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The fourth-year open house concludes just before noon, leaving my afternoon free. I trot back to my bedroom suite after the last guest departs, seeking to exchange the stifling, antiquated morning gown for something more comfortable. When I reach the door, my roommate Melinda is at my heels.

“What’re you gonna do with the rest of the day, Kat?” She’s practically breathing down my neck.

“Going, Mellie. What am I going to do with the rest of the day,” I tirelessly correct her, just like I always do. “Christ, Mellie, we’re fourth-years .”

“Sorry.” Her cheeks turn pink. “What are you going to do this afternoon, Kat?”

I open the door and walk away as I answer. “First, I’m going to get out of this corset—”

“Swell idea. Me too.”

“Then I’ll likely swing by Raymond’s to do some work,” I conclude, as if she hadn’t interrupted. My fingers itch at the thought of my latest project, dreamed up by my own mind for a change, not Ray’s or Paul’s.

“You work too much,” Melinda mutters. “Seriously, Kat. We’ve got an afternoon off. Let’s do something fun .”

“Your job at the bakery isn’t fun?” I slip halfway out of my gown, reach behind my back, and with a flick of my wrist, I send the laces of my corset tumbling. It’s a trick I learned long before coming to the Academy from many a quick-change with the Royals.

It’s one Mellie, however, has yet to master. She’s got her hands behind her waist, contorting every which way to reach the laces. Her cheeks puff pink with exertion. I wait, somewhat impatiently, until she caves and exposes the bindings to me. I cross the room to undo them.

“Thanks,” she mumbles.

I return to my side and pull out a chemise and one of the Academy-sanctioned uniforms, a maroon sheath dress with a Peter Pan collar.

I tug them over my head, one after the other, as my morning gown drops from my waist to the floor.

Silk charmeuse pools around my feet. After a cursory glance in the mirror, I head for the door.

“Wait!”

I look back to see Mellie still working her way out of her corset. Her taffeta gown sits in a tangled heap around her ankles.

I stifle a laugh. “Goodbye, Mellie.”

As I close the door behind me, she shouts, “If you think I’m gonna hang up your morning gown, you got another think coming, sister.”

Going to, Mellie. Going.

I’d make excuses for her, but we’re fourth-years now, like I told her. I don’t care if she was raised on a plantation farm in the boondocks of Georgia—I was raised in the Catacombs, for Christ’s sake! Elocution and grammar lessons began on day one, and by now, it should really be second nature.

I step into the sunshine and make my habitual strides to the streetcar stop. My job at Raymond’s is less than a ten-minute ride to downtown Savannah.

Or a twenty-minute walk. I look up at the shining September sun, deliberating .

Most days, I’m rushing from class or lessons to my Academy-sponsored apprenticeship. I rarely have the luxury of walking. Today, the entire afternoon stretches out before me, and Ray isn’t expecting me. I redirect my legs, heading for the brick sidewalk.

I’m about halfway to Raymond’s when someone falls into step beside me. I don’t need to look to know who. Our strides naturally synchronize, coaxing a secret smile to my lips.

“Hey, Kitty-Kat.”

The timbre of his voice washes over me. I fight a shiver.

“Hey,” I whisper back.

“You’re walking today.”

“I am. Which, clearly, you anticipated.” I shouldn’t be surprised.

Paul always knows exactly where to find me.

He’s magic like that. Fairy-born, we call him.

Appeared in the dark of the night as a baby on the orphanage’s steps and vanished just the same a few years later, straight into life as an urchin in the Catacombs. Where he met me.

Paul tips his head to the sky and smiles. Black, whiskered scruff dusts his upper neck and cheeks. I can just make out the edge of a tattoo, the barest hint peeking out from beneath the collar of his shirt.

“It’s a beautiful day,” he observes. “And what do beautiful girls do on beautiful days? Well, one particular beautiful girl, that is.”

“Slick. You woo all the ladies with that mouth?”

“Just one.” Quick as lightning, he grabs my hand and yanks, pulling me into an alley.

“Paul,” I whisper-hiss, “be careful. I’m in my Academy uniform.” I glance back to the street, checking for onlookers.

“I’m always careful, you know that.”

He pins me against a soot-speckled brick wall and presses his lips to mine. My resistance melts .

Nobody in the whole world kisses like Paul. Women could spend their entire lives searching, and they’d never find a kiss like his. Pure, undiluted molten fire.

“It’s been four days,” Paul rumbles, pressing his hard crotch into me.

“Maybe it wouldn’t”—I move my lips over his—“have been four days”—more kisses—“if you didn’t have us running stakeouts…every other night.”

“Stay with me tonight.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes. You can.” He moves his lips to the hollow spot on my neck, just beneath my ear.

“Paul,” I murmur, “I’m worn slap out. I’m sleeping tonight.”

“With me. You’re sleeping with me tonight.”

I lean back and laugh, resting my head on the warm bricks. “You’re incorrigible.”

His grin is wolfish and endearing. “Would you really have me any other way?”

“No,” I admit.

Because I love how impulsive he is. How he always finds me. How he sees what he wants, whatever he wants, and he takes it. No second thoughts. No hesitation.

“I need to go to work,” I tell him. “You know, so I can move your contraband.”

“It’s a dirty job, doll.” He sneaks in one more kiss at the side of my mouth as I drift toward the street. “But somebody’s gotta do it.”

When I glance back, he’s already gone.

“Ray? ”

I bang open the back door of the shop. My gaze sweeps the workroom, passing over Ray’s empty station and mine. The desk and overhead lights are off.

He must be out on the floor.

Moving from the back room to the front is like crossing worlds through a magic portal. The lighting turns brilliant, the walls stark, crisp white. Glass cases run the length of the room, surfaces warm from the heat of overhead spotlights. Black velvet abounds. Gemstones sparkle.

When I poke my head out, Ray is with a customer. He waves me over. “Perfect timing, kid.”

I hate working the floor, but I answer his summons. The buyer, a brunette in her late forties, ogles my uniform with delight. “Oh, you’re an Academy girl? My Mabel just started there last month.”

I smile politely.

“Is this your apprenticeship?” She needs no encouragement and looks around the jewelry shop with interest. “Certainly a prestigious one.”

“Yes, I’m very lucky. Raymond’s work is truly a cut above the rest.”

“Oh, indeed. He’s simply premier, in a league of his own.” She positively trills with excitement. “I can only hope to see Mabel doing something like this in a few years.”

“I’m sure she will,” I murmur, glancing down at the glass case. I blink twice when I notice the marquise-cut emerald earrings laid out before us.

Ray meets my eyes, a knowing flicker passing between us.

“Well now, aren’t these divine?” I gesture at the earrings.

“Do you think so?” The woman considers them. “I simply can’t make up my mind between these two pairs.”

There’s a second set of earrings on the counter, but I’m zeroed in on the first.

Target acquired .

“The marquise cut is so unique and elegant,” I say to her. “They’re a standout piece. The only one like it in the whole store.”

“Really?”

“Would you like to try them on?” I bend over to pull out a mirror.

“May I?” She looks to Ray.

“Of course, madam.”

We let her tinker in front of the mirror for a few moments before I pounce, hungry for the kill.

“Stunning,” I pronounce. “Simply stunning. They bring out the hazel in your eyes.”

“Hmm…yes…they really do. You know, my Mabel has bright green eyes, like yours…don’t know where she got them…but you’re right, these are stunning. One day, they’ll likely be hers.” She grins in the mirror. “I’ll take them.”

“Wonderful.” Ray is all smiles as he rings her up.

I wait until she leaves before releasing a nervous laugh.

“Well done, kid.” Ray claps me on the shoulder. “You’re getting a bump in your cut for that. You closed the deal like a pro.”

“I can’t believe how quickly you moved those. I only finished them last week.”

“I never have trouble selling your stuff, Kat. Your work is meticulous, as flawless as the real McCoy. I can barely tell the difference between an original and one of your copies, and I’ve been in the business over forty years.”

“Thanks, Ray.” I push through the swinging door to the workroom.

My work with Ray is a myriad of things. He holds real estate on a corner lot in the busiest shopping district of downtown Savannah.

It’s all very hoity-toity; the who’s who of high society are all logged customers in his black register book.

Anyone who’s anyone gets engaged with one of Ray’s rings.

And anyone who’s anyone wears his latest pieces to galas and parties.

His front-of-shop reputation is pristine, but he also does a roaring black-market trade out of his back room.

Jewelry and other desirables. For those in the know, of course.

Ray has never apprenticed an Academy student before, but Paul was using him as a fence when I enrolled.

A little introduction here, a slip to Headmistress Helena about my jewelry interests there…

and boom , I landed myself in his shop at the start of my second year.

It’s a cushy arrangement, as far as apprenticeships go.

Ray and I have no secrets between us. At first, I was merely a well-placed middleman, passing items from the Royals to Ray, moving cash from Ray back to the Royals.

As long as we kept our black-market supply lines open, Ray signed my Academy supervision logs without batting an eye.