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“What’s that?” I asked, wandering over after Kitty ate a hole in the semicircle.
“Dory.” Louis-Cesare looked conflicted. Like he wanted to grab and hug me, but that would have required letting go of one of his captives.
I squatted down, and then almost fell on my ass.
I’d had better days.
But this was new. It was a highly polished wooden tip that had been affixed to the end of Louis-Cesare’s rapier. Turning it, effectively, into a stake without interfering too much with the functionality of the blade. Huh.
“Where did you find that?” I asked, looking up.
“I didn’t. I had it made—”
I grinned at floor vamp. “My hubby, the inventor.”
He just stared at me.
I thought he looked familiar, but couldn’t place him. Tall and lanky, with a hooked nose and dark brown skin. Bald. Maybe I’d seen him at the party?
Seemed plausible.
“Dory, perhaps you should sit down,” Louis-Cesare said, sounding a little strangled.
“No, no, I’m fine,” I assured him, just before my butt hit the floor. Guess my body had other ideas. “Where’d you come up with it?”
“Come up with what?”
“The wooden thing.” I pointed, more or less. “What’s it called?”
“A col de mort, and I didn’t—”
“A . . . death collar?” I translated. It was harder than it should have been.
“Yes, but I didn’t—”
“Didn’t what?”
“Didn’t come up with it!” Louis-Cesare was looking exasperated. “We need to get you to a healer!”
I looked around. The circle had closed back up, and the people didn’t look friendly. “Well, that’s gonna be kind of hard.”
“You’re never getting out of here,” floor vamp said. “Kill me if you will, but there are hundreds between you and the exits, each willing to die—”
“For what?” I asked curiously.
“—to see that neither of you escape alive!”
“Well, technically one of us is already dead,” I pointed out, lying down.
Oh, yeah.
That was better.
“Dory!” Louis-Cesare’s voice snapped. “Do not go to sleep!”
“Okay.” I yawned, and listened to Kitty savaging something in the distance. “I’m just gonna close my eyes—”
“I read about it in a book!” he said, sounding desperate.
