Chapter Twelve
Four long tables stood in the main ballroom, arranged into a rough letter m: one table across for the Arbitrator, the heads of the delegations, and special guests, which included Caldenia and Sophie, and three longwise, with about twenty-five feet of space between each to make sure nobody happened to trip and accidentally fall into a slaughter. We put the otrokars on the left, the Nuan Clan in the middle, and the Holy Anocracy on the right. I took a position to the left of the main table. I was starving, but food was out of the question. I had asked Orro to save me a plate because this banquet would require my complete attention. The tension in the air was so thick you could cut it with a knife and serve it with honey for dessert.
The three delegations took their places, the leaders arranged at the main table on both sides of George, who sat in the middle. One seat, next to Nuan Cee, remained empty. Cookie’s seat at the Merchants’ table was orphaned too. Nuan Cee had sent him to wait in the field in the back for his guest. I still hadn’t found the emerald. With everything that had happened, the search for the phantom thief had been pushed aside. If everything went well, I would get on that tonight.
George rose in the center of the main table. “I was going to make a long, inspiring speech, but everyone is clearly hungry. I have visited the kitchen and the chef has outdone himself, and I have very little willpower left after all these strenuous negotiations. Thank you for being here. Let’s eat.”
Everyone applauded and stomped in approval. The tables sank into the floor and reappeared, bearing a variety of starters. Orro stepped through the doorway.
“First course,” he announced. “Spicy tuna tartare in a cone of miso, spring vegetables in a cucumber wrap, and vine-ripened tomatoes with basil and mozzarella.”
He stepped back. I glanced at the table. He had somehow twisted tuna tartare into tiny cornucopias; the cucumber wraps looked like delicate blossoms filled with bright, paper-thin slices of something red and green; and the vine-ripened tomatoes were sliced into wedges, stuffed with basil and mozzarella, and drizzled with something that smelled tangy and delicious. My mouth watered. The delegates fell on the delicate starters like starved wolves onto a lame deer. The food was disappearing at an alarming rate.
The magic tugged on me. Someone had just landed in the back field. Nuan Cee’s guest had finally arrived. I reached out with my magic and sensed Cookie and the guest moving toward the house.
The tables sank down. We were going much faster than expected, but the guests were devouring the food. A moment passed and the dining tables reappeared, filled with more dishes.
“Pasta course,” Orro announced. “Agnolotti with fennel, goat cheese, and orange.”
The fennel had cost me an arm and a leg and so had the cheese, but Orro had refused to compromise on the pasta course. It had to have fennel, it had to have the expensive cheese, and that was that. Well, at least if they filled up on pasta, it would make them full and happy and less prone to casual murder.
At the vampire table, the three newcomers with Lord Beneger had barely touched the food, instead they sat wrapped in hostility like it was a winter cloak. On the otrokar side, Dagorkun, a smaller female on his left and a huge hulking mountain of a male on his right, were watching Beneger very carefully, keeping their food intake light.
There would be trouble. I could feel it.
I just had to keep them from attacking until the main course. Orro had made pan-seared chicken. I had no idea what he had done to it, but the smell alone stopped you in your tracks. I had happened to walk into the kitchen to check on things just before the banquet, and I couldn’t recall ever having such an intense reaction to cooked chicken before in my entire life. Orro was a wizard. Finding ingredients that didn’t set off digestive alarms in five different species would’ve driven me crazy. He’d not only managed that but had turned what he found into culinary masterpieces. Too bad he would leave after the summit. I would miss him, and I wasn’t sure what I regretted losing more—his great food or his dramatic pronouncements.
“Main course! Pan-seared chicken with golden potatoes.”
Beneger surrendered to his fate and attacked the chicken. At the far end of the table, Caldenia put an entire drumstick in her mouth and pulled it out, the bone completely clean. Sophie, wearing a lovely seafoam-green gown, watched her in morbid fascination.
The smell was too much. If I didn’t get some of this chicken, it would be a crime.
Cookie and Nuan Cee’s guest reached the back door. I opened it for them and made sure they had a straight shot to the ballroom. At my feet Beast sat up. Apparently the new intruder smelled odd.
“Easy,” I murmured.
Beast wagged her tail.
Cookie appeared in the doorway and scampered in, adorably fluffy. The creature behind him was anything but. Seven feet tall, he wore armor, but not the rigid high-tech metal of the holy knights. No, this armor was made with maximum flexibility in mind. Obsidian black, it coated him, mirroring the muscles of his body, thickening slightly to reinforce the neck and shield the outside of the arms and the chest. At first glance it looked woven, like high-tech fabric, but when he moved, the light rippled on it, fracturing into thousands of tiny scales shimmering with green. It sheathed him completely, flowing seamlessly into clawed gauntlets on his huge hands and angling into a semblance of boots on his feet. A charcoal-gray half-tabard half-robe draped the armor, embroidered with a rich green pattern. The tabard left his arms free and narrowed at the waist, where it was caught by a decorative cloth belt and flowed down. It split over his legs so a single long piece hung down in front while the rest of the fabric obscured his sides and back, falling to his ankles, its hem tattered and frayed. The tabard came with a hood that rested on the newcomer’s head. I looked into it.
He had no face.
Darkness filled the hood, an impenetrable, ink-black darkness that hovered there like a living thing. It was as if the creature himself had no muscle or bone but was formed from jet-black cosmos and held together by his armor alone.
Everyone froze.