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Tromping through wet pastureland in high heels was a crime against humanity—unlike the crime Kierse was about to commit.

She stepped out of the squelchy green grass and onto the ancient, graveled walkway with a sigh of relief.

New York City hadn’t prepared her for acres of empty farmland on the outskirts of Paris or otherwise.

She lifted her dark eyes to what lay at the end of her trek: the magnificent Versailles gardens.

The greenery was bracketed by twin towering fountains boasting statues of the gods mounted on gilded horses.

A long grass promenade cut between the fountains with bonfires igniting the night and revealing the entrances that led deeper into the wooded grounds.

On the top of the hill, in all its splendor, was the Palace of Versailles.

Kierse could only imagine what it looked like at the height of King Louis XIV’s reign. Tonight, it was teeming with both humans and monsters for the annual Beltane festival. A party to which Kierse hadn’t exactly been invited.

Not that that had ever stopped her. There were always entrances and exits for a clever little thief. And having multiple exits was thieving rule number one.

But for now, she was just a girl blending in with the crowd in a pink satin slip dress with a thigh-high slit, her dark hair piled on the top of her head and her makeup light like spring.

No one paid her any mind as she snagged a glass of champagne off of a human waiter’s tray and navigated the grounds.

Kierse had one mission today—steal a bracelet from the Queen of the Nymphs.

Step one: get an invitation into the palace.

Well, that was the easy part.

She’d already picked her mark as she ascended the stairs to the promenade.

A group of female nymphs traipsed around a bonfire in nothing but tiny scraps of dresses, little purses at their hips, and flower crowns.

They were almost all shorter than Kierse with a kaleidoscope of hair color and wide, slightly unnatural eyes.

The few horned male nymphs lounged on the other side of the fire, shirtless in white linen trousers.

Kierse bumped into a nymph with vibrant magenta hair as she passed, sloshing champagne everywhere.

“Oh! Pardon,” Kierse said by way of apology.

The nymph spit rapid French in Kierse’s direction, and while the girl was distracted, Kierse slipped the crisp card out of her bag. She discreetly moved the invite to her purse, waving her other hand to indicate she didn’t understand.

The nymph laughed at her lack of comprehension and returned to the festivities.

A similar interaction back home could have ended in disaster.

But the rest of the world hadn’t suffered the way that New York had during the Monster War.

Back home they were four years past the war and just coming to the other side of things.

Here, when the monsters had stepped into the light, the humans had made deals with them before it devolved so drastically.

Tonight, phoenixes controlled the flames of the bonfires that nymphs deftly jumped over, performing their fertility rites.

Mer lounged in fountains, and shifters jumped in and out of their animal forms at will over the hedges and into the tree line.

Humans drank champagne and mingled with vampires and werewolves and an incubus/succubus pair.

Laughter rang out.

Lips locked.

Revelry ensued.

All excellent cover for Kierse’s plan. She ditched her champagne flute on a table, thankful it had helped her with thieving rules three and four: distraction and sleight of hand.

She palmed the heavy cardstock invitation gilded with the sun king’s symbol, granting access into the palace proper. Step one complete.

Step two: get inside the palace.

Kierse filed into the line behind a shuffling goblin. He passed off his invitation. The troll bouncer scanned it and then nodded, allowing him access. He repeated the process with Kierse’s stolen invite. Then she was breezing through the doors and inside.

Her breath caught at the sheer magnitude of the place.

It didn’t matter how much time she’d spent memorizing the original blueprints or the hours engaged on a tour earlier in the week.

She would never get used to the display of wealth.

There was money, and then there was the magnitude of this place in all its extravagance.

Kierse turned off the part of her brain that calculated the cost of everything.

The answer was unfathomable. She wasn’t here to steal just anything.

From here, she needed to get into the queen’s chambers.

Despite modern adjustments to the over seven-hundred-thousand-square-foot palace, the rooms that the current queen resided in had been the same for hundreds of years.

Thankfully, Kierse had perfect cover. Every attendee had the option of meeting with the queen publicly.

She would be in the throne room receiving guests until midnight, when the ball officially began.

It was one of the new customs she had instituted when she’d reclaimed her ancestral land.

These woods had been home to the dryads long before humans had built on the property.

The queen was so beloved that she’d had other monsters rally to her side to reclaim the forest and place her on the throne of Versailles.

And honestly, good for her. Kierse could appreciate a woman who could take back what was rightfully hers. It was a process that Kierse was still working on for herself. Especially considering how her life had been turned upside down last winter.

Five months ago, she had learned she had magic, stolen a spear straight out of Celtic myth, and discovered she was part of a race of ancient Fae—a will-o’-the-wisp. The last wisp in existence. All while falling for the dark warlock who had upended her life—Graves.

The same person who had lied to her, withheld her history, and broken her trust.

So she’d left New York to find answers that didn’t come with strings attached. While she missed the city, her family…and even Graves, she wasn’t ready for that reunion.

She didn’t have time to think about Graves. He was a problem for another day. Right now came step three, the tricky part: sneak into the queen’s rooms.

Kierse extricated herself from the flow of people heading toward the receiving room.

When she came upon the next enormous staircase, she waited until the pair of goblin guards were distracted by a group of werewolves to slip past and up the stairs.

Her feet were feather light as she crept along the deserted upper level, toward the private quarters.

Her heart beat a staccato rhythm against her chest, and an old, familiar smile graced her features.

It wasn’t a natural smile. It was her wrong smile. The one that said she liked the thieving. The danger, the suspense, the act of doing something she wasn’t supposed to do.

It sure helped that she was damn good at it. She wouldn’t go as far as to say the best in the business, but her old mentor, Jason—may he rot in hell—had been the best in New York, and she’d ended up better than him.

Now to get that bracelet and get out of there. Then she could happily return to Dublin, where Gen was safely tucked away, working on their next fruitless mission into the Irish countryside.

Kierse blew out an exasperated breath as she hurried down the crisscrossed hardwood floors.

The hallway was white and narrow with arched windows looking out across the grounds to the left opposite a series of closed wooden doorways.

The rooms she glimpsed weren’t decorated to the same picturesque standard she’d seen on the tour earlier that week.

Instead, she found peeling antique wallpaper, furniture covered with white sheets, and even empty rooms with exposed wires.

They were in sharp contrast to the magnificent Hall of Mirrors, the carefully restored display of original bedrooms, and thousands of priceless works of art.

It made the palace feel more real than myth. Much like everything else in her life.

Following the blueprint in her mind, she turned down an empty servant hallway. Thankfully, most of the workers were busy with the rest of the party. Then her enhanced Fae hearing picked up the sound of voices up ahead.

Kierse cursed, backtracked a few steps, and slid behind a large, floor-length curtain.

She held her breath as two female voices approached and then passed her, speaking in hushed French.

She’d learned a few passing words before she’d made the trip, but they certainly weren’t sufficient to follow this conversation.

When the coast was clear, Kierse eased back out and hastened down the rest of the hallway, nearly to her destination.

She peered around the corner and found two guards standing in front of the queen’s chambers.

Same as when she’d slipped away from her group on the tour—they’d taken the queen’s bedchamber off the official route now that the palace was occupied once more.

Lucky for her, she wasn’t going in through the front door.

Kierse retrieved her tools, delved into her wisp magic, and manipulated time.

From one breath to the next, the world slid into slow motion.

The gold of her magic floated around her as she darted to the door adjacent to the queen’s rooms and got to work with her lockpicks.

An easy click of the lock later, she pushed into the room and closed the door firmly behind her.

She released her magic, letting everything come back into focus.

Her wisp magic was something she was still getting used to, but her slow motion had always been part of her. The little edge that she used to get herself in and out of bad situations. It was the newer magic that she was still wrangling. Like wards.