Book of Night(106)

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.