44. The Summons
Chapter forty-four
The Summons
For a moment, no one moves. Not House MacGowan. Not Sebastian Ashcroft. Not Duncan or even Mrs. MacLeod standing rigid on the steps.
Not Tristan beside me, gone so still he might have been carved from the same stone as Glenhaven.
The parchment waits between us. Red wax. Black ribbon. A summons from a world I did not know existed days ago.
The woman in the ivory coat holds it with both gloved hands patiently. Terrifyingly so.
“My Lady,” she says again.
I look at Tristan. He looks at the parchment, not at me.
“Tristan?” I whisper.
His eyes close once. Then he turns to me. Whatever fear I saw in him a moment ago is gone, locked and buried behind a face of perfect control.
“Don’t take it unless you choose to,” he says quietly.
The woman’s gaze flicks to him.
“Lord Sinclair!”
A warning. But Tristan does not look away from me.
“She is new to this.”
“She is the Ninth Seat.”
“She is a mortal who has been given no preparation.”
“She has been recognized.”
“By whom?”
The question snaps through the courtyard. The white-haired man with the cane studies Tristan with pale, ancient eyes.
“By Glenhaven Castle.”
Cold moves through me. Not from the cool air. Not from fear exactly. I feel it beneath my boots, in the stone, in the old walls behind me.
The impossible sense that this castle has been waiting.
“I’ve been recognized for what?” I ask.
Every face turns to me. Good. If I am going to be terrified, I might as well be loud about it. The woman in ivory looks at me with something almost like approval.
“You’ve been recognized as a lawful voice.”
“I bought this place at auction. Online. It was supposed to be vacant and in disrepair.”
“So we’ve been told.”
“That doesn’t sound like ancient destiny or a lawful voice. That sounds like a clerical disaster.”
Julian MacGowan makes the mistake of laughing softly. His uncle silences him with a glance.
Sebastian Ashcroft watches me with delighted calculation, which makes me want to hit him with the nearest medieval object.
The woman does not smile. “The manner of transfer is unusual.”
“Try absurd.”
“But valid.”
Duncan steps forward. “Under whose authority?”
The white-haired man answers. “The Council’s.”
Duncan’s face tightens. “Convenient.”
Tristan shifts closer to me. The gesture steadies something inside me. The woman extends the parchment another inch closer.
“You are summoned to appear before the Council in the dungeons here, in the secret Accord chamber, on the fifth night from now.”
“Absolutely not,” Tristan says. The air changes. Even the horses in the stable yard quiet.
The woman turns her head.
“Keeper, you know the law. And you know refusal has consequences.”
“I know intimidation when I hear it, dressed as procedure.”
Her eyes cool.
“You forget yourself.”
“No,” Tristan says. “I remember precisely who and what I am.”
The words land with weight. Keeper. Vampire. Laird. Protector.
The white-haired man taps his silver cane once against the stone. “Lord Sinclair, your centuries of service are not in question today.”
“Then do not insult them by treating Miss Monroe as a seal on a document.”
“She is not being treated as a seal. She’s being treated as a prize.”
The words strike too close. Ashcroft’s expression does not change, but I see the flicker in his eyes. The darkness that moves through his face is swift and terrible.
The woman in ivory speaks again.
“This summons was issued before any House petition could be heard. No faction owns it. No faction controls it.”
“Yet,” Hamish MacGowan says quietly.
Everyone looks at him. His expression is grave. “Lord Sinclair is not wrong. The Seat has changed hands under extraordinary circumstances. If Miss Monroe appears unprepared, half the Council will attempt to shape her before she understands the game.”
“The Council does not play games,” the white-haired man says.
Julian MacGowan murmurs, “An excellent joke, if unintended.”
His uncle gives him another lethal look.
I inhale slowly. Five nights. My brain tries to process the words and fails completely, so it does what it always does under stress.
It makes a list.
Problem one: vampires are real and they have a Council.
Problem two: I slept with one and must admit I’ve fallen in love with him.
Problem three: I apparently bought a castle that came with a supernatural government role.
Problem four: the castle may be choosing me for some reason, which feels rude.
Problem five: everyone is arguing about me like I’m not standing here.
I reach out and take the parchment. Tristan’s entire body goes still. The wax is cold beneath my fingers.
The woman in ivory inclines her head.
“Wise.”
I look at her. “I didn’t say I was attending.”
Her expression does not change. “No. But you have accepted knowledge of the summons.”
“That sounds like a trap.”
“It is law.”
Tristan is looking at the parchment in my hand as if it’s a blade. I break the seal. Duncan makes a soft, strangled sound.
“What?” I ask.
“One traditionally allows counsel to inspect—”
“I’m having a day, Duncan.”
“Aye,” he mutters.
I unfold the parchment. The writing is black, formal, and surprisingly brief.
By authority of the Council and recognition of Glenhaven’s ancient charge, the lawful holder of the Ninth Seat is required to appear before Council in the dungeons of Glenhaven, in the Accord chamber, on the fifth night hence.
The Seat shall be heard.
The Seat shall be tested.
The Seat shall appear, or the Accord shall consider itself broken.
At the bottom are nine marks on a circle. The same carving in the chapel and apparently on the Accord document.
“Tested?” I ask coldly. No one answers quickly enough. I look up. “What does tested mean?”
The woman in ivory studies me.
“That will be determined by Council.”
“No.” The word comes from Tristan. Our eyes meet. For half a second, despite everything, something fierce and intimate flashes between us. Then he turns back to the envoys.
“No test will be placed upon her without terms disclosed in advance.”
“You do not dictate Council procedure,” the white-haired man says.
“I do when procedure enters Glenhaven Castle.”
“Glenhaven Castle has already answered.”
The bell suddenly tolls beneath us. A single pulse through the stone. Everyone feels it. Even the ancient envoys go still.
The parchment warms in my hand. I gasp and nearly drop it.
Tristan catches my wrist. “Piper?”
The red wax seal darkens. The center mark at the bottom of the summons begins to bleed through the parchment in a thin line of crimson light.
No. Absolutely not. What the heck? I have limits.
“What is happening?” I whisper.
The woman in ivory stares at the parchment, all her composure gone.
“I don't know.”
Bad answer. Very bad answer.
Duncan steps closer, his face ashen.
“The chapel mark. The bell. The Seat responding physically.” He looks at Tristan. “My lord, this is older than Council law.”
The crimson line spreads, forming the same symbol. The same mark in the chapel. Tristan’s grip on my wrist tightens, not painfully. The warmth in the parchment flashes. Then stops.
Silence crashes down. The symbol remains, burned into the summons.
The woman in ivory lowers her head. Deeply.
The white-haired man does the same.
Hamish MacGowan follows. Julian too.
To my absolute shock, Sebastian Ashcroft bows, not charmingly but correctly.
Duncan goes very still beside me.
Mrs. MacLeod whispers something I cannot hear.
My heart is pounding so hard I feel dizzy.
“What just happened?” I ask.
Tristan’s face is pale with a kind of awe I have never seen in him. He looks at the symbol. Then at me.
“The Seat accepted you.”
“I did not apply. I did not consent to being accepted by architecture. This should be legally irrelevant.”
Duncan says weakly, “One would hope.”
The woman in ivory rises from her bow. When she speaks again, her voice has changed. It’s less formal, more careful.
“The Council will be informed that Glenhaven has marked its holder.”
“Marked?” I say. “What does that mean?”
She hesitates. The white-haired man answers. “It means the Council no longer merely requests her presence.” Cold spreads through me. “It requires it.”
Tristan steps forward. The movement is almost too fast to see. “You will choose your next words very carefully,” Tristan says.
“The Accord binds us all.”
“She is not bound by a world she does not understand. By a world she is not part of.”
“The mark says otherwise.”
“I don’t care what the mark says.”
The bell tolls again. Harder. The windows of Glenhaven rattle. Murphy barks. Mrs. MacLeod grabs the railing.
The ancient envoys look toward the castle with visible alarm. Tristan does not look away from them.
“Enough,” I say.
No one hears me. Or they hear and ignore me. Wrong choice. I step between Tristan and the envoys, holding the summons in my hand.
“Enough!” I shout.
This time, they all look. I’m shaking. I hate that. But I don’t step back.
“I’ve been lied to, sold a property under suspect circumstances, summoned, possibly chosen by a building, and threatened with consequences by people who arrived in cars but speak like haunted furniture.”
I point at the woman in ivory.
“You will tell your Council that I received the summons.”
“And your answer?”
“My answer is that I will consider it.”
The white-haired man stiffens. “That is not sufficient.”
“It’s what you get.”
There’s a dangerous silence. Tristan’s presence next to me is warm and still. If I were not terrified, I might love him for that. Actually, I love him anyway. Inconvenient timing.
“You have five nights,” the woman says.
“I heard you the first time.”
“If you do not appear—”
“Then what?” I ask, losing my patience.
Her eyes flick briefly to Tristan. I see it. Not a threat to me. A threat to him.
My blood turns cold.
“What happens if I don’t appear?” I ask again, quieter this time.
The woman in ivory looks at Tristan, then back at me.
“If the marked Seat refuses Council, the Keeper is deemed to have failed his charge.” The courtyard goes utterly still. I feel Tristan behind me go motionless in a way that terrifies me.
“And what does that mean?” I ask.
Duncan’s voice is rough. “It means they can remove him.”
My stomach drops. “Remove him from Glenhaven?”
No one answers. Tristan does.
“No,” he says softly. “From existence.”
The world tilts. For one second, I can’t breathe. They would kill Tristan if I don’t appear at their Convocation?
Then every piece of fear inside me turns into something sharp.
I look at the envoys. Then at Sebastian Ashcroft and the two MacGowans. At the whole ancient, polished, blood-soaked world that has decided to place Tristan’s life on one side of a scale and my obedience on the other.
“No!” I say.
The woman’s gaze narrows. “No?”
Tristan says my name behind me. I ignore him. I lift the summons. The crimson key glows faintly in the gray light.
“I will not be threatened into obedience.”
“The Accord—”
“I don't care.” A ripple moves through the courtyard. Even Ashcroft’s smile fades. “I will attend,” I say. Tristan inhales sharply.
I’ll not admit to these vampires that I’ll attend because they cannot kill Tristan, the man I love…
“I will attend not because your Council ordered me.” The symbol on the parchment warms again. I grip it tighter. “I will come because this is now my castle, apparently my Seat, and somebody is going to explain why the walls are ringing bells at me before I lose what’s left of my patience.”
There is silence, deep and complete.
Then Glenhaven answers.
Every window in the castle flares with pale red light. For one heartbeat, the entire entryway and courtyard is washed in it. The air hums.
The two ancient envoys drop to one knee.
House MacGowan and Duncan bow lower.
Sebastian Ashcroft stares at me, and for the first time since he stepped from his car, he looks afraid.
Tristan’s hand finds mine. I take it.
The light vanishes and fades. The woman in ivory rises slowly, her eyes fixed on me. The white-haired man inclines his head.
“I hereby decree, the Ninth Seat shall appear before Council in five nights.”
I look at Tristan. His face is pale, stunned, furious, and terrified. For me.
I squeeze his hand once. Then I look back at the vampires gathered in my courtyard.
“Yes,” I say. “I will.”
The bell tolls one final time. As answer.
And deep beneath Glenhaven, something ancient unlocks.