“I ran down, like, ten Black Circle mages!”
“So that’s bad driving, then.”
“Here,” I said, coming up with a bag from the shop downstairs.And putting a clip-on tie in place of the one Lee couldn’t abide.Unfortunately, he was feeling excited, so it abruptly changed from a nice, glossy black to a bright, canary-yellow.
I sighed.
“I like it,” he told me.“Now I just need something red.”
“Here,” Sophie said, pulling a rose off one of the gorgeous arrangements Dante’s had provided, and probably put on Sebastian’s tab, for the occasion.She went up on tiptoe to fix it to Lee’s lapel and smiled.“Now you look fancy.”
“I’d rather look tough.”
She pulled his head down and kissed him on the forehead.“You’re plenty tough.”
And I swear, I saw him blush.
“Okay,” Cyrus said, coming in the same little antechamber we’d waited in before.“We’re gonna try this again.”
“Second verse same as the first?”Andy asked.
“God, I hope not.Now line up—you’re all going in together.”
“No more auxs,” Sophie said with satisfaction, and got her sequined butt in line.
Everybody jostled together in no particular order, because it didn’t matter anymore.And then Ulmer rushed in, his arms full of something that shimmered scarlet under the lights and was banded by heavy gold braid.“Here.Everybody else has already got theirs.”
“What is it?”I asked after being handed something that looked like it should adorn a Miss Nevada.A very tacky one.
“It’s a sash, smart ass.You wear it over one shoulder.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?”Ulmer glared at me, and not his patented, ‘I’m over this shit’ look he wore all the time.He was putting some oomph behind it.
“I mean, is anyone else going to be wearing this?”
“I should damned well hope not!Unless you know some other clan being presented tonight that defeated the whole damned Black Circle—”
“The local branch.”
“—and did it with a bunch of tatted together crap that I’m surprised could even move—”
“Hey!”Noah said.
“—and with a bunch of goddamned ex-vargulfs, half of which are toothless, sightless, and hard of hearing—”
“And badass,” I said with the wolf in my voice.
And surprisingly, the old bastard’s face softened.“And badass,” he agreed.“The greatest bunch of unlikely warriors we’ve seen in...my recollection.This clan you two have somehow hobbled together from spit and baling wirewill go down in Were legend.Hell, after the last month, it’s already there!”
I stared at him, speechless for a moment.Ulmer didn’t give compliments.I hadn’t thought he knew what they were.
“Not legend,” Cyrus said.“Legends are for the past.This is about the future.”
“To the future!”Several voices echoed, and Ulmer glanced around approvingly.He always liked it when a clan listened to their chieftain.
“Yes, but that doesn’t explain what this is,” I pointed out, holding up the sash.
