All this drama was in keeping with the vampires and with Marsilia, anyway. Adam was an old soldier who, like good boots, could be polished up and given a shine—but in the end he was happier being a weapon than an art piece.

This was the second time Marsilia had changed their approach without checking with him. If that was how she wanted to play this, he’d feel free to do the same.

In any case, the entrance was wasted because the room was empty. With a murmured encouragement for them to await Bonarata here, their guide executed a quick bow and left.

Adam surveyed his people rather grimly.

Stefan broke first—probably because he was enjoying himself. “I told you the color thing was a bad idea,” he told Marsilia.

“Not here,” Adam said, though their guide was gone. His ire was appeased, not by Stefan’s apology. With Bonarata apparently claiming the right of making a grand entrance, the whole drama had been mostly a wasted effort. Punishment enough to suit the crime, he thought.

Since they were stuck here, Adam did a little recon.

Sometime in the last ten years, the room had been gutted, fitted with modern electricity, and put back together with drywall and engineered hardwoods. There were only two windows—the light would have damaged the books when it had been a library, he supposed.

A good designer had done his best to make the room look as though it had last been decorated a couple of hundred years ago despite the modern lighting, air vents, and energy-efficient windows. The central area was mostly empty, with chairs lining the walls and a small writing desk in the corner.

Art was the true focus of the room. Oil paintings of eclectic sizes from various eras covered the walls three layers high. They were all originals, and mostly, to Adam’s averagely educated eye, very well done. One or two were spectacular. There were no signatures, and he did not recognize any of them, which surprised him a little. He’d have thought a vampire of Bonarata’s reputation would put out famous artists to establish his status.

Then Adam realized that he knew the subject of the painting he’d paused by. Marsilia, her eyes in shadow, crouched gracefully on a rock on the edge of a stream. Her hair, longer than he’d ever seen it, did nothing to cover her naked body. Clasped loosely in one hand was a dagger.

Seeing that famous-in-certain-circles painting, Adam realized that the vampire had been establishing his status all right. All of the paintings had been done by Bonarata himself.

A door opened—not the one they’d entered the room through—and Bonarata strolled in.

Adam had never met Bonarata in the flesh, but he’d seen a few sketches, and there was one painting (perhaps also painted by Bonarata) in Marsilia’s seethe. That was enough to allow him to recognize the Lord of Night on sight even if he probably couldn’t have picked him out of a crowd.