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Chloé tapped Zoé’s shoulder with her fan as they neared the head of the reception queue. “You’re fidgeting again,” she hissed.
Zoé reluctantly let go of the bobbled edge of her sleeve. “No I’m not,” she said, with as much poise as she could muster.
“See that you don’t,” Chloé sniffed. “It draws the wrong sort of attention.”
At times like this, when her sister was in a particularly vile mood, Zoé wished she had a date to share a glance with. Luka would have said something witty to make her laugh. And Marinette…
Zoé sighed, squared her shoulders, raised her chin, and stepped into the ballroom like a lady of breeding.
“Presenting Lady Chloé Bourgeois and Miss Zoé Lee,” the announcer bellowed.
This was no time to think about Marinette.
As Zoé sailed down the broad staircase at her sister’s heels, she couldn’t think of anything else. When she was uncomfortable or scared, her thoughts loved to tread safe, familiar paths. And for so long, thinking of Marinette had been the safest path of all. Even now, Zoé could easily recall the precise color of her eyes, the texture of her lips, and the way her midnight-dark hair had shimmered in the candlelight the night they first…
Another whack from Chloé’s fan pulled her out of her reverie. “Zoé, you simply must meet Lord Agreste’s charming son,” said Chloé, twittering like an overfed canary. “He and I first became acquainted at Lady Tsurugi’s summer soirée, you know.” She made a face. “You were taken ill that night, I believe.”
Zoé swallowed a retort. Chloé knew full well that she had spent the night of Lady Tsurugi’s summer soirée dueling with a pair of the king’s guards on the palace roof, even though their mother’s source had assured her the gallery would be unguarded at that hour. Marinette had been quite hurt by Zoé’s absence, which Chloé hadn’t bothered to explain. It was just like Chloé to remind her of that old wound now.
“I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Lee,” said the young Lord Agreste, bowing gallantly. He seemed determined to overlook Chloé’s rudeness. Zoé decided she liked him.
“The feeling is mutual,” she said, dropping into a curtsy. On the other side of the ballroom, something flashed. Could it be?
Chloé’s expression told Zoé it was. Their mother’s German contact was signaling them. One of them needed to meet him at once, lest the precious package he carried be intercepted.
Zoé made up her mind. She was done letting Chloé glimmer in the spotlight while she did all the hard work on the sidelines, beneath the notice of anyone interesting. She was done forfeiting all her relationships, all her joy, simply to further her mother’s art smuggling empire. Let Chloé speak to the contact.
Zoé leveled her most charming smile at the young Lord Agreste. “Might I trouble you for a dance?” she asked.
He smiled back. “It would be my honor.”
As she twirled away in the handsome lord’s arms, Zoé glimpsed an outraged expression and a blur of yellow silk as Chloé hurried away into the crowd at the sides of the dance floor.
“You’re a phenomenal dancer,” said the young lord. Zoé racked her brains, trying to recall his name. Augustin? André? “How is it that you are here unaccompanied?” He raised his eyebrows. “Your sister’s strong personality, perhaps?”
Zoé had to be a good dancer. Footwork was an essential part of combat, and she and Chloé had been trained in those arts from the time they could walk. “My sister can be something of a trial,” she admitted, looking over his shoulder. Where was Chloé? Where was the package? “But I fear the fault is mine, in this case. I spent the spring entertaining a… fascinating suitor, only to suffer a—a rupture with him in late summer.”
Even in such veiled terms, it was painful to talk about Marinette.
“I often attend these events with Luka Couffaine, but he and his family are wintering in Spain this year.”
That was a lie, of course. Judging from the postmarks on Luka’s most recent letters, his father’s business travels had taken them somewhere in the Americas. Zoé was eager to hear the full story when the Couffaines returned to France. If she had deciphered his code correctly, Luka had alluded to a fascinating misadventure involving an elderly fishmonger, a British spy, and a smuggled Tibetan bracelet.
The young Lord Agreste—Adrien, Zoé believed his name was—smiled at her in a somewhat strained fashion. “In that case, I hope you will permit me to entertain you in the future.”
“Of course,” said Zoé automatically, but she was distracted.
Chloé was nowhere to be seen. The package—the fine golden comb that was to be the jewel of their mother’s collection—was missing as well. Was she in trouble? Zoé sometimes struggled to like her sister, but that didn’t mean she wanted her to come to harm.
“Excuse me,” she said vaguely to Adrien. “The powder room.”
Chloé was in an alcove in a hallway just off the ballroom, surrounded by the shards of a priceless vase. She had torn a strip from one of her underskirts to bandage a gash in her leg.
“It took you long enough, sister,” she hissed. “The woman in red was here. She took the comb.”
Zoé pulled her knife from its hidden sheath in her skirts. “Where?”
Mutely, pressing a hand to the wound in her leg, Chloé pointed up, through the open window.
Gritting her teeth, Zoé began to climb.
The woman in red was the most notorious rival of her mother’s circle. No one was sure whether she worked for the crown or some other, more shadowy employer, but when she appeared, she made away with every precious artifact in sight.
Not tonight, Zoé told herself as she climbed to the roof. Not this comb. Not when she was this close to truly earning her mother’s approval. The woman in red had hurt her sister. For that alone, Zoé would unmask her tonight.
A derisive laugh greeted her when Zoé heaved herself over the parapet. “So he was right,” the woman in red mused. “And to think that I truly believed there were still innocents left in this world, untouched by greed. Tell me, Miss Lee. What has the Hive Queen offered, to buy loyalty so strong that you would follow me here?”
Zoé frowned at the mention of her mother’s code name. Just how much did the woman in red know?
“That isn’t your business,” she said, pulling herself to her feet and brandishing her weapon. “The comb is mine. Return it now, bloodlessly, or only one of us leaves this roof alive.”
The woman in red sighed. “Consider this my last gift to you, Zoé. You aren’t a killer. I won’t make one of you tonight.” With that, she dropped down through an open trapdoor.
By the time Zoé reached the place where the woman in red had disappeared, there was no sign of her—or the golden comb.
“Who are you?” she whispered. The biting night wind blew the words away from her lips.