Remy had always had whatever everyone else was having. But Vince didn’t have to act like Remy anymore.

  The pumpkin beer had the virtue of being cheap. Unfortunately, in Vince’s opinion, that was its singular virtue. “I think I’ll try something else.”

  While the bartender went through what they had on tap and Vince chose something at random, he noticed two gloamists walking in. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw them spread out, their gaze sweeping the room, trying to spot someone with the description Vince had given. He supposed that they were attempting to be subtle, allowing their shadows to seem dormant, but Vince clocked them immediately. There was an energy to them, a dark swirling at the edges, like smoke trickling out from hidden hot embers beneath char.

  Knight Singh had promised to meet him alone. He’d lied. Which meant that Vince had very probably walked into a trap.

  He’d chosen this place because it was crowded, and was glad of it now. There couldn’t be many other people in the room—if any—without shadows. But so long as he stayed part of the crush at the bar, what he was lacking wouldn’t be apparent.

  Vince was glad he’d only described himself to Knight as “wearing a red scarf”—one which was still resting in his bag, waiting to be put on.

  He turned to the woman standing beside him. If he was part of a conversation, he’d give the gloamists another reason to overlook him. Around his age, her cheeks were flushed from the warmth of the room. She signaled to the bartender, who seemed to be aggressively ignoring her. Her licorice-black hair hung down her back and a tattoo of scarab beetles formed a collar just beneath her throat.

  Across the room, one gloamist had positioned himself near the entrance, and another was standing in front of an empty booth. Knight must be on his way.

  Vince raised his hand and somehow caught the bartender’s attention.

  “I think she’d like a drink,” he said.

  The woman flashed him a look he found hard to read.

  “A gin and tonic,” she said. “The cheapest gin you have, with three limes.”

  The bartender turned to Vince, and he realized that his second beer was half gone. He didn’t remember drinking it. He didn’t even remember if he’d liked it.

  “Bourbon. Neat,” he said, dredging that up from a movie or something. When it came, he learned that “neat” meant without ice.

  “I don’t usually order godawful drinks,” she told him, squeezing the first of the desiccated and slightly brown limes perched on the side of her glass.

  “So tonight’s special,” he said.

  That got him a quick smile. There and gone. And suddenly, Vince had the terrible certainty that he knew her. He couldn’t remember where, or under what circumstances, but they’d met before.

  The crowd surged in and he put one hand against the bar to brace himself. “You grow up around here?” It was not a particularly clever question, but maybe her answer would help him place her.

  The woman pushed back her mane of black hair and took a deep swallow of her drink, trying to avoid being shoved off the barstool by a guy on the other side of her. “Yeah, I’m a local. But I bet you’re not.”

  He nodded, tailoring his story to her lead. “Only been in town a few months.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “School?”

  He shifted position so that he was standing between her and the press of people. Got an elbow in the back for his trouble. Shook his head. “Looking to make a change.”

  “We’ve got a lot of asparagus.” She laughed at his puzzlement. “So much that they call it Hadley grass. There’s even a festival. And three different asparagus ice creams. That the kind of excitement you’re into?”

  “Sounds about the level I can handle.” The funny thing was, it might as well have been true that he wasn’t local, for all he’d seen of the towns.

  “I guess there’s an archery school. And a place where you can learn how to swing a broadsword.” There was a slight slur to her voice that made him wonder if the flush in her cheeks was as much from liquor as warmth.

  “In case I want to slay a dragon.”

  Her nails were ragged at the edges, the nail polish chipped from her biting them. “Do you?”

  A quick glance showed him that Knight Singh had arrived. He sat in a booth at the far end of the room. Knight’s people had positioned themselves in strategic locations so that once they spotted Vince, they could close in and cut him off from the exits. He counted five.

  Definitely a setup. Vince eyed the nearby fire door the crowd was trying to press him into.

  “Want to slay dragons?” he echoed. “I don’t want to slay anything.”

  The bartender walked by and dropped a receipt in front of her, and seemed about ready to ask Vince if he wanted another round.

  She lifted it and eyed the guy. “What’s this?”

  He shrugged. “Your bill.”

  “Maybe I wanted another drink,” she said, ground glass in her voice.

  “So pay for the last one.” He wore an arrogant little smile, aware he ruled the bar.

  She leaned toward him, her voice loud enough that people waiting for their drinks could hear her. “I’ve been sitting here watching you short pour the guests, give people the wrong change, use sour mix instead of lime juice, and wipe down the counters straight into the ice bin,” she told him, reaching into her bag and pulling out a handful of coins. “You’re going to burn in bartender hell.”

  “You’re drunk,” he said defensively.

  “If I am, it’s despite you.” She counted out what she owed in quarters and dimes, leaving him as many pennies as she could find at the bottom of her purse.

  She turned to Vince, and the fire hadn’t gone out of her eyes. “You think I’m petty, right?”

  He thought she was everything Remy had been afraid to be. “I think you’re a vigilante,” he said, smiling.

  She contemplated him for a long moment. “Come outside with me,” she said. “It’s too hot in here.”

  Vince was torn. If he left with her, Knight and his people would be less likely to spot him. Walking beside her, his missing shadow could be easily overlooked.

  But part of him wondered if Knight had come there expecting to be set up himself. If the gloamist was taking precautions instead of making a move against Vince, then the situation was still salvageable.

  What he wanted, though, was to go outside with the woman.

  He got out his wallet and threw down a couple of bills.

  She took his hand and led him toward the door.

  He watched the confident sway of her hips. She walked through the bar as though she expected everyone to get the hell out of her way. And, amazingly, they did. “I’m Vince,” he told her.

  But her gaze was on Knight Singh, recognition in her expression. Then her gaze slid back to Vince. “Charlie,” she said, pointing to herself. “Charlie Hall.”

  Vince had counted five gloamists, but that didn’t mean Knight hadn’t hired people who weren’t gloamists.

  People like Charlie.

  She might lead him around the back of the bar and sink a knife in his side. And if he was lucky, that was when Knight Singh’s people would restrain him and sell him back to Salt. If he wasn’t lucky, she’d have orders to finish him off.

  The cold air of the alley hit his face and he felt a rush of indifference toward risks. He liked her. He liked that she was mean and funny and willing to make a scene.

  He liked that she was nothing like him, or anyone from his old life.

  He liked her enough to follow her deeper into the alley, despite his suspicions. When she turned against the brick facade of the building and threw him a look that felt like a dare, he pressed her back against the wall and kissed her.

  Her lips were chapped. He could smell her perfume, something with smoke and roses in it. Her mouth tasted like gin.

  Knight Singh could go hang. Vince could make the exchange some other time.

  Drawing away, he looked down at her. Traced the line of scarabs across her collarbone. “Do you want to go somewhere?” he whispered against her hair, although he wasn’t sure where that would be. He’d spent the last night in a van. All he knew was that he wanted her.

  “Here,” she said softly, reaching for his belt.

  He wasn’t sure if she actually liked him. Maybe she just wanted to forget whatever sadness she’d come to the bar to drink away. He could make her forget.

  He concentrated on the hot rush of her breath.

  The softness of her hip when he lifted her.

  The scratch of the brick against his palm.

  He didn’t dare think about the past, and he wouldn’t let himself think about the future. All he let himself think of was her.

  30

  YE WHO ENTER HERE

  On Saturday night, Charlie pulled her mother’s station wagon to the curb far enough from Salt’s house that she didn’t think anyone would notice their arrival. Pressing her forehead to the steering wheel, she took a deep breath.

  Then she turned to her sister in the passenger seat. “You don’t have to do this.”

  Posey made a face. “You don’t either. At least I’m getting something out of it. I don’t know what you’re getting.”

  “A preemptive strike,” Charlie informed her.

  She knew Salt was perfectly capable of fulfilling all the worst of his promises. If she didn’t get this right, she might not have another chance.

  Charlie got out of the car. “See you later, alligator,” she said, leaning on the door.

  Posey grinned. “After a while, crocodile.”

  Charlie made her way along the side of the road, backpack slung over one shoulder. The closer she got to Salt’s fairy-tale castle of a house, the more clearly she remembered the last time she’d been there, the panic she’d felt running through those woods. The cockiness Rand had as they went inside. The churn of her guts.

  And there she was, years later, about to con her way into a party. Dressed in a scratchy white shirt, cheap black pants, and a vest, looking the picture of a cater waiter. She liked to think Rand would be proud.

  She’d spent all of Friday getting ready. Abandoning her collection of wigs, she’d gone to the mall and had a recent beauty school graduate give her a pixie cut. It made the back of her neck itch, but she definitely looked different. With that, she added a fresh round of Halloween makeup to cover her bruises and tucked all the supplies she thought she would need into her backpack. The swelling in her face had gone down a bit, and she was almost entirely sure that her rib was okay.

  She was doing great.

  Charlie tried to sink into character—resentful and underpaid employee arriving late to a gig to which she already regretted agreeing. It wasn’t that hard.

  As she swung through the open gates—which, she couldn’t help notice, were connected to a fence topped with what appeared to be an electric wire—she had almost convinced herself that it wouldn’t bother her to see the estate. Then it came into view and her stomach tried to crawl out of her mouth.

  Constructed of some gray stone and crawling with Boston ivy turned bright red and gold in the late-autumn air, it loomed in the distance. Gargoyles made of bronze and streaked with verdigris squatted above the roof, watching her approach. The more she looked, the sharper her memories became, so she turned her gaze to the grass and kept going.

  Run. You have to run. The people from the palace are hunting me.

  Charlie had worked enough jobs that she ought to trust the tug of intuition, that antenna inside her attuned to wrongness. There was something she was missing, as though she was looking at dots up close, but if only she could step back she’d see another pattern. That feeling had kept her from getting caught before. Sometimes you felt the air change and knew to abandon a con.

  But no matter how wrong this already felt, she was going to see tonight through.

  A valet watched Charlie in a considering manner as she approached the house. She gave him the long-suffering nod of one person working on a Saturday to another. That seemed good enough to convince him she was staff, and he lost interest.

  Around the back, Charlie found the kitchen. She’d called around until she discovered someone involved in the party. It turned out that José was part of the on-site catering.

  He’d left the door propped open for her.

  Inside, cold shrimp were being tweezered onto silver platters topped with lettuce leaves and some kind of creamy sauce. Risotto balls were being lowered into a portable fryer set up on a large marble island big enough to lay out a dead body on.

  She turned her thoughts away from that.

  It was easy to be overlooked at a party like this, with multiple vendors and freelance waitstaff. José’s catering would be supplemented by specialty offerings, like a caviar station, or a sushi station, or a human sacrifice station. Hopefully, she could get lost among them.

  She was just stepping into the hall when someone called after her.

  “You’re late,” said a harried-looking woman with a clipboard and a lot of curly blond hair. Probably the event coordinator.

  With what Charlie hoped was a sufficiently blank look, she turned. “Sorry. I was looking for a bathroom to use before I started.”

  “There isn’t time. Put your things down and take these hors d’oeuvres.” Charlie shoved her backpack under a table where she could grab it easily later and took the metal tray.

  Across the room, she saw José, rolling prosciutto roses. He winked.

  Cheeks prickly with warmth after going from the cold autumn air into rooms full of bodies, Charlie moved through Lionel Salt’s mansion. Passing leaves smeared with blue cheese and candied walnuts to anyone with empty hands was a good cover for reacquainting herself with the house and trying to spot Vince.

  Charlie gritted her teeth against the uncomfortable mix of familiarity and dread she felt as she walked through the rooms. She kept a little smile on her face and didn’t meet anyone’s eyes. Balthazar had shielded her from direct contact with clients, but stealing things occasionally meant conning people, so it wasn’t like no gloom had met her before. She just hoped no one would recognize her.

  Passing through a gallery-like hall near the entrance, she covertly observed a display of antiquarian books under glass. Beside that was an etched plate that said “The Lionel Salt Library will be open to all gloamists, and cultivate a space where arcane knowledge can be shared.” The taxidermied animal heads Charlie remembered looked down from where they hung, their shining glass eyes, polished antlers, and sharp horns catching the light.

  Usually collections like Salt’s were hoarded, so the idea of getting a look must have gotten the glooms, especially the younger ones, salivating.

  As a thief of magical secrets, Charlie was not unlike a bee, pollinating many flowers. Once gloamists digested an old book, copying down the experiments or techniques they thought might be useful into their own notes, the only reason they hung onto the original copy was to guarantee that what they learned stayed exclusive to them. Charlie had once failed to steal a volume from a guy, because when she arrived, she discovered that he burned every single book he’d acquired as soon as he copied down the parts in which he was interested. She still got angry sometimes, thinking about him.

  If Salt wanted to found a library, that would make him very popular. It showed a willingness to share his secrets. A generosity of spirit.

  Or that his secrets were so much greater and more terrible that he could afford to have a collection like this mean nothing to him. Either way, he ought to have no problem convincing the local gloamists that his elevation to the Cabal had been long overdue. His influence would grow, and so would the horror that followed in his wake.

  Charlie’s gaze went to her own shadow, then away.

  At the end of the hall hung an oil painting of a dark-haired woman, lying on a couch, wearing a diamond-encrusted crown. Her dress was parted, showing her naked body from the waist down. And suspended over her by straps was a stallion. Charlie frowned at it, then glanced around. It was far from the only piece of disturbing art. A painting of a Roman king being devoured by his horses hung by a door. Beneath a sconce, she spotted a sketch of a decomposing fawn.

  As though Salt’s house needed to be creepier.

  Charlie walked by massive and magnificent stairs carved in the shapes of lions, through an arch into a sitting room. There, two bartenders poured drinks from behind a wooden bar topped in pewter. A small knot of people waited for their drinks. Gangsters stood shoulder to shoulder with academics, performers chatted with mystics. Gloaming was a new science, and its practitioners as hungry as the shadows that fluttered behind them in the shapes of capes, or wrapped around their bodies like snakes. Others drifted a bit behind their wearer, leashed by a single silver cord, moving to peer out the window, or fetch a drink.

  One shadow even drifted up to her tray, plucking an endive off of it before she could pause. Startled into stopping, she swallowed a curse as she almost dropped the food.

  She heard a bark of laughter from across the room.

  A prank. It reminded her that no matter how tense she was, and no matter how terrible her suspicions were, to most of the glooms present, this was a party.

  With effort, she swallowed her irritation and glanced into the great room with its towering two-story ceiling and its wall of windows.

  She spotted Salt in a tuxedo, standing beside one of his four enormous couches, declaiming to a few older gloamists. Adeline, in an elegant black column of a dress, stood beside the limestone fireplace, in which green and blue flames burned. An enormous painting of a forest hung over the mantel. Only when you looked closely did you notice that it was full of shadows wearing deep red slashes for mouths and that gray body parts had been rendered among the ferns of the forest floor.

  Two additional Cabal members were there as well. Bellamy stood in a corner, and Malik looked particularly regal. His locs had been pulled into flat twists on the sides and wrapped in gleaming gold thread, his shadow hanging across his body like a sash.