quest again.
Verwulfen, humans, and mechs were free
now, but how long would that last? Especially if
Ulbricht and his friends had anything to do with it.
She was never going to live her life in a cage
again.
"Perhaps you'd best look at me," Debney
murmured in a nervous tone, patting her hand.
"You're drawing attention."
And she was. Her stare had become an almost
incinerating glare, and from the swift glance that
Ulbricht shot her, she knew she'd captured his
notice. Ingrid looked away, sipping at her
champagne. "Thank you."
"You're welcome." Debney ushered her
through the crowd, and this time Ingrid forced
herself to watch everyone.
Ulbricht reached the bottom of the stairs and a
woman stepped forward to meet him. White was
always something that debutantes wore to
symbolize their purity, if they had never been taken
as a thrall before, but the fashion had died out
recently. Though gowned in a voluminous gown of
pearlescent white, with dozens of pearls
embroidering her bodice, this woman looked
neither innocent nor pure.
A pearl choker dripped from her throat and
her mask covered the entire top half of her face,
with gauze obliterating even the eyeholes. A
glorious swan mask, but something... something
about her seemed wrong. Perhaps it was the way
she surveyed the gathering with the same regard
that Ingrid had given to the buffet earlier.
" What is it?" Byrnes's voice murmured in her
ear, which shocked her. She'd forgotten that he was
keeping watch, and had no doubt listened to the
entire previous conversation.
She couldn't quite put her finger on it.
Exchanging her champagne glass for a fresh one,
she put the glass to her lips to disguise the words.
"I don't know, but all the hairs on the back of my
neck just rose. That woman... on the stairs, in
white."
There was a moment's silence.
" The swan? "
"Yes." Ingrid shivered. The feeling quite
reminded her of a child's chalk scratching over
slate and the resulting sound.
" She seems harmless."
"She looks like a predator," Ingrid countered.
"Look at the way she's watching all of the blood-
slaves in here. It's almost hungry, as though they're
naught but cattle to her."
Silence. "Hmm. You might be right. She's
certainly not his plaything. Not with the way she
just grabbed his hand."
Though they might have been an entire
ballroom apart, Ingrid felt as though Byrnes stood
at her side, watching as the swan caught Ulbricht's
arm and reined him to her side, murmuring swiftly
in his ear. Ulbricht looked startled, then followed
the swan's gaze to something at Ingrid's left.
When Ingrid turned, all she saw was Debney,
clasping hands in welcome with someone in an
embroidered green waistcoat.
Ulbricht's smile sharpened as it locked on
Debney, and then the pair of them separated,
slinking in different directions through the crowd,
as though circling Debney.
"Did you just feel a cold shiver down your
spine?" Ingrid looked away, masking her words
with the glass.
" I couldn't see what just happened." Byrnes's
voice had softened. " Someone intercepted me,
wanting more blud-wein. But I'll keep an eye on
her."
"Don't. Keep an eye on Debney instead. I
have a feeling that Ulbricht's up to something."
" What do you mean?"
"It's the way he just looked at him."
"What are you saying?"
"What if he's outlived his usefulness?" she
murmured.
"Are you certain you're not imagining
things?" Byrnes murmured. " Everyone looks
normal to me. And he's safe here, in the
ballroom."
Ingrid looked around. Nobody was focusing
on Debney anymore, nor her. People laughed.
Ulbricht held court in front of the automaton
She rubbed her arms. "Perhaps I'm on edge. I'm not
used to this."
"Take
your
glass,
ma'am?"
someone
murmured, and as she set her empty glass on the
tray, she realized it was Byrnes.
His eyes twinkled behind the plain black
velvet domino mask he wore. "Calm down," he
murmured. "I'm watching over you and Debney.
And I have a highly developed recurring pistol in
my pocket, packed with firebolt bullets that could
tear a blue blood in half."
"Thank you," she replied, cocking her head
and then turning away. It wouldn't do to have
someone notice that she knew him. "Who did you
knock out to steal that costume?" she whispered,
fluttering her fan in front of her face.
Byrnes moved away from her. " Tall fellow.
Punches like a brute, but he went down
eventually. Not a footman, no matter what he was
wearing. Undercover guard, perhaps. Ex-soldier,
back from the wars in France. Unusual type of
servant at a place like this."
"You think something smells fishy."
"Something is definitely going on. I can't
wait to do some breaking and entering."
"When?"
"Give me a half hour, then meet me in the
hallway that leads to the powder room."
"And Debney?"
"Safe here, in public. Nobody would dare
touch him, if your little theory proves right."
A strange little flutter went through her. He'd
promised to keep an eye on her, but it was
surprising how much it meant to know he was here.
She'd never needed anyone to watch her back,
but she'd never felt more out of her depth. Debney
had been correct. Being verwulfen in this place
marked her as lesser, and though she could handle
herself, she was still outnumbered. Somehow, they
knew what she was.
"There you are," Debney said, making his
way through a veritable crush of silk and feathers.
"Lord Ulbricht is interested in an introduction."
"Lead on then, darling." She accepted his arm,
playing her part.
Up close, Ulbricht was even more imposing
than he'd first seemed. He eyed her with a flinty
up-and-down, taking a considerable pause at her
mask, as though trying to see her irises through the
eyeholes. Or was that just her imagination?
"Ulbricht, may I introduce you to Mrs. Inga
Miller?" Debney purred, sweeping her forward as
though she were a precious gem to display. "Mrs.
Miller is a very good friend of mine."
Ingrid graced Ulbricht with her most pleasant
smile, flashing her teeth. He reminded her of Lord
Balfour a little, the man who had bought her as a
child and locked her in a cage. Perhaps it was
the
thin, supercilious smile he returned, or the sneer in
his dark eyes, as though she were nothing to him.
"A pleasure, my lord." The words were breathy
and unctuous, and Ingrid extended her hand for him
to greet, forcing him to accept it.
Ulbricht eyed her glove, distaste rampant on
his face, but he took it. That enormous hand lifted
hers to his lips, his sleeve sliding down, revealing
a dark tattoo on the inside of his wrist. "The
pleasure is mine, Mrs. Miller."
"What an interesting tattoo, my lord." As he
moved to withdraw his hand, she kept hold of it.
"What is it meant to represent?"
Ulbricht's lips thinned, but Ingrid could see
better now. The shape was that of a rising sun.
"Something that interested me, Mrs. Miller." This
time, he was more insistent upon withdrawing his
hand. "If you will? I have guests to entertain."
SINCE ULBRICHT'S EARLIER CUT, most of the
Echelon lords seemed to be taking their cues from
him and ignoring the pair of them. Girls came and
went from the ballroom, vanishing into private
parlors with blue blood vultures. Ingrid watched
the clock, waiting for time to tick around to her
appointed meeting with Byrnes, but she couldn't
stop herself from making sure each girl returned.
"The first time I received an invitation to one
of these events, I was thrilled," Debney murmured,
staring across the room at Ulbricht in a way that
she couldn't quite define. "A chance to restore life
as I knew it—one where finances weren't quite
strained and a man couldn't find himself in trouble
for something he'd always done. The balance
would be restored. Smashing, I said. And I came,
and I watched as they partied, and it was horrible
in a way that it had never been before."
"What did they do?"
"There were girls there. 'Do as you wish,'
Ulbricht said, as they circled among us. They'd
been promised good money for the event, you see.
But... telling a blue blood lord to do as he wished
meant that her life lay in his hands. Those who
remembered what it was once like... they were
insatiable. Men who I knew before the revolution
who had never raised a hand against their thralls in
the past, or some who even disdained the taking of
blood-slaves as a necessary evil, were suddenly
men that I didn't know. For three years there have
been limits to bloodletting, and punishments for
those who stepped over the line, and it were as if
Ulbricht took our leashes off for the one night and
something emerged that wasn’t pleasant."
"The Echelon were always like that. It wasn't
as if you didn't know."
"I had changed. For the first time I realized
what Caleb saw when he looked at me." Debney’s
gaze dipped beneath gold-fringed lashes. "A
disgrace."
"And what happened to the girl they'd given
you?"
"I got her out, of course."
Something didn't quite add up. "Earlier, you
said that you'd come to three of these events, and
yet they disgust you."
Embarrassment flashed over Debney's face.
"I-I.... He made me come again."
"Who? Ulbricht?" It was the first time that
Debney had proffered any hint of excuse for his
behavior, and it rankled. Or perhaps that was the
presence of a pair of young blue bloods forcing
one of the 'blood-slaves' into a private curtained
alcove of the ballroom, despite the flash of fear
that crossed her face. "Did he force you into a
carriage by chance? Abduct you at gunpoint?"
Ingrid swished away through the crowd before her
emotions got the better of her. She was struggling
to stand there and watch that poor girl be molested.
And how is this any better than what Debney
did? Walking away, because it offends you....
After all, she had no plans to get that girl to safety,
even if her instincts seethed within her to do so.
Malloryn had even predicted such a conflict when
he offered her this job, knowing her nature as he
did.
“Ingrid, can you do this?” Malloryn had
asked. “Can you pretend to turn the other cheek
for the sake of the greater good? Can you look
the other way? For that is the type of work I'm
offering you.”
She was verwulfen, and always prey to her
heated emotions. In her ignorance—or arrogance,
perhaps—she'd shrugged, and claimed that it was
what she had always done in her role with the
humanists.
This was not the same. Then she'd been in the
shadows, spying for Rosa and using her strength to
run brief skirmishes, but she'd never played an
acting role. She'd always been herself, unabashed
in her defiance of the very lords and culture she
walked among now. It was one thing to lead
humanists against the Echelon, quite another to slip
through its ranks and pretend to be something she
was not.
"Ingrid, wait!" Debney snagged her elbow,
and because she had promised Malloryn she went
with him, even though she was feeling a rather
violent itch to push Debney over the rail.
"I can do this," she told him flatly.
"I know." He looked both young and old at the
moment, and disappointed with himself. "You
never gave me a chance to explain. It wasn't... like
that."
Tamping down the sudden fury within her,
Ingrid slipped inside one of the very alcoves that
the young lords were currently using to their
advantage. She could smell blood nearby as one of
them fed. Soft mewls of discomfort—or something
else—mingled
with
the
sound
of
polite
conversation and edged laughter. "Then explain."
"Ulbricht is aware of... some private things
about me. He wanted me to invite some of my
friends to his gatherings, to enlist them in the SOG,
and so he became quite insistent on my attending. I
know everybody, you see. That was the one thing I
was always very good at. Knowing people, and
yet, not really knowing them at all."
With a cough, he continued. "Nobody else is
aware... not even Caleb, but I was somewhat
indiscreet a few years ago with one of Ulbricht's
cousins, and when the relationship broke off, he
told Ulbricht everything."
He. Ingrid stared at him, her mind absolutely
blank.
"I have certain proclivities," he hurried to
explain, seeing her expression, "that are not widely
accepted. It's the kind of thing some of these men
here would kill me for, if Ulbricht didn't see a use
for me."
"You have relationships with men." How had
she not noticed? She was well acquainted with
Jack, after all.
"It's actually quite amusing." Debney seemed
relieved that she hadn't immediately cut him,
though he was watching her face intently.
"Watching Caleb fret over my attentions to you, as
though I pose some kind of threat."
"He does?" He did?
"Well, yes." Debney laughed, a little shrilly.
"I've never seen him behave so with a woman. He
avoids emotional entanglements—he always has—
so it's quite amusing to see him so tangled up over
you."
There was a faint hint of static in her ear, a
muttered curse. Ingrid opened her mouth, then shut
it. Debney would probably faint if she told him that
Byrnes could hear everything she could through the
communicator.
"May I ask, what precisely is your
relationship with Byrnes?" For there was a
familiarity there that was beginning to grow quite
obvious.
"We're brothers," Debney said, the words
spilling out of him as if one confession suddenly
unloosed a tide. "Though he wouldn't call it such."
" Ingrid," Byrnes growled through her
earpiece.
"Brothers?" How fascinating. "And how did
such a thing come about?"
Debney's face brightened. "Oh, I was three
when Nanny came to live with us—or Byrnes's
mother, I should s—"
The curtains suddenly wrenched apart and
Byrnes stood there. "Are we keeping an eye on
Ulbricht, or gossiping like a bunch of little old
ladies?"
"Well, it is terribly interesting," Ingrid
replied.
"If you want to know something, just ask,"
Byrnes replied coolly. "I detest people gossiping
about my life as though I'm not living it."
Touché. Ingrid tilted her head. He was
correct: Ulbricht had to be the focus.
At her side, Debney looked like he'd seen a
ghost, and made some sort of gasping noise.
Byrnes shot him a disgusted look. "Christ,
Francis. It's not as if I didn't know. You followed
Christopher Lamb around like a girl with the
swoons the summer I turned fifteen. It was fairly
obvious to anyone with eyes. And I am a
Nighthawk. Grant me some credit."
"You never said a word about it," Debney
managed to rasp.
"What was there to say? It was your business,
not mine." Slipping a hand behind Ingrid's back,
Byrnes nudged her toward the ballroom, his voice
lowering for her ears only. "Just as my past is my
business. Stay out of it. Five minutes."
That stung, which was her own fault. She
knew better than to develop an interest in him.