Even Lucifer and Puck ceased their antics as Alerian strode toward them. His green hair was tied back at the nape of his neck. His face looked like it was carved from marble. Like Puck and Lucifer, he wore an expensive tailored suit. He walked so lightly that his heels did not make a sound on the floor.
The crowd cleared the way for him. No one whispered and gossiped. No one wondered who he was. But they understood power, and how to get out of its way.
I glanced over at Lucifer and Puck. Lucifer was frowning. Puck was trying to act like Alerian’s display didn’t bother him by talking to his underlings.
Because my group was apparently the first stop on the tour, my great-uncle paused before me, his face impassive.
“Disappointed to find me still alive?” I asked.
There was a long pause. “Very.”
“Don’t think about trying anything here,” I said. “For some reason Lucifer likes me.”
“I would not dream of violating my brother’s hospitality,” Alerian said.
“But once I leave it’s a different story, right?”
There was a flicker in his sea-colored eyes; then he moved away without saying a word.
“I think you should take that as a yes,” J.B. said.
“I didn’t need to hear him say it,” I said, watching him approach Puck and Lucifer. “He’s a lot like Amarantha, or Titania. He’s decided I’ve given him insult and there is nothing short of complete and total humiliating subservience that will make him happy.”
“You never even respected my authority when I was your boss,” J.B. said.
“Exactly,” I said.
“Exactly,” Beezle said.
Alerian greeted Lucifer and Puck, and then Evangeline. My many-greats-grandmother was resplendent in a red floor-length gown with long sleeves. One sleeve was pinned up to the shoulder because there was no arm there to fill it. A silk scarf was tied around her head to cover the empty holes where her eye sockets used to be. She was hugely pregnant, like she was about to give birth any second.
“I thought maybe Lucifer would have found some way to fix up Evangeline,” I said quietly to Beezle.
My gargoyle shook his head. “She lost her eyes and limb as a result of the price paid for defying the magic of death. There is no fixing that.”
Now that the three brothers were gathered together, all the air seemed to have gone out of the room. The crowd had resumed speaking, but conversations were low and furtive. No one seemed to want to attract the attention of the big three, which was unusual at a wedding. Normally people tried to monopolize the engaged couple. I put one hand on J.B.’s shoulder. My face was hot and my lungs were tight.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Are you going to be sick?”
“No,” I said, fanning my face with my hand. “I feel like I can’t breathe. Where the hell is Nathaniel?”
J.B. scanned the crowd, looking for my escort. “I can’t see him. I wonder where he got off to?”
I felt a moment of illogical panic. What if Lucifer had instructed his underlings to grab Nathaniel as soon as he was separated from me? But a moment later he was at my shoulder, holding a large glass of ice water. I grabbed it from him and guzzled it down quickly.
“More,” I said.
Nathaniel stared at me. “If I had realized you were so thirsty, I would have brought a pitcher. I had to go to the kitchens to get this. There are only cocktails on the trays.”
I put my hands over my throat, which felt parched. “I just feel so thirsty. And hot.”
Nathaniel put his hand on my forehead. “You’re burning up with fever. What happened while I was away?”
J.B. looked startled. “Alerian stopped here for a second. That was it.”
Beezle flew off his perch to peer at me more closely from the front. “Someone is trying to hurt her,” he announced. “Someone in this room has got a spell going to make you sick. I can see the traces of magic on you.”
“Can you trace it back to its owner?” I asked, my breath coming in short bursts.
He flew around me, looking for a trail to follow, and returned to my shoulder with a shake of his head. “No,” he said. “It’s like the shifter. The trail sort of peters out when you look at it.”
“That means the shifter is in this room,” Nathaniel said.
I slumped against his shoulder, barely able to stand on my feet. Jude, J.B. and Samiel huddled closer, the four men forming a protective knot around me. “But he’s not trying to kill me right this second. He’s trying to weaken me, make me sick.”
It was working, too. All I wanted to do was lie down and close my eyes.
“I thought the gargoyle was here to identify the creature when it is in disguise,” Jude growled. “Do your duty.”
“There are a million people in this room,” Beezle said. “If I fly around looking for the shifter, it could walk right up to Maddy while I was somewhere else and you would never know.”
“Beezle’s right. He needs to stay here,” I said. “And I don’t want to make a big fuss and attract everyone’s attention.”
“You’ve already attracted attention,” Beezle pointed out. “People are looking at us, wondering what’s wrong with you. In a second Lucifer will hear something’s going on and come over here.”
“That’s exactly what I don’t want,” I said. “I’d like to try to keep Lucifer out of this.”