Marcel Saint Cloud was leaning over the rail and waving down. Around him, a cluster of vampires peered at Magnus over their fans of feather and ivory and bone.
Saint Cloud was, though it pained Magnus to admit it, strikingly beautiful. The old ones all had a very special look about them—a luster that came with age. And Saint Cloud was old, possibly one of Vlad’s very first vampire court. He was not as tall as Magnus, but was very finely boned, with jutting cheekbones and long fingers. His eyes were utterly black, but caught the light like mirrored glass. And his clothes . . . well, he used the same tailor as Magnus, so of course they were wonderful.
“Always busy,” Magnus said, managing a smile as Saint Cloud and his cluster of followers descended the steps. They clung to his heels, altering their pace to fall in line with his. Sycophants.
“You’ve just missed de Sade.”
“What a shame,” Magnus replied. The Marquis de Sade was a decidedly eerie mundane, with the most perverse imagination Magnus had ever come across since the Spanish Inquisition.
“There are some things I want to show you,” Saint Cloud said, putting a cold arm around Magnus’s shoulders. “Absolutely wonderful things!”
One thing Saint Cloud and Magnus had in common was a rich appreciation for mundane fashion, furniture, and art. Magnus tended to buy his, or receive them as payment. Marcel traded with the revolutionaries—or with the street people who had raided great houses and taken the pretty things from inside. Or his darklings handed over their possessions. Or things just arrived in his house. It was best not to ask too many questions but simply to admire, and admire loudly. Marcel would take offense if Magnus didn’t praise every item.
Suddenly, a chorus of voices from an outside courtyard was calling for Saint Cloud.
“Something seems to be going on,” Marcel said. “Perhaps we should investigate.”
The voices were high, excited, and giddy—all tones Magnus didn’t want to hear at a vampire party. Those tones meant very bad things.
“What is it, my friends?” Marcel said, walking toward the front hall.
There was a tangle of vampires standing at the foot of the front steps, with Henri at the head. A few of them were holding a struggling figure. She made high-pitched squeals from a mouth that sounded covered, though it was impossible to see her in the throng.
“Master . . .” Henri’s eyes were wide. “Master, we have found . . . You will not believe, Master . . .”
“Show me. Bring it forward. What is it?”
The vampires ordered themselves a bit and threw the human into the cleared space on the ground. It was all Magnus could do not to make a sound of alarm, or give away anything at all.
It was Marie Antoinette.
Of course, the glamour he had applied did not affect the vampires. The queen was exposed, her face white with shock.
“You . . . ,” she said, addressing the crowd in a shaky voice, “what you have done . . . You will—”
Marcel raised a silencing hand, and to Magnus’s surprise, the queen stopped speaking.
“Who brought her?” he asked. “How did this happen?”
“It was I, monsieur,” said a voice. A dapper vampire named Coselle stepped to the front. “I was on my way here, coming down the rue du Bac, and I absolutely could not believe my eyes. She must have gotten out of the Tuileries. She was just on the street, monsieur, looking panicked and lost.”
Of course. The queen would not have been accustomed to being out on the streets on her own. And in the dark it was easy to go the wrong way. She had made a wrong turn and crossed the Seine somehow.
“Madame,” Marcel said, walking down the stairs. “Or should I say ‘Your Majesty’? Do I have the pleasure of addressing our beloved and most . . . illustrious queen?”
A low snicker from around the room, but aside from that no noise at all.
“I am she,” the queen said, rising to her feet. “And I demand—”
Marcel put up his hand again, indicating silence. He descended the rest of the steps and walked to the queen, stood in front of her, and examined her closely. Then he gave a small bow.
“Your Majesty,” he said. “I am thrilled beyond words that you could attend my party. We are all thrilled beyond words, are we not, my friends?”
By now, all the vampires who could fit had crowded into the doorway. Those who could not were leaning out of the windows. There were nods and smiles, but no reply. The silence was terrible. Outside Marcel’s courtyard wall, even Paris itself seemed to have fallen silent.
“My dear Marcel,” Magnus said, forcing a laugh. “I do hate to disappoint you, but this is not the queen. This is the mistress of one of my clients. Her name is Josette.”