“What’s going on?”
“Come with me.”
“What’s going on?” she asked again, standing when he held out a hand. He pulled her up and stepped close. Beatrice suddenly realized that he was not much taller than she was, and she only had to glance up to meet his dark stare. She could see the barely concealed tension in his face, and for a second, she felt as if she could not breathe.
“Baojia… what’s going on?”
“There is”—he hesitated—“a new guest in the Great Hall. Tenzin has requested our presence.”
“Who—”
“No more questions.” He hooked her arm with his own and shuffled her toward the doors, grabbing a red robe hanging by the door.
“Maybe you don’t know this about me, but I really don’t like being kept in the dark,” she said as she pulled on the silk robe.
He snorted. “Maybe you don’t know this about me, but I don’t really care.”
“Would Ernesto care?”
Baojia chuckled bitterly. “I am very clear on what my father wants from me, Beatrice De Novo. Why don’t you spend a little time worrying about your own father?”
“My own…” She fell silent as a sick feeling began to churn in her gut. “Where’s Gio?”
“With Tenzin in the hall.”
They left Tenzin’s wing of the palace and strode across the grounds, Baojia almost dragging her behind him. As they climbed the steps, she could already hear Tenzin’s stream of angry words pouring out of the hall, though she had no idea what her friend was yelling.
Beatrice knew not to open her mouth. She simply followed along, her fists clenched at her sides as Baojia ushered her into the opulent room with a hand at her back, his quick eyes sweeping the room.
Beatrice spotted Giovanni’s tall figure immediately. He stood at attention at the foot of Zhang’s throne, his gaze flickering over the crowd that had gathered toward the center of the room. She saw him glance at her, nod, then he locked his gaze with Baojia and tilted his head toward the left side of the hall, where Beatrice noticed some of the humans and vampires in Zhang’s retinue had gathered. She couldn’t see Tenzin, but she could hear the woman arguing in Mandarin from the center of the mass of vampires.
They picked their way through the crowd, and Beatrice was glad that her dark hair and short stature allowed her to blend in far better than Giovanni’s striking figure. They stopped about ten feet away, their backs to a large green column, and Baojia seemed to relax slightly at her side.
“Where’s my dad?” she whispered.
Baojia leaned over to murmur in her ear. “He’s in the crowd with Tenzin. I can hear him.”
“Can you translate for me? What’s going on?”
He sighed, and she could tell he didn’t want to do it, but he continued leaning over, translating as the argument progressed.
“Tenzin says, ‘You’ve always been needlessly worried about me. I have no interest in your throne…’ and she calls him a foul name.”
“Who?”
“Zhongli Quan.”
“The other head guy? The one below Lu?”
“Some may say so. He is a wind vampire, like Tenzin. Do you understand?”
“No.”
“There are only two of each element on the council.”
‘No interest in your throne…’ “Oh, he thinks Tenzin wants to take his place or something?”
He only cocked an eyebrow at her and tilted his head back toward the crowd.
“Zhongli responds that Zhang may invite his guests without fear of them coming to harm, and he may do so, as well.”
“What? Guests? Who—”
She broke off when an eerily familiar voice rang out. Beatrice may not have recognized the language, but she would never forget the dulcet tones of her former captor.
“Lorenzo,” she gasped as her heart began to race. Her eyes searched for Giovanni’s; he was looking at her, his lips pursed in a hushing motion, and she began to move toward him. He gave a tiny shake of his head at the same time that Baojia gripped her forearm.
“Let go!”
“No. You need to calm down and look at me.” She couldn’t look away from the front of the room; her eyes darted between Giovanni, who stood in a position by Zhang, and the clutch of people who surrounded the arguing voices. She could feel the vampires pressing around her begin to react to her agitation, and it only made her more nervous.
“Beatrice,” Baojia said, “you need to look at me. Now. Take a deep breath and look at me.”
She finally tore her eyes away from the crowd and looked at Baojia. She let herself rest in his calm, dark gaze as he continued to speak in a soothing voice.
“Giovanni needs to stay by Zhang. He is publicly allying himself with the Elder right now, so he must stay there. You are here under his aegis, and under the protection of Tenzin, Zhang, and all their allies, who are more numerous than you can imagine. He will not touch you here.”
“But—”
“Beatrice,” Baojia continued, “he will not touch you. I will not allow it.”
Something in his eyes pulled her in. Some flare of emotion touched his normally placid face, and she pulled away in surprise, only to have him move with her. She leaned back against the pillar and made a conscious effort to calm her breathing. Baojia stared at her, his hand still holding her forearm, and she could feel his finger brush against her wrist. A calm began to steal over her, and her breathing smoothed out, so she was able to look back at the group at the front of the hall.
The crowd had thinned, but all eyes were on the ongoing argument between Tenzin and Elder Zhongli. She could see her father through the crowd and relaxed more when she saw his calm expression. She looked at Giovanni, whose eyes continued to scan the room, glancing from her and Baojia, to the back doors, across the crowd, over the arguing immortals, and back again.
For a moment, his eyes met hers and he gave her a quick wink. She tried to smile, but she was worried it came out more pained than optimistic.
“What did you study at university?”
Beatrice turned at the sound of the unexpected voice to her left. The odd Elder Lan Caihe had sidled up to her in the crowd and was staring at her with a curious expression. He… or she glanced at Baojia, and the two exchanged a friendly nod. Lan was no longer wearing the brilliant white robes of the Elders, but a dull grey set that blended with the crowd.
She frowned. “What? What did I study?”
“Yes, what was your course of study at the university? Your father says you are very bright for a human. What did you study? Medicine? Theology?”
“Um… library science.”
Lan laughed. “You did experiments with books?”
“No.” Beatrice had to smile. “Information Technology. I studied… well, how to be a good librarian. The best ways to preserve books and manuscripts and how to get that information to the people who need it. It’s called ‘library science,’ but—”
“Oh!” Lan smiled, his or her round face creasing into a delighted smile. “You are a scribe.”
She smiled, happy to be distracted by the strange vampire, even if she was confused why exactly Lan was talking to her. Lan’s dark hair was pulled into a topknot, and while she had heard the immortal was mysterious, his or her face seemed open and friendly. Beatrice, like everyone else, was at a loss to guess whether ‘he’ or ‘she’ was the correct pronoun.
“Um… I guess that’s accurate. I don’t write the books, though. I just take care of them.”
“But that is a heavy responsibility, as well. A scribe was a very honorable position when I was a human. Only the wisest could write and were given care of the scrolls.”
Beatrice smiled, a little embarrassed by Lan’s eager face.
“I don’t think people take librarians quite that seriously anymore.”
“That’s because humanity is foolish,” Lan said with a shrug. “And what do you do with my brother fire-vampire?”
She smiled wh
en she heard the casual acceptance in Lan’s voice. Most vampires, even those who knew and seemed to like Giovanni, spoke about him with a kind of reservation, almost as if they expected him to erupt at any minute. Lan’s gentle voice held no judgment, and even though she didn’t know the vampire, she was immediately set at ease by Lan’s manner.
“I had to quit my job a while back. So I’m traveling with him and currently hoping I can stay away from Lorenzo. We don’t get along very well.”
Lan squinted at the mess of arguing vampires. “I do not think you should be concerned for your safety. You have many protectors.”
“But my dad doesn’t.”
Lan’s eyes twinkled. “I do not think your father looks worried, Mistress Scribe. And you should not, either.”
She cocked her head at Lan before glancing at her father, who she was surprised to realize really didn’t look concerned. He seemed completely relaxed and… taller, if that was even possible. She frowned and glanced back to her left, expecting to see Lan there, but the elder had disappeared into the crowd and the only one to her left was one of Zhang’s guards, who began a quiet conversation with Baojia that she couldn’t understand.
She really needed to learn Chinese.
By that time, the arguments had died down, and more vampires had dispersed, allowing her to see Tenzin and Zhongli speaking more quietly. Tenzin held an open hand toward Stephen, who reached out to grasp it in his own.
“Well,” she heard Baojia murmur, “that is… interesting.”
“What? What’s interesting?”
Zhongli looked irritated, but resigned. Elder Lu Dongbin, who she remembered Giovanni telling her was a close ally of Tenzin’s father, looked quietly pleased, and the Immortal Woman looked as if she wanted to laugh.
Elder Zhongli turned to Lorenzo, who was still arguing quietly. Suddenly, Zhang Guo stood from his throne and walked toward the center of the room with a scowl on his face. The crowd parted as he approached. When he reached his daughter, he grabbed her hand and bit. Tenzin curled her lip and pulled her hand away, but lifted Stephen’s hand toward her sire, as well. Zhang bit Stephen’s hand, licked at the blood, then dropped it before he spoke to the hall.
“My daughter is telling the truth. I want no more of this arguing,” he said in English, glancing at Beatrice before he looked back at Lorenzo with a pointed glare. “You cannot have him. He is my daughter’s mate, under her aegis and my own.”
Everyone in the hall seemed to disperse after Zhang issued his proclamation, but Beatrice was frozen stiff.
“What just happened?” she asked.
“Well, it seems—”
“Shhh.” She held up a hand to Baojia’s mouth, cutting him off before he could finish his sentence. She felt him smile beneath her fingertips. “Just… hush. I need to think. I need everyone to be quiet so I can think for a minute.”
Beatrice heard Baojia chuckle, but she couldn’t tear her eyes from her father, who stood next to Tenzin, tall and confident in the face of his sire, the vampire he had run from for fifteen years. She felt warm fingers grasp her own, and she looked over her shoulder to see Giovanni standing behind her. He looked down at her with an expression that told her he was carefully concealing his feelings from the rest of the room.
“Tesoro,” he murmured, bringing her hand to his lips and brushing her knuckles with a kiss.
She dropped her hand from Baojia’s mouth and the vampire took a careful step back.
“What just happened there?”
“Tenzin has claimed your father as her mate,” he said quietly, “and Zhang just confirmed that they have exchanged blood. Therefore, Lorenzo’s claim on your father, and his request to take him, has been overruled.”
“That’s a lot of stuff happening.”
“Yes, it was an eventful meeting.”
“That’s kind of an understatement.”
“Beatrice—”
“Can we kill Lorenzo now?”
“Unfortunately, he is here as a guest of Elder Zhongli Quan. Unless we want to risk the wrath of—”
He was cut off by Lorenzo’s voice ringing through the hall in clear English.
“I have another request for the great court of the Eight Immortals.”
All eyes swung back to the center of the room, and Beatrice could finally see Lorenzo clearly as he stood on the steps in front of Zhongli’s throne. He looked the same as he had when he had taken her five months before. His curling blond hair came to his shoulders, and he still had faint smudges of scaring along the edges of his Botticelli face. He stared right at her with a smile before he spoke again.
“There is a book that my son stole from me. A very valuable manuscript that I petition the court to return to me. I understand that it has been taken for study by the scholars of Elder Lu Dongbin, and I would like it returned. My child did not have permission to take it.”
She glanced at Giovanni, whose eyes had narrowed. He dropped her hand and stepped forward toward the center of the room.
“The book in question is mine, wise Elders of Penglai.” Giovanni was the picture of calm respect as he stood before the hall. “My son took it from me without permission, and his son took it from him. I have no objections to Elder Lu’s wise scholars keeping it for study.”
No one spoke after that. It was almost as if the whole room waited for… something. There was so much tension in the air, Beatrice almost felt as if she would choke on it.
Finally, it was the Immortal Woman, Elder He Xiangu, who spoke. It was in Mandarin, and Baojia leaned over to translate.
“Honored Elder Zhongli, it appears that there is some disagreement regarding the owner of this valued book.”
Royal Uncle Cao, the earth vampire who sat between the Immortal Woman and Tenzin’s sire, leaned forward, finally showing some interest in the proceedings. “Perhaps this is a disagreement we could help to resolve, for your guest, Elder Lu. And yours, Elder Zhang.”
There seemed to be a murmur of agreement around the hall. Baojia chuckled.
“Clever imp,” Beatrice heard him whisper.
“What?” she asked, leaning toward him. “Is there going to be some kind of trial or something? What are they going to do?”
“Oh,” Baojia nodded, “there will be a trial, but not now.”
“Why not? Why—”
“Alas,” Zhang stood, once again speaking in English and glancing at Beatrice. “It appears that Honored Elder Lan has departed the hall. If only I had known, I would have asked our fellow Elder to stay. Lan was departing on a journey of some kind. Of course, I did not question the Elder’s plans.”
“What?” Lorenzo hissed before glancing at Zhongli and falling silent again. There was a murmur of dissatisfaction from the right side of the hall where Zhongli’s allies had congregated, and many vampires seemed to be searching the hall for Lan’s small, white form.
But Beatrice knew the elder would not be found; Lan’s earlier appearance in the inconspicuous grey robes suddenly made more sense. For whatever reason, Lan had delayed Zhongli and Lorenzo. To what end, she had no idea, but as she looked around the room, she realized that Tenzin, Giovanni and her father looked pleased, and Lorenzo and all the vampires on the other side of the room looked annoyed.
That was probably a good thing.
“We cannot decide this matter without Elder Lan,” Zhongli conceded in English. “Lorenzo, you may remain at the palace as my guest until his return. All here”—he glared at the six elders surrounding him—“will guarantee your safety upon this sacred island. And to Elder Zhang’s guests.” He turned to Tenzin. “And to yours, Mistress Tenzin, we will guarantee safety as well.”
Giovanni stood casually in the center of the room. He nodded toward Elder Lu and Elder Zhongli in the center thrones. “No one under my aegis would doubt the honor of the Eight Immortals. We stay here at your leisure.”
After that, the hall turned back to the business of the night and hummed with energy again. Lorenzo was whisked away
by Zhongli’s entourage, and Tenzin walked over to speak to her father, leaving Stephen and Giovanni in the center of the room, both wearing completely blank expressions. Finally, her father nodded to Giovanni and brushed past him, walking toward Tenzin, who reached her hand back to grasp his.
Beatrice wondered whether she was just noticing, or whether they were now being more open, but the intimacy between the two was apparent. They almost seemed to circle each other, reacting instinctively to the other’s movements as they passed through the room and out one of the side doors, leaving her alone with Baojia.
Giovanni was speaking with one of Zhang’s people in a low voice, and the room began to swirl around her. She turned to Baojia, who was watching her. His steady, silent presence remained at her elbow as she felt her exhaustion begin to creep up. She gave one last look at Giovanni, who was still deep in conversation, before she raised her eyes to her silent guard.
“Can we go now?” she asked.
Nodding, he took her arm and led her toward the back doors, where other vampires and human servants were exiting the hall and dispersing through the palace grounds.
“I will wait outside your room until Giovanni can join you. You should get some sleep.”
“Will Lorenzo—”
“Do not worry about Lorenzo.”
“You know,” she said, shaking her head, “I’m pretty tired of people telling me that when he’s kidnapped me twice.”
Baojia pulled her to a halt near the base of a large white limestone rock dotted with tiny shells. He stared at her for a few minutes, and she was beginning to squirm under his steady gaze.
“Giovanni is embroiled in this,” he finally said. “He has many roles to play in this game. I respect that.”
Beatrice frowned. “What are you trying to say?”
“I have one role to play here, Beatrice De Novo. I have one objective and one purpose. I was entrusted with your safety by your grandfather, my sire. I have one job, and it is you. So I tell you, do not worry about Lorenzo.”
He stepped closer, and the same flare of emotion she had seen earlier in his eyes leapt out again. Her heart began to beat more quickly, and a faint heat rose to her cheeks. Baojia’s eyes never wavered from hers, and she forced herself to tear her gaze away before she continued walking toward her room, his ever-present footsteps trailing behind her.