“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 when 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.