Another night, another hotel, another occasion for dressing up. At least this wasn’t formal.

This time I was wearing one of the dresses Lucy had left at home when she married. It was a little young for me, flowered and with touches of pink, but it had fit better than the others.

I’d tried it on late that morning, asking Veronika to judge. Leah, who had helped me with the buttons, told me I looked lovely. Veronika had turned greenish and dashed for the bathroom, though I didn’t think me in the dress had anything to do with that.

Eli had heard the noise. He came in and stood waiting until his mother staggered out. Eli said, “Mother, is there something you want to tell us?”

Veronika had turned red, almost as embarrassed as Lucy had been. “Ford and I are expecting a child,” she confessed. “I wanted to be sure before sharing the news.”

“I’ll bet Ford is excited.” I liked the man.

“He’s pretty much beside himself,” Veronika said, smiling. “We both assumed that at my age, I wouldn’t get pregnant.” She looked at Eli hopefully.

He didn’t disappoint her, as he hadn’t disappointed Felix and Lucy. “I’ll be glad to have another brother or sister,” he said, and kissed his mother.

Veronika beamed at him, all misty-eyed. Eli left the room without looking at me.

At least we got that piece of family news taken care of. We would leave it to Lucy to tell her mother that she was pregnant, too, when and how she chose.

When we gathered in the foyer to set out for yet another event, Felicia looked beautiful, as always. The Polish families were sponsoring this evening’s talent show. Felicia had gotten friendly with one of the Polish girls, so she was anxious to go.

“I’ll be glad not to dance or eat a huge late meal for one night,” Felicia said in a world-weary way. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I thought she was putting me on, but I wasn’t sure.

There wouldn’t be as much moving and mixing, since the entertainment would be on a stage and all the attendees would be sitting and watching. That was fine with me, too. Easier to watch my sister. Easier to watch her enemies.

When we got to the hotel, we found it was hopping.

Several groups (both ordinary human and magical) had rented special occasion rooms for this evening, and there was a lot of coming and going.

We found an employee who could direct us to the room the Poles had rented, only to discover it was in a state of polite turmoil.

Everyone who had been invited had actually arrived. (Felicia was not the only person glad to have an evening to simply sit and watch.)

The seats had been set up in two sections, with narrow aisles on either side and a broader one down the middle. In both sections, there were ten rows of six chairs apiece. Despite the flurry of chairs carried in from other rooms by hotel employees, some of us would have to stand.

I told Eli I would be glad to stand first, and after a while we would switch. I didn’t mind. Though my days were far longer than usual, I wasn’t getting enough exercise.

“We’ll rotate when the halfway point is reached,” he said. “It’s on the program.”

A woman without a chair was a shocking thing to the men standing.

They kept trying to get a chair for me, despite everything I could say, until Harriet came to keep me company.

She had parked Soo-Yung with Felicia and Agnieszka, the Polish girl Felicia had befriended.

The three were chattering away in no time.

Eli, who sat on Felicia’s left, was keeping a sharp eye on them. I would watch the people around them.

“How’s Bo-Ra?” I asked Harriet, picking out people I’d met (or could identify) in the crowd.

“She’s a tough old bird. Couldn’t walk for two days after the explosion, but then she got up and started moving again. Her arm is broken. It’s healing faster than mine would, for sure, but due to her age it’ll be a while. How are you?”

“I got some stitches in my back. They’re due to come out next week. I’m better.”

“You got some healing.”

I nodded, still looking through the people milling around the room. “I did. The stitches pull, but I’m not nearly as sore.”

A bell rang to alert the audience the entertainment was about to start. Everyone who could sit did. The lights went down.

Turned out to be a tradition that the oldest Listed person from Poland (this year, a woman in her late twenties) made the opening remarks.

She spoke good English. Even if she’d spoken in Polish, I would have known she was telling us we were welcome, apologizing for any discomfort a few of us might feel at standing, and promising us an evening of good entertainment.

She wasn’t lying. No terrible singers, people reciting poems, or dancers with two left feet.

The first performer was a teenage French boy.

You’d think a magic act would be run-of-the-mill in a room full of grigoris and other wizardy people, but it wasn’t.

Instead of cleverly making a card vanish up his sleeve, Henri actually made it vanish.

And when a rabbit appeared, Henri needed no puff of smoke to make the rabbit vanish again.

Then Henri stabbed swords through a rotating box with the Polish hostess inside.

Blood ran out of the bottom of the box, and everyone gasped.

She was quite well by the time he reopened the box, though there were stab marks all through her dress.

Henri received quite a round of applause, and so did she.

Two Chinese girls were next on the low stage, the acrobats. I had never seen human beings as flexible and agile. “Like human pretzels,” I told Harriet, who tried not to laugh. They raised and lowered each other with magic, hanging in contorted positions above the stage.

The two performers were completely covered, but the very fitted one-piece outfits left nothing to the imagination.

I had never seen anything like that, and from the expressions on the men’s faces, neither had they.

“I would have a more adventurous life if I was that limber,” Harriet whispered, as the girls arched backward on their hands. I had to smile.

A young woman from Italy sang. She had a wonderful voice and a very talented piano player, another Italian.

“She’s been professionally trained,” Harriet said. “That was an aria from Gianni Schicci by Puccini.”

“If you say so. No matter what she was singing about, that was beautiful.”

After two more acts, my program told me were halfway through the scheduled performances. There was a ten-minute break, the Polish woman announced.

Time to switch places with Eli. I’d been keeping a keen eye on my husband in case he was going to give me a signal. He looked back and raised his hand.

I’d already realized the Poles had not invited any Germans to the party. But Harriet pointed out a Japanese family.

A mother, father, and two Listed daughters were seated in the row behind Eli and the girls.

There were two Listed boys sitting with them, from some other country.

Harriet was keeping an eye on them, because Soo-Yung would not speak to the Japanese and they would not acknowledge her, which was not only pointed but awkward.

The Japanese mother who’d been sitting behind Agnieszka stood up and began to move down the row.

Maybe she just needed to go to the bathroom.

Or maybe she wanted to get behind Felicia or Soo-Yung and do something small and awful.

I began to move down the narrow aisle until I was at the correct row.

I faced her. My movement caught the woman’s eye as she was sidestepping along the row.

We looked at each other. I shook my head.

I put my hand on the pocket of my dress, to let her know I was armed.

This close, if I threw the knife I’d catch her right in her chest.

The Japanese lady scuttled back the way she’d come and dropped into her chair, her eyes strictly forward.

I was almost certain she’d just needed to go to the ladies’ room.

Almost certain was not good enough.

Eli rose to swap places with me. Felicia leaned over to pat my arm, and Soo-Yung bowed in her seat. Agnieszka beamed at me.

Good to be wanted.

And that was all that happened the rest of the evening. We watched more talented people do talented things. Clayton Dashwood turned out to be an excellent guitar player, and his sister sang. She had a very pretty voice. It was kind of homey, after the opera singer.

I saw Clayton as we were leaving. I waited until a very pretty girl from Hungary had fluttered her eyelashes at him and left with a backward glance. “I sure enjoyed your music,” I said, making sure my own eyelashes stayed absolutely still.

“That’s real gratifying,” he said, and he sounded sincere. “I think you’re a hard woman to impress.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Depends on why you’re trying to impress me, I guess,” I said, and caught up with Eli and Felicia. They were doing goodbyes with the hosts.

The Japanese woman who’d gotten up was talking very rapidly to her husband, with many side glances at me. He scowled in my direction. Well, I wasn’t here to make friends.

He could scowl all he wanted. I was not afraid of him. I let him see that.

Which was stupid, because he might could kill me six ways from Sunday before I could raise a hand.

But he didn’t.

So I counted the evening a win. I was glad Felix hadn’t come. He would have been bored and spoiling for a fight.

We were back at Veronika’s house and halfway up the stairs when Ford and Veronika came out of the sitting room and called to us.

Back down we went. Ford was smiling so hard I thought his face would seize.

Now that we officially knew the big secret, he was waiting for our good wishes with all the delight of a seventeen-year-old.

“We told Alice tonight,” Veronika said. “She was so excited!”