre said, and then fell silent.

“We know there’s no truth to the allegations,” a clear, cold voice said from the corner. I’d been doing a good job of ignoring the presence of my ex, Bill. But it didn’t come naturally to me. “Eric was there. I was there. Sookie was there,” the vampire (Nameless, I told myself ) continued.

That was true. Jennifer Cater’s allegation, that the queen had lured her king to her party barn in order to kill him, was completely bogus. The bloodbath had been precipitated by the decapitation of one of the queen’s men by one of Peter Threadgill’s.

Eric smiled reminiscently. He’d enjoyed the battle. “I accounted for the one who started it,” he said. “The king did his best to trap the queen in an indiscretion, but he didn’t, thanks to our Sookie. When his plot didn’t work, he resorted to a simple frontal attack.” Eric added, “I haven’t seen Jennifer in twenty years. She’s risen fast. She must be ruthless.”

Andre had stepped to my right and within my line of vision, which was a relief. He nodded. Again, all the vampires in the room made a little group movement, not quite in unison but eerily close. I had seldom felt so alien: the only warmblood in a room full of animated dead creatures.

“Yes,” Andre said. “Ordinarily the queen would want a full contingent there to support her. But since we’re forced to practice economy, the numbers going have been cut.” Again, Andre came near enough to touch me, just a brush of my cheek.

The idea triggered a kind of mini-revelation: This was how it felt to be a normal person. I hadn’t the slightest idea of the true intentions and plans of my companions. This was how real people lived every day of their lives. It was frightening but exciting; a lot like walking through a crowded room blindfolded. How did regular people stand the suspense of day-to-day living?

“The queen wants this woman close to her in meetings, since other humans will be there,” Andre continued. He was speaking strictly to Eric. The rest of us might as well not have been in the room. “She wants to know their thoughts. Stan is bringing his telepath. Do you know the man?”

“I’m sitting right here,” I muttered, not that anyone paid any attention but Pam, who gave me a sunny smile. Then, with all those cold eyes fixed on me, I realized that they were waiting for me, that Andre had been addressing me directly. I’d become so used to the vamps talking over and around me that I’d been taken by surprise. I mentally replayed Andre’s remarks until I understood he was asking me a question.

“I’ve only met one other telepath in my life, and he was living in Dallas, so I’m supposing it’s the same guy—Barry the Bellboy. He was working at the vamp hotel in Dallas when I picked up on his, ah, gift.”

“What do you know about him?”

“He’s younger than me, and he’s weaker than me—or at least he was at the time. He’d never accepted what he was, the way that I had.” I shrugged. That was