The last of the home- going guests had stumbled or been poured into waiting cars, with the elected sober at the wheels. The overnighters had gradually, sometimes unsteadily, and certainly reluctantly gone up to their assigned rooms. Cleanup having been postponed until the next morning, the servants— Jasmine Hall's and those borrowed or hired for the occasion—had called it a night and gone off to bed. The musicians, paid and tipped, had packed up noisily and left. And Banner, who had slipped away to remove her bulky costume as the last guests were dispersing, had returned to the library, where she knew her grandfather would be enjoying a few solitary moments before going to bed. She was going to have it out with him. She was barefooted, and dressed for bed in a fashionably overlarge sleep shirt that fell off one shoulder and hung to her knees, making her look even more petite than she was. And the martial light Rory had seen in her eyes had achieved the dubious distinction of looking very like the fires of hell.
