Without turning around to survey the crowd just yet, I went on to describe some of the other guests. “Tall, straight shoulder-length dark hair, huge dark eyes, cream-colored suit, distant look to him like a cat watching things humans can’t see.”

Harry looked around casually, then nodded. “I see him.”

“That’s Kuran Kaname, easily one of the most dangerous people in this building.”

He raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

“Vampire,” I elaborated simply.

“What court?” Thomas interjected immediately.

I shook my head again. “That’s not how it works where he’s from,” I explained. “He’s what’s called a Pureblood. Vampirism is hereditary, and he’s the progenitor of his bloodline.” I stopped myself before I got too technical with superfluous details. “The point is that I’ve seen him explode people with a thought, and while it was pretty, ‘cause all the pieces turned to little gems, it’s not something I want happening tonight.”

That got some attention, and eyebrows twitched up on foreheads. After a moment, Harry nodded. “Okay, what else?”

I sighed, thinking, and cast my gaze around quickly, a fake smile making the gesture look like a laugh. “Tall, short blonde hair, flannel and jeans, next to taller, shoulder-length brown hair. Over by the table between the stairs and the balcony doors? With the punch bowl?”

“Yeah.”

“The Winchesters. Brothers. They basically have your job, but with less magic and more violence. They like guns. The serious-looking trench coat with them is Castiel, an angel of the Lord.”

He sputtered for a second or two.

“The God of their world is an asshole. Goes by Chuck. They’re going to kill him,” I boasted with no small amount of pride.

“You can kill God?” Butters asked, and I couldn’t tell if he was flabbergasted or just deeply skeptical.

“You can’t,” I confirmed and corrected, “They can, with some help.” I glanced over at them again. “It looks like Charlie is with them, too.”

“God-killing super-bitch?” Thomas guessed with some trepidation.

“No,” I answered, drawing the word out with a patient half-smile. “Technically, she’s dead at present, so they might be from the past. She’s human, but far from ‘regular.’ Super hacker. See the other redhead?”

“Which other redhead?” he asked, and I watched a slow smile spreading as he counted them.

I rolled my eyes with equal parts affection and irritation, then answered, “Boho chic, social anxiety.”

A pause in which they each surreptitiously scanned the room, and Thomas confirmed with an appreciative nod, “Uh-huh.”

“Willow Rosenberg,” I said.

“From Buffy the Vampire Slayer?” he asked dubiously, apparently snapped out of his contemplative eye-wandering by his surprised disbelief.

“The very same.” I nodded solemnly. “I can only guess where she’s from on her timeline, but she’s probably post-Tara, post-dark Willow, so not a trifling witch.” A beat, then I went on in an aside, “We have a handful of other magic-users from several different systems of magic, so I have no idea how things are going to work if anyone starts trying to sling spells.”

“Everything seems fine to me,” Harry said after a pause.

“I haven’t noticed anything off, either,” Asra chimed in with a shrug and slight shake of his head.

“Oh,” I said, sounding cheery, if a bit lost and confused, “That’s something.” 

I took a few seconds to scan the room again surreptitiously and spotted a shadowy figure on the opposite side of the room from the Winchesters between a set of open balcony doors and another pair of double doors — these closed — on our left and past the dancing and most of the crowd. 

He only didn’t appear to be skulking in the corner he’d found due to his haughty, regal bearing, the stylish, expensive-looking wizardliness of his garb, and the shock of his fine, straight white hair. I didn’t have to be close enough to see his eyes to know they were red, or his house insignia to know which one he belonged to. 

I went on with my infodumping, directing my question at Harry. “You haven’t read the War of the Spider Queen series, have you?” I posed it as a dubious statement.

“No,” he confirmed leadingly.

“I have,” Butters volunteered, not quite sheepishly.

I nodded. “Pharaun Mizzrym of Menzoberranzan is here,” I told the Jedi Knight of the Cross.

“An actual dark elf?” he asked dubiously, following my gaze toward said dark elf.

I nodded again, then went on to explain to the rest of the group. “He’s nobility, of a sort, and a three five wizard. I don’t know his exact current level, but he’s not a nice person, so keep him in front of you.”

“Uh-huh,” Harry said, the vocalization carrying worlds of skepticism. “What’s with the Trekkie convention?” he asked, nodding behind me in the direction of some uniformed officers taking in their surroundings and looking like they should be scanning with tricorders. 

They stood under some archways that obviously led somewhere else in the stately address in which we found ourselves, lit only by the moon and starlight filtering in through apparently huge windows, but I didn’t look long or closely enough over my shoulder to notice much beyond the twinkling of another chandelier and the soft light falling on the marble, making it appear blue. 

“Lieutenant Commander Data, Commander Riker, and Captain Picard, looks like,” I answered matter-of-factly upon facing forward again.

His brow furrowed and his head tilted and slid back on his neck as he gave me a look that said I’d clearly lost my mind. “You’re serious,” he accused, disbelieving but still sure of himself.

I blinked at him a few times with a patient smile and made no other reply.

He shook himself, blinking wide eyes with a cheek puffed sigh as he recovered. “Alright,” he muttered, more a surrender to me, the obvious nutcase, of the argument than a real concession. “Who else do we watch out for?” he asked, returning to practical matters.

“There’s a handful of other elves, some of whom are twitchy, a couple other humans who can handle themselves in a fight, and a whole hell of a lot of vampires,” I answered.

“What court?” Harry repeated Thomas’ earlier question.

I pursed my lips, thinking of how best to explain. “Of the Black, Red, and White Courts,” I decided, “I’ve only seen one here tonight. He’s White Court,” I said pointedly, looking at Thomas, but casually, as though I might have been talking about anyone. I went on, “Curly black hair, dark blue eyes, ridiculous ‘come hither’ getup, trailed by a blonde who keeps half his face covered by hair. Probably equally absurd costuming.”

“They’re in a group with five other men and a woman,” Harry reported after spotting them.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “They’re mostly lycanthropes, and the woman is Anita Blake, a necromancer who eats sex like White Court.”

“Lycanthropes?” Butters asked, “Like, werewolves?”

“There’s no such thing,” Harry answered quickly, as one very much in the know. “Come on, you know that,” he added as one very much disapproving of his less in-the-know friend.

I leveled him with a tight-lipped expression of disapproval for a moment, blinking purposefully, then turned to Butters, “Yes, like werewolves,” I answered, then glanced over at the group before I added, “Also wereleopards.”

Harry gave me a look that said he thought I might be an idiot on top of being crazy, but I watched as he let go of the argument and returned to the discussion at hand. “Okay… What about Puffy Shirt and Goth Lite?”

I grinned. “Do not call them that.” The grin didn’t subside completely, but I went on anyway. “The dark haired one is Jean-Claude, the blonde is Asher.”

“And they’re vampires,” he clarified dubiously.

“Yes.”

“What… kind of vampires?” he asked after choosing his words more carefully, clearly more interested in gaining information from me than arguing his rightness in the matter of categories in vampires. They can be taught.

I gave it another few seconds of thought as to how best to explain, then said, “Asher is more closely related to Black Court, but with Jean-Claude, take the Black Court and the White Court and smoosh them together.”

His expression took on some concern, and he may have shuddered. “I don’t think I want to know, but I have to ask,” he divulged, “What does that mean?”

My smile turned impish. “All the strengths of each, all the weaknesses.”

“All the hungers?” Thomas asked meaningfully.

“Just so,” I confirmed, nodding once. “They aren’t the picky eaters our resident White Court member is, either,” I added meaningfully through my eyebrows. “Everyone is probably fair game, especially if Anita gets out of control, which she has an embarrassing tendency to do.”

Harry made a face, and he might have shuddered again. I didn’t blame him.

“The supernatural went public at some point in the history of their world, so they’ll behave themselves,” I assured them, directing the statement to my whole group of listeners.

“And if they don’t?” Marcone asked to point out.

“The usual fare,” I answered with a shrug of one shoulder. “Holy water, stakes, crosses, head or heart.” I paused, thinking. “I don’t remember their take on garlic, but if that’s what you’re using, you’re already dead.” Another pause. “The weres are even less likely to act out, but they can heal anything that isn’t silver or immediately fatal.” I sighed, my shoulders sagging. “Honestly, if anything goes down and we can’t get out in point zero six seconds, most of us are dead, and that’s after the likely orgy.”

“Thus the importance of conducting ourselves like civilized people,” Marcone said pointedly to Dresden.

“We’re attracting attention,” Lucio pointed out warily, his back turned to us so he could scan the crowd defensively, “standing around in a big clump like this.”

“We should all leave,” Thomas advised. “As soon as now would be good.”

I had a feeling, like the ghost of an itch on the back of my neck, but it was an understanding rather than a sensation. “I… don’t think we’ll be able to.”

“Why not?”

I shrugged. “Call it a hunch.”

“We should at least try,” Dresden agreed, turning to leave and grabbing my hand as he went. “Come on.”

“Harry,” I protested, digging my heels in.

He stopped and shot me an impatient look over his shoulder.

“If Jerry notices me missing from the party, he’s bound to suspect something and come looking for me,” I explained.

“Oh,” he said, releasing my hand. “Right. Stay here. I’ll come back for you once I’ve found a way out.”

I gave him a wry half-smile and raised an eyebrow. “Yes, sir, Mr. Big Scary Man, sir.”

He blinked at me, clearly unsure whether to smile or to glower, settling for a confused brow-furrowed half-frown.

I put my empty palms up and ducked my head in wordless surrender, not quite an apology.

“Thomas,” he said, deciding to get back to giving orders instead of figuring out exactly what he thought of me, “Butters, you stay here, too. Keep an eye out for trouble.”

“And then what?” Butters asked pointedly.

“We’ll figure it out,” he guessed with a shrug.

Thomas shook his head. “I’m coming with you.”

I smiled with a fond warmth and decided to help avert the argument before it got legs under it. “If I may be so bold, Lord Raith, would you indulge me with a dance?”

The brothers both cast a look at me. Thomas’ was one of reproval, and Harry’s that of relief and gratitude. They argued silently between themselves for several more glances, and when Harry turned to leave again, Thomas rounded on me with a dazzling smile.

“I’ve never been one to refuse a lady’s request,” he said cordially, bowing slightly over his offered arm.

“You’re a gentleman of unparalleled graciousness,” I flattered, taking his arm. “Excuse us,” I said to Julian as we departed toward the dancing, both softer and more sincere, and with a reassuring squeeze to his arm as we passed.

“Of course, my dear,” he replied, probably on reflex, looking and sounding bemused, like he hadn’t quite caught on to the game yet, and that concerned him. He also didn’t seem to enjoy watching me leave on a strange man’s arm, but I was sure he trusted me enough not to let it worry him, and I hoped he enjoyed watching me go enough not to let it bother him.

When we’d moved a few paces off, I continued to Thomas in hushed tones, “I hope you’ll forgive me.”

“For what, pray tell?” he asked, playing dumb.

“Well, I’m a terrible dancer for one,” I confessed, “And for stealing you away from your brother before you could argue your way into backing him up.”

His eyebrows tried to escape his forehead, but he recovered quickly into amused dubiousness, making the whole thing look intentional. “My brother?” he scoffed, then he began a lie. “You mean Dresden? Please, we look nothing alike.”

I held up one hand with a soft expression, forestalling further protests. “Half-brother,” I conceded. “You don’t need to lie for my sake,” I explained with a small shake of my head.

We reached the dance floor and he swept me into a practiced form. His eyes darkened as I watched, but he feigned laughing off the absurd notion. “Why do you say that?”

I shrugged one shoulder. “Because I already have the information,” I answered, “Pretending I don’t would be silly, don’t you think?”

A silence fell, taking his smile with it, and a tension rose between us.

“What do you want?” he asked, voice low and dangerous.

My eyebrows took a turn at trying to escape my forehead. The bafflement quickly turned to amusement, and I didn’t try to contain my laugh. He thought I was blackmailing him. “Want?” I repeated, taking my turn at laughing off the ridiculous idea. “My dear Thomas, I have everything I want.”

“Oh?” he challenged. “What’s that?”

“I’m dancing with you,” I answered softly, injecting a cheesy amount of meaning and affection into the thing. Then I continued, attempting a save. “I’ve had a lovely conversation with you and Harry and Butters, and I’ve met half a dozen other people I never would’ve been able to otherwise.” I searched his face for a moment, meeting his gaze pointedly before finishing, “I’ve looked into your eyes now, and I can’t ask for anything more.”

There was a solemn silence in which he both processed what I’d said and waited for the other shoe to drop.

“When the night is over, I want nothing more than to see you safely home, with your Justine, and everyone else back where they belong, with the people who love them,” I added, doing my best to convince him of my sincerity simply by doing nothing to disguise it.

He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “How did you come into this information?” he asked, no small amount of wonder in the question, and a decidedly large amount of suspicion. Also notably still not committed one way or another to the truth of the knowledge.

I shrugged, though the turn he led me through made the gesture awkward and muddled it, and I wasn’t sure he saw it. “It’s complicated.”

“Another alternate reality thing,” he guessed, though he sounded sardonically sure of himself.

“Indeed,” I confirmed weightily rather than participate in his joke.

“How do I know you aren’t lying?” he pointed out. I couldn’t tell if he was honestly testing or fishing for other information, or merely making idle conversation, or even simply poking more fun at me. 

It didn’t matter which. “You overestimate me,” I answered, leaning into the humor with an apologetic smile, “I’m an even worse liar than I am a dancer.”

He had a lop-sided smile at that. “You’re not a bad dancer at all,” he informed me with equal parts humor and suspicion. 

I gave a conciliatory head bob. “Perhaps I am lying, and I do want something from you,” I conceded for sake of argument. “Wouldn’t I have made my demands already? What do you have that I could want?”

“Power,” he answered easily. “Influence.”

I scoffed. “You can’t share the first, and you have little of the second.”

He regarded me through a narrowed eye, his head tilted quizzically.

“Is it so impossible to believe that I only want to be close to you for a moment?”

I watched his expression admit that, in fact, it wasn’t difficult to believe at all. After a pause, he half marveled, “You’re really just a regular old human, huh?”

“Just a normie in a pretty dress with a penchant for theatrics,” I agreed with a cheerfully self-deprecating smile.

“What the hell are you doing in a place like this? And how do you know about…” He made a frustrated noise, clearly unable to decide which tidbit was most unbelievable for me to have in my proverbial database. “Everything. The Accords, me, Harry, even Butters being a Knight?”

“I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you.”

He looked like he wanted to argue, but the dance ended, and we faced each other, breaking our frame. He bowed politely, and I curtsied with equal politeness, and before either of us rose, we were interrupted by another figure approaching.

“Might I have the honor of the next dance...” he asked when he stopped a conversational equidistance between myself and Thomas, cheating out toward me only slightly. He bowed even as I rose and finished, “dear lady?”

“Damian,” I exclaimed breathlessly, delight and giddy nervousness warring for control of my expression. They agreed on the grin, so there wasn’t any hope for me to fight it down. “Of course,” I stammered, glancing to my partner. “If you don’t mind, Thomas.”

“Not at all,” he replied graciously, “I’m sure you’ll have another chance to corner me later.” He kissed the back of my glove, his gaze fixed on my face all the while with a fond, knowing smile.

“Please,” I said, waving between them with my free hand, “Thomas, meet Damian, one of Jean-Claude’s, presently of St. Louis. Damian, this is Thomas Raith, presently of Chicago, heir to House Raith of the White Court of Vampires.”

“I see,” Damian lied graciously and gave a small bow. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Raith.”

Thomas inclined his head in an equally gracious nod, acknowledging the other vampire's formality. “A pleasure, I’m sure,” he replied with a winning smile. “One can never have too many friends in our variety of circles,” he added meaningfully and with a touch of playful irony.

They exchanged a guarded nod that was all stiff smile and Thomas departed the floor, leaving me somewhat alone and in very close proximity with Damian, who offered his hand.

My heart fluttered almost painfully in my chest, and I caught myself staring, taking in the details of his face, just shy of too beautiful to be masculine, the nearly artificial look of his bright red hair, loose and settled comfortably about his shoulders and down his back. My gaze darted purposefully over rather than lingering on the striking, fiery green of his eyes, my hand paused breathlessly over his rather than touching his upturned palm.

He gave me a smile that was probably meant to be reassuring, but it made me gasp, and my breath caught in my chest halfway through it. I blinked and looked down at our hands, placing mine gingerly in his, and he closed form with me so smoothly that I hardly noticed. 

My breathing and knees got shaky and I felt nausea coming on, but he was polite enough not to comment. “I must have done something interesting to catch your attention, my lord,” I noted to his shoulder with a self-deprecating laugh in my voice, “I have to wonder what it could have been.”

“Not something you did, exactly,” he hedged, sounding pleased about something. 

A pause in which he turned me and I didn’t trip. 

“Then, why ask me to dance?” I pressed, “I’m sure you have no want for partners.” I couldn’t help the knowing tease or the glance I shot in Anita’s direction.

“I want to know more about you,” he answered easily, either not getting or ignoring my reference to his ‘complicated’ relationship, partner, mistress, weird mystical slave-owner… thing. With Anita.

“Are you sure?” I teased some more, “I’m afraid I’ll disappoint you.”

“I’d have to have expectations for that to be possible,” he quipped.

“I suppose that’s true,” I conceded. “What would you like to know?”

“You seem well-acquainted with power, and those who wield it,” he observed, possibly alluding to my apparent acquaintance with one calling himself by one of Lucifer’s monikers, possibly subtly hinting that he’d been listening in on my conversation with Anita and Jean-Claude, possibly implying any number of other things. “Tell me, what do you think of ours?”

“Ours?” I repeated, making it a question, sounding a little breathless from nerves and hoping he’d mistake it for the exertion of the dancing.

“My kind,” he answered, “The ones who have walked through centuries. You seem to understand power well enough. What do you make of ours?”

“It both fascinates and terrifies me.” I could practically feel my eyes sparkling with earnestness.

The corner of his mouth twitched in a smile. “A wise answer,” he congratulated.

The chuckle that escaped me held nervous mischief. “If by ‘wise’ you mean ‘diplomatic,’ then yes, I agree.” I followed him through a switch of direction and the arrangement of our limbs before I added with a self-deprecating half-smile, “There’s nothing wise about dancing with this many devils.”

“Perhaps not,” he allowed, evidently unfazed. “That’s only speaking generally, though. Might I ask you to be more specific?”

“You might,” I teased. “In what sense?”

“Jean-Claude, our master,” he answered, a casual, off-the-cuff example. Right. “You seem... perceptive. I wonder, what do you think of his power?”

My smile turned warmly fond, but kept all its impishness. “As I understand it,” I said, “he’s asked that you not call him that.”

He raised a suspicious eyebrow at me and waited for a real answer.

I gave it a beat or two of thought before I obliged him. “I think he’s both wise in collecting it — his power, I mean, and a fool in the sources he chooses,” I confessed, daring boldly, delighted and shooting a meaningful glance in the direction of Richard and Anita.

His eyes glinted with a mixture of amusement and challenge. “You certainly have a way of putting things,” he said, his tone smooth but edged with a hint of irony. “It’s not often someone speaks so freely about matters others might tread carefully around. Your candor is noted.”

“Have I offended you?” I asked sweetly, unable to resist batting my eyes. 

If he’d caught onto all of my implications, he’d noticed that I’d accused Jean-Claude of being particularly dependent on his triumvirate, perhaps even relatively powerless without it, impulsive in his choices of human servant and wolf to call, perhaps even disastrously so, and unwilling to ‘bring his human servant under control,’ perhaps even due to an inability rather than a simple lack of interest. He might be offended, but he might also agree, at least secretly. Once upon a time, he’d resented Jean-Claude. I’d never blamed him. Calling someone four hundred years your junior ‘master’ had to smart.

A pause in which he considered me with barely narrowed eyes and I reminded myself not to look directly at them.

“How do you feel about rude questions?” he asked, careful and melodic.

My heart lurched and my mind raced trying to guess his intended question. Out loud, I said, “Sometimes I enjoy them.” I couldn’t fight down the stretching playful smile.

“How old are you?”

I blinked, taken aback. “My, that is rude.” A pause. “By my last count, I’m thirty. Tell me you don’t believe me,” I finished with a girlish conspiracy.

“That would seem quite impossible,” he agreed.

“Flatterer,” I accused without hesitation, both coyly and sincerely.

“If you were born in the year nineteen ninety, you’d only be a child,” he elaborated to explain. “What are you lying about?”

“I’m not lying,” I protested honestly, cheerfully affronted, “You can tell I’m not lying. I was born thirty years ago, in February of nineteen ninety. I’m on the cusp of Pisces and Aquarius, but I’m very much a Pisces,” I divulged with some good-humored self-critical eye rolling.

“What led you to believe that we’re hosted this evening by the Devil himself?” he asked next, and I couldn’t tell if it was because he believed me about my age or he didn’t want to argue about it.

“We are,” I answered simply, softly emphatic. “Be careful of him. I don’t know what all he’s capable of, but it shouldn’t come to violence if you don’t ask for it.”

“Sound advice at any occasion,” he agreed.

I nodded humbly my acknowledgement of the compliment.

There was a thoughtful pause in which I tried not to think about his hand on my back, or mine on his shoulder, or our nearly touching palms, separated only by the thin layer of fabric of my gloves. I mostly succeeded, though that should probably be attributed more to the distraction of following his expert lead rather than any mental discipline on my part.

“Would you be offended if I asked what you’re being honored for tonight?” he asked, seeming careful not to sound suspicious. 

“Not at all,” I answered, “but I’m afraid I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“Surely Mr. Farnsworth would have told you,” he pressed, “Perhaps it was on your invitation?”

I gave the barest regretful shake of my head. “I never got one. I don’t even know how I came to be here this evening,” I divulged just above a whisper. A moment later, I banished the worried look on my face with a smile. “Must we talk about me? I’d much rather talk about you. How are you and yours enjoying the party?”

“I’m having a lovely time,” he assured me, and for all the world, I couldn’t tell whether or not he was sincere.

“Oh, good, I’m glad,” I said, relieved. “Are you all here with Anita, or do you have a date you’re neglecting to talk to me?”

“To my knowledge, I’m not here with anyone,” he answered, too neutrally dismissive for me to even begin to guess how he actually felt about it.

The song ended and he bowed, releasing my hand and waist. I curtsied in reply, and as he opened his mouth to try to take back the conversation with more questions, I said, “Then I hope it wouldn’t be an imposition for me to ask you to escort me to the powder room.”

“Certainly not,” he assured me, offering his arm, “It would be my pleasure.” I might have imagined a twinge of irritation from him, but I sighed in relief at my apparent escape, both from his overwhelmingly pleasant proximity and his lighthearted interrogation.