The Dolls(99)

We gape at her. “Are you sure?” It’s Chloe who finally speaks. “Maybe she and Glory got into some kind of fight—”

Margaux cuts her off. “Just like I’ve already said, she was with me at the time Glory was killed. I swear on the graves of my ancestors.” She turns to me. “You kissed my cheek too, didn’t you? You know I’m not lying!”

“She’s right,” I say uneasily.

“Kiss her again,” Peregrine demands. When I hesitate, she says, “Do it!”

I give Margaux a quick peck on the cheek, and nothing happens. A knot of dread is forming in the pit of my stomach. Margaux’s telling the truth; it wasn’t Arelia, which means the real killer is still out there.

“I told you so,” Margaux says, her face pink with anger.

“We have to let Caleb know we screwed up,” I say.

“You screwed up,” Peregrine corrects, turning to glare at me.

“I’ll call him now,” I mutter. But I dial his number three times, and each time, it goes directly to voice mail.

“We just have to wait for him to get here,” Chloe says.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

“You should be,” Peregrine says. “Not only is the Main de Lumière traitor still out there, but now we’re down one sosyete member for our ceremony at a time we could use all the help we can get. Excellent work, Eveny.”



Caleb arrives forty-five minutes later, just after twelve thirty, his suit rumpled, his eyes wild.

“I was wrong about Arelia,” I blurt out as soon as he walks through the door.

He glances at me as he greets Peregrine and Chloe. “Yeah,” he says, running his hand distractedly over the top of his head. “I know. She told me everything.”

“What happened to her?” I ask in a small voice, my heart hammering.

“She’s fine. She’s with Boniface. She was too shaken up to come along.”

“She must hate my guts,” I say.

“You were only doing what you thought was right,” Caleb says after a minute. “I don’t think she blames you. She knows she lied.”

“But that was her secret to keep if she wanted to,” I say.

“The bigger problem,” he says, “is that the killer is still out there.”

Peregrine comes over and whispers something to him, and he disappears for a few minutes with her. I’m sitting by myself in the corner of the room, nursing the same glass of champagne I was handed an hour ago, when he gets back, a tall glass of what I assume is a gin and tonic in his hand. He doesn’t look at me once as he joins the group.

“Loosen up, baby,” Pascal purrs at me as he makes his way to the kitchen for another cocktail. He’s slightly unsteady on his feet. “This is supposed to be fun.”

“Don’t you understand?” I shoot back. “We could die tonight. We don’t know who’s trying to hurt us.”

He snorts. “Nothing’s going to happen here. Geez, Eveny, could you just give the let’s-save-the-world crap a rest for once?”

When the clock strikes one, the whole group moves upstairs and out to the huge balcony overlooking Chartres Street, two blocks away from the famous Bourbon Street. The road below us is still throbbing with people, and I back against the wall, my whole body tense, as Peregrine and Chloe lean over the rail and flirt with guys, and as Pascal throws beads out to the dozens of girls who seem all too happy to show him their breasts.

“I love Mardi Gras!” he shouts, laughing, as a pair of twins flash him enthusiastically. I catch Caleb’s eye for a millisecond and am heartened to see him looking as uneasy as I feel. I brace myself and head over to him.

“Hey,” I say. “Are you mad at me about Arelia?”

“No, of course not,” he says. “But why did you release me from being your protector?”

I’m startled at the anger in his eyes. “I was trying to help you.”

“I didn’t ask for your help.”

“You didn’t have to. It wasn’t fair to you, Caleb. The whole system of you having to put your life on the line for me? I can’t ask you to do that.”

“That wasn’t your decision to make.” He walks away before I can say anything else.

I turn to see Peregrine staring at me with an indecipherable expression on her face. She looks away after a moment and claps her hands. “People!” she yells, and then when everyone just goes right on reveling, she whistles loudly, and the conversation on the balcony comes to a halt. “It’s time,” she says.

The world below us on Chartres suddenly seems far away and disconnected as she leads the group into the house and into a huge chamber that looks like a much larger and more ornate version of my parlor. Several crystal chandeliers hang in the shadows on the ceiling, and blood-red candles flicker everywhere.