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All of which appeared to be in my size.
“What’s this?” I asked, sticking my head in and looking around.
“Your wardrobe,” Burbles told me, making a slight moue of dissatisfaction. “Very preliminary, of course, but we haven’t had a chance to inquire about your preferences yet.”
I looked over my shoulder. “We?”
“Your father, Lord Mircea, lent you thirty or so of his masters. Just to help you get started,” he quickly assured me. “Until you assemble your own.”
“My own what?” I was still trying to figure out how all these clothes got in here.
He looked surprised. “Staff.”
“For . . . ?”
Burbles regarded me for a moment. For the first time, he appeared a little nonplussed. “For . . . whatever you need us for. As a senator—”
I burst out laughing.
Burbles continued to look slightly off-balance.
I appeared to be harshing his buzz.
“Is . . . is something wrong?” he asked, while I started sorting through the clothes, trying to find an outfit that wouldn’t make me look like I was heading for the Oscars.
“Nope. Just that you’re a little behind the times. I’m not a senator anymore.”
In fact, I was kind of surprised I was still alive, all things considered. But Mircea had been there, and I was pretty sure I’d seen Louis-Cesare running into the gallery, looking crazed, just before I passed out. So that probably explained it.
“I—when did this happen?” Burbles asked, appearing confused now. And the fact that I had a really strong urge to walk over, pat him on the back, and tell him everything was going to be okay seriously worried me.
The guy was good.
“About the time I stabbed the consul in the neck?”
He just blinked at me for a moment, and then this . . . fluttering . . . went across the room. Marlowe, who had been bitching in the hall, suddenly shut up, and the three other vamps—two in the doorway, and Burbles a respectful few paces outside the closet—did this thing where they went up on their toes and just . . . fluttered. Shivering all over like birds rippling their plumage.
It was weird.
I’d been looking around for something comfortable to wear, because I didn’t want a waistband to rub against my wound, but hadn’t found anything. So I was eyeing the bathrobe on the back of the door, which would do to get me home, where I had a whole closetful of old sweats waiting to embrace my kicked-around bod. So I reached for it—
And heard a sudden intake of breath from the vamps, and not the good kind. More the Grandma-seeing-your-full-Goth-ensemble-for-the-first-time kind. And hating it.
I felt a small, tentative touch on my shoulder—Burbles, looking even more adorable with huge eyes and a pleading face. “Please?”
It was a whisper.
“Please what? What is wrong with you?” I asked him, because cute or not, he was starting to freak me out.
“Your presence is requested in the salon, my lady, and . . . more formal attire would be . . . preferable.”
Which looks like a totally fine sentence, right? Except that it completely fails to replicate the inflection—and seriously, what Burbles could do with his voice was kind of amazing—which made “preferable” sound like “avoid the terrible heat death of the universe.”
I had no freaking idea what was going on, and was too beat-up to care. I didn’t want bananas Foster. I didn’t want to get dressed up. I sure as hell didn’t want to hang out with anyone in the salon, except possibly Louis-Cesare, and why did I get the impression that this was not about him? I just wanted to go home.
It had been a long night.
“Don’t call me lady,” I said, and finally located some sweats. They were purple and plush, and looked suspiciously like something Radu would pick out, but clothes were clothes. And they felt positively decadent against my abused skin.
