“That isn’t home.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head, red hair flying everywhere. It was sunny today, but it had been raining a lot lately, and Claire’s hair goes poufy when it rains. It was teetering on the edge of Afro territory right now, which wasn’t a great look for her. But it was better than the dark circles under her eyes and the pinched skin at the corners of her mouth.
I’d been kind of out of it lately, recovering from one disaster and apparently getting into another, and hadn’t really been paying attention. But maybe I should have; Claire looked like she could use it. “Are you all right?” I asked, wondering if we had a problem.
“This isn’t about me!” she said shrilly, green eyes flashing.
And okay, yeah. A problem. Of course, maybe having her slam somebody through a wall should have clued me in to that already. Claire had the stereotypical redhead’s temperament, but she usually stopped short of forcible redecoration.
“How can you let him do that, just…just tiptoe around in your brain like that?” she demanded.
“It won’t be the first time.”
“And that’s even worse! He already altered your memories once. What’s to say he won’t do it again?”
It looked like Mircea had less success with fey than with humans, I thought, because Claire clearly wasn’t a fan.
“It’s like I told you,” she said severely. “They only understand their own side, and it isn’t yours!”
“I’m part vampire, Claire,” I reminded her, since she seemed to keep forgetting that.
“You’re part human, too. And I’m beginning to believe the human part is the best part—in all of us.”
“What does that mean?”
She looked away. “Nothing. It’s just…Lately it feels like everyone I love is hanging by a thread, while some madman runs around with scissors. And some days, I just want to—”
“Throw somebody through a wall?”
Her head whipped back around. “Damn it, Dory!”
“Okay, I’m sorry. I get that way, too, remember?”
“Then help me.” Blazing emerald eyes met mine. “I can’t take any more stress right now. I just want to know that you’re safe. All right?”
“What are you stressed abou—”
“All right?”
I didn’t say anything, because Louis-Cesare had appeared in the door. “They are ready.”
Claire looked at me accusingly.
“I’ll be fine,” I told her firmly.
“Why do you even bother to say that?” she grumbled, and followed me across the hall.
The shades had all been pulled in the living room, and the curtains closed. The electricity was on, but it didn’t help much since it only powered an old fixture that hung from the ceiling, the lamps having been carted off by the troll twins for their basement apartment. We didn’t miss them much because we lived mostly in the kitchen and on the back porch, but it did make things a little gloomy at the moment.
I guess Ray had gotten tired of hanging out in the hall, and had come in here, only to be banished to a perch on the card table. I still didn’t know what he was doing here, but this didn’t seem like the time to ask, not with Marlowe glowering alongside, arms crossed, in almost the same pose he’d used in the kitchen. Like a beam of sunshine, I thought sourly.
Mircea and Radu had taken seats on the old-lady sofa, which Claire had inherited along with the house. It was red brocade with a high arched back, and always looked to me like it ought to be gracing a geriatric bordello. But with the two of them on it, its usual tattered garishness faded into the background.
A matching wingback chair had been pulled up in front of it, which I assumed was for me. I started toward it—which would have worked better if Louis-Cesare had let go of my arm. I looked up to find that the scowl he’d been wearing earlier had taken up permanent residence. It matched the shadow in his eyes, which the gloom had deepened to indigo.
“You don’t have to do this,” he told me shortly.