The wolves were providing enough of a distraction so that Madame Lefoux in the octomaton did not at first see them break for the castle. By the time she did, sending flames blasting after them, they were well out of range.

There was no need to bang on Woolsey’s main door; it was wide open, with many of the clavigers and household staff assembled on the front stoop, mouths agape. They had binoculars or glassicals pressed to their faces and were riveted by the battle below. At Lady Maccon’s imperious wave, they made a corridor for the vampires to run through, right up to the entrance, at which point everyone stopped abruptly. They waited with a ritual solemnity uncalled for in such dire circumstances.

“What is it now?” Alexia was annoyed beyond all reason. She was carried right to the door, like a dressed pig on a dinner platter. Any moment now, she thought in a flight of fantasy, Cook will appear with an apple to stuff into my mouth.

Lord Ambrose rested the bottom of the board down and the duke tilted it up so that Lady Maccon had merely to slide gently to her feet, finding herself standing.

A quick gesture had her supported on both sides by two of Woolsey’s largest clavigers. Thus she managed to hobble inside the entrance of her home.

Still the vampires waited on the front stoop, like some bizarre parody of orphaned puppies—soulful eyed, pathetically scruffy, deadly fanged, immortal orphaned puppies.

Lady Maccon turned ponderously. “Well?”

“Invite us in to stay, Alexia Maccon, Lady of Woolsey, mistress of this domicile.” The countess’s words were singsong and hymnlike. She clutched a wide-eyed, blubbering Quesnel tightly to her breast—no trace of the scamp left, just terrified boy.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, come in, come in.” Alexia frowned, trying to think. They had a goodly number of rooms, but where would it be best to put a whole hive of vampires? She pursed her lips. “Best to get you lot down to the dungeon. It’s the only place I can guarantee that there are absolutely no windows, and the sun is about to rise.”

Rumpet came forward. “Lady Maccon, what have you done?”

The vampires traipsed solemnly into the house. Alexia pointed out the appropriate staircase and they filed wordlessly down.

“You have invited in a queen?” The butler, normally quite a florid man, was ashen.

“I have.”

The Duke of Hematol gave her a tired smile as he passed, showing fang, acknowledging the butler’s fear as his due. “We can never go back now, you realize, Lady Maccon? Once a queen swarms and relocates, it is forever.”

Lady Maccon finally understood Lord Akeldama’s smile and why he refused to invite the hive in for tea. Alexia had managed to get his greatest rival out of London, for good. Not only was he potentate, and in charge of his own ring of very specially trained young men, but also he would now be the sole leader of fashion left in central London.