[ His own sword is a court sword, more for dress than for use, but it's meticulously kept and sharpened and it's still a sword. He'll go back to the shortsword he favours after this, the reminds himself. It looks a little less stately but it would feel a lot more comfortable in his hand when facing down an assassin.

And it is an assassin, or else the nobility they're hosting have a terrible sense of humour that's going to get them killed. He catches that movement, a vampire floating ahead. Undetected by the castle, because they've done something to it to keep it from sensing people unless their feet touch ground.

They move into a shadow, and then? They're gone. Not difficult to see but entirely gone, dissolved into the shadow. ]

Castle. The door we just passed through. Open it to the princes' quarters. Keep the light closest to the door lit, even if you have to burn something to do it.