There were sparks of excitement in the hallway.
“We’d hoped our provision of these medals would be in a slightly more formal occasion,” Ethan said. “But it is the symbol that matters, not the pomp and circumstance.”
Ethan leaned forward, and Malik clasped the first pendant around Ethan’s neck, which shined like a droplet of silver blood at the base of his throat. There was something nearly sensuous about the curve of it and the way it settled perfectly there.
Helen, the House’s den mother, appeared at Ethan’s side in her typical tweed suit, a basket of small crimson jewelry boxes on her arm. She began handing out the boxes to the Novitiates in the foyer.
“Be strong,” Ethan said, glancing across the room and meeting my gaze with a short and decisive nod. “I’ll be back soon enough.” He stepped outside and pulled the door closed, disappearing from view.
Fear tightened my chest.
Lindsey stepped beside me, put an arm around my waist. Luc took point at my other side.
“He’ll come through this,” Luc assured me. “He’s a soldier. He is trained and can endure much.”
“I don’t want him to endure anything. I don’t want his life, his well-being, to be fodder for someone else’s political career.” Keep him safe, I thought, pleading to the universe and whatever gods inhabited it. Please keep him safe.
“We know you don’t,” Luc said, patting my back tenderly and a little awkwardly. “But he is Master of this House, and he does what he must to protect it. It’s the life he chose to lead.”
“Because he can handle it,” Lindsey said.
“He definitely can. There are stories I could tell you.”
“Your stories are always disgusting,” Lindsey said, reaching around me to poke him in the shoulder. “And they usually involve bordellos. I don’t think that’s really going to help Merit.”
It actually did help Merit, and I chuckled a little in spite of myself. “Bordellos? Really?”
“Chicago had its share once upon a time,” Luc said with a shit-eating grin that earned an eye roll from Lindsey. “There was this one, Ruby Red’s. Every single girl was a redhead, natural or otherwise.”
I held up a hand. “I don’t need the specifics. I just want Ethan to be okay.”
Luc looked earnestly at me. “Merit, of all the vampires in the world, who else is stubborn and pretentious enough to stand up to a self-righteous prig like Diane Kowalcyzk?”
He had a point there.
Since there was no use in spending the hours of Ethan’s incarceration staring at the door like loyal hounds waiting for him to return, we received our House medals, clasped them on, and walked back downstairs to the basement, where the Ops Room was located. Much like the Brecks’, Cadogan’s Ops Room was where Luc and his guards held court and monitored security. It was also, appropriately enough, where we planned operations against House enemies, and it was home to the whiteboard we used to work through our investigations.
Like the ops room in the Breck house, it was all about tech. A conference room where we could plan, a large screen on the back wall for videos, monitoring, considering evidence. Computer stations lined the walls, where vampires could keep an eye on the House’s security cameras or do research.
I walked to the conference table, prepared to take a seat, but stopped, trying to make sense of what I saw on the tabletop.
A bag of kettle-style salt-and-vinegar potato chips had been slit down the middle and lay in the middle of the table. The chips had been pushed to one side, and the other bore a puddle of ketchup. I had, as I assumed did most people, a love-hate relationship with salt-and-vinegar potato chips. But the ketchup was new. And, frankly, a blasphemy.
“What’s this?” I asked, swirling a finger in the air above what I assumed was intended to be a “snack.”
“That,” Luc said, “is a bit of a miracle. Brody introduced us. Say hi, Brody.”
Brody, blond, thin, and as tall as a skyscraper, sat at one of the computer stations that lined the room. He was one of the Novitiates Luc had temporarily hired to help with House security since we were down a couple of full-time guards. He’d been a member of Cadogan House for fourteen years, a Yale graduate and former Olympic swimmer whose athletic career had been ended by a drunk driver. He’d applied for House membership in the hopes of finding a new kind of team.
Brody turned and waved with a charming smile. “’S’up.”
“We’re thinking about bringing him on board full-time,” Luc said, gesturing toward the snacks. “He shared this little nugget in his interview.”
“It’s pretty good,” Brody said. He stood up—I nearly winced at the possibility he’d knock his head on the ceiling—then walked over and dipped two chips in the ketchup, popped the concoction in his mouth. “You’re missing out.”
I was an adventurous eater, but pairing potato chips and ketchup was going to require a paradigm shift I wasn’t currently prepared to entertain.
I sat down at the conference table, put my hands flat on the tabletop. “Let’s talk about the carnival.”
Luc and Lindsey joined me. Luc dipped a chip into the ketchup, ate it with a grin while I looked on. “Mmm,” he said, earning an elbow from Lindsey.
“Maybe you’ll want to skip the noshing and ask the rest of the gang to join us?”
“You’re no fun, Sentinel,” he said, but pushed the dials on the phone and conferenced them in.
“This is Luc in the Cadogan Ops Room,” he said with faux gravity, “dialing you in to discuss the carnival investigation by direct order from the Sentinel of Cadogan House.”
I glanced mildly at Lindsey. “Did you spike his blood with caffeine?”
“Die Hard marathon was on TV last night,” she said. “He’s been weaponized since then.”
Jeff, Catcher, and Paige offered their hellos through the conference phone.
“No librarian?” Jeff asked, when he didn’t say hello.
“He’s back in the stacks looking through newspapers,” Paige said with amusement. “And not to be disturbed.”
“You’re a better woman than I am, Paige,” Luc said, earning curious glances from all of us. Thankfully, he moved on. “Let’s talk carnival, folks.”
As if optimism and preparation would be enough to make developments happen, I moved to the whiteboard, marker in hand.