I couldn’t help my sarcastic reply. “It was for me.”

In an instant, her hand left a stinging impression on my cheek. Her eyes flashing with rage, she whirled around and waved at the air as though she were batting away a fly. The door flew back, practically tearing off the hinges, and she stalked into the dark anteroom.

Trembling, I pulled Cyrus’s robe tighter around me. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d either just performed an incredible act of mercy or made a huge mistake.

Saturday night arrived with a flurry of flamboyantly gay party planners and confused teenagers who thought they’d been invited to a rave. The former were led quietly around the side of the mansion to set up a garden party in nearly freezing temperatures, and the latter were lured into the house with promises of alcohol and social drugs. Ziggy and I stood on the balcony in the foyer and watched as guards herded a group of the hapless victims toward the cellar.

“So I’m basically toast, is that what you’re telling me?” Ziggy wore a neatly pressed dress shirt and slacks, a stylish black tie draped around his neck. Even with the change in wardrobe, he looked antisocial and slightly intimidating. But not to those who knew him well. I could practically see the word fear written across his forehead.

I hoped he didn’t share my keen insight. I wouldn’t seem so reassuring if he could tell my insides shook like barren branches in the winter wind. “You’re not toast. I get to pick who the Soul Eater takes. Cyrus will turn Dahlia, and then he’ll throw you to the crowd. It’s all very simple.”

“Right.” Ziggy stretched the word out. “Thrown on the mercy of hungry vampires. And yet I’m somehow missing the part where I’m not toast.”

“You know how to fight, and Nathan will get here in time. Don’t worry about it. I’m not.” I was, but there was no point letting him know that.

“What about the secret service down there?” Ziggy pointed toward the guards below. “Nate and those guys can’t touch them. They’re human.”

“Then they’ll be easier to subdue,” I pointed out. “Besides, there aren’t many of them here tonight.” It was a protective measure, Clarence had told me before he’d left for the guardhouse earlier in the evening. Fewer humans meant less chance of a feeding frenzy. Most of the guards had been dismissed already. The mansion now ran with a skeleton crew on hazard pay.

It seemed a little strange that Cyrus would leave the party so vulnerable. Of course, there was the Soul Eater’s own security team. They were apparently scary enough that Cyrus felt comfortable entrusting them to guard a house full of Movement exiles on the most notorious night of the year.

Again, another fact Ziggy didn’t need to worry about. “Now, get back to the room before somebody mistakes you for cattle.”

His eyes were fixed on the herd in the foyer. “You’d think someone would miss these kids.”