It didn’t look like he was planning on leaving any time soon.

“How’d you get in here?” Johnny demanded as he repositioned himself to shield me from Menessos’s view. He stripped off his overshirt and gave it to me. “She reinstated the wards. And I locked the cellar door.”

I shot my arms into the shirt’s sleeves and started buttoning.

“I have my ways.” The vampire was smiling; though I couldn’t see him from behind Johnny, I could tell by the tone of his voice.

“Forget how,” I said, pushing past Johnny. “Why?”

“I’d like to have Xerxadrea’s hanky. The one with my blood.” He added, “Please.”

“Why do you want it?” I asked.

“She nearly lost it once already and the fairies could”—he flashed a glance at Johnny—“use it against me, magically. To keep that from happening, it must be destroyed. I prefer burned.”

“Déjà vu,” Johnny said. “I’m sensing a theme here. Red keeps ending up with things that are dangerous to you, and you want them burned. First the stake. Now the hanky. I bet it was some firebug like you who started the whole witch-burning thing way back when.”

“Fire destroys. Water cleanses. Air distributes. Earth absorbs. All equally effective at releasing the threat, but fire is the fastest, surest method.” Menessos crossed his ankles; the movement caused my aura to ripple like the surface of water.

At the Eximium I’d shielded using something akin to the witch hand-jolt—a “friendly” way to assess someone else’s power—and found I was able to reduce the effects of the vampire’s presence. I drew that jolt-shield tight around me as I darted back into the kennel and bent to pick up the discarded bustier. I’d tucked the hanky in my costume earlier and hadn’t even considered it when being undressed. I searched the velvet top. The hanky had remained in the bustier.