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“You said you didn’t want to go!”

“I didn’t.” I checked my suitcoat pockets, still looking for my cellphone. “Because Elder Olsson is a molding fool who is half in his coffin and only rouses himself awake once a decade. But you took all your minions and left me alone.”

“Youtoldme to take my children with me,” Vígí thundered.

I pulled my phone out of my left pocket and checked the time. “Yes, well, you should have known better. You didn’t even leave a servant on duty to see to any of my needs.”

That was by design, of course. I’d calculated both the party and the serving staff’s schedules to assure I’d be alone when I set the mansion on fire. I couldn’t have him thinking I had an accomplice. If he was at all suspicious about his people, it would become a lot harder for them to submit their reports to me.

Vígí stared, gape mouthed, at the inferno.

I watched his reaction with clinical interest.

Just how long is it going to take him to actuallydoanything?

Maybe he was even more dangerously lethargic than I’d thought. Just as well that I torched the place. If this didn’t rouse him, I’d need to resort to something even more drastic.

“You obviously aren’ttooupset,” I said, purposely poking him. “I’d thought for sure you’d put on a show trying to save all your precious historical replicas.”

Thatgot a reaction out of him.

Vígí turned in my direction, his shoulders rising as he audibly ground his teeth.

What’s this development? Has he truly lost his mind and is going to challenge me?

He’d been spending more time sleeping the past decade—that’s why I was here—but even if he was sighing over historic times he had hated, I assumed it was just the typical vampire melancholy and nothing more serious.

I put my cellphone back in my trouser pocket in delighted anticipation. It had been decades—no—centuries since any of the Dracos children had tried to attack me.

This could be fun.

Vígí balled his hands into fists, and I smiled at him—trying to inflict the maximum irritation to perhaps push him over the edge.

Vígí raised his chin, then froze when he looked me in the eyes.

To my immense disappointment, he immediately ducked his chin and looked down at the wilting grass of his lawn.

I double checked, making certain I was keeping my powers controlled and that they hadn’t slipped out with my momentary interest—warning Vígí just how dangerous his actions were. No, my advanced powers were still tidily in hand.

How disappointing. Though I suppose it’s a signVígí hasn’t completely lost his sensibilities.

“Sir?” A reed tall and thin vampire whose name I didn’t bother to remember—Vígí was an even bigger softy about turning humans than his sire had been, and as a result his vampire Family, the Dreki, was enormous—hovered at Vígí’s elbow. “Shall we do something?” Reedy-Vampire gestured at the still burning mansion.

The ten vampires that had accompanied Vígí when he stormed the glen waited with bated breath, their red eyes shining with hope as they watched their sire.

Disgusting, I thought.And nauseating. This is why young vampires are so annoying: they still have hope.

Vígí turned towards his blazing mansion. Once again, he drew his shoulders back—this time not in anger but determination. He stared at the mansion the way he used to stare down the Englishmen he so desperately wanted to punch in Victorian England.

“Clancey, call Jackson and tell him we need to pump water from the river to put out the fire,” Vígí barked. “Fleur, notify the sheriff—we don’t want human government getting informed of this by humans! Miguel, call up Katz—we will need the entire Dreki family for this. The rest of you, come. We’re walking the perimeter to take note of the damage.”

Vígí stomped off, so he didn’t notice when his underlings paused to bow to me.

The deference was normal for vampire culture—no one was as obsessed with power structures as vampires. But they bowed a littletoodeeply and muttered thanks to me as if they were reciting prayers, which was too much for it to be simple decorum.

“Stop it and go away,” I told them.

Vígí’s bright eyed children bowed again before they hurried off after their sire. “Perhaps we could turn on the lawn sprinkler system?” one of them suggested.