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She pressed her hand to the door, closed her eyes, and pushed her intent into the door. A trickle of power rushed into the frame. She shivered at the release. That would act as a trip wire for at least the next hour. If anyone walked through this door, she would know to use another exit.

Praying she wouldn’t need to, she hurried to the balcony window and slipped through it into the cool spring air.

The party didn’t wrap around to this side of the palace, so the grounds were empty of witnesses.

Clouds hung heavy on the horizon, promising rain.

She needed to be done before it reached her.

She judged the distance to the next balcony with unease.

Before the spell that hid her true nature had been removed, revealing her Fae heritage—pointed ears and all—Kierse never would have attempted this.

And though she’d gotten over her fear of heights before—thanks to a quick shove from Jason and a swift plummet to the ground below—she didn’t particularly want to test a three-story drop.

But with her new magic came increased sensory awareness, quicker reflexes, and strength.

Not that she was 100 percent confident on using any of these new skills, but tonight she’d have to make it work.

Because a human wasn’t going to make this jump.

Good thing she was no longer human.

Kierse winced at that. She still identified as human, having spent the last twenty-five years thinking she was one.

Thinking otherwise sat wrong with her. At least she’d learned enough magic to glamour her pointed ears back into the rounded ones she’d had most of her life.

It was useful on missions where she needed to blend in, but sometimes she liked to wear the glamour just to feel more like herself.

She slipped off her heels, leaving them hidden on the balcony, then hiked up her skirts and scrambled onto the iron balustrade. She hissed as the iron touched her bare skin. It didn’t incapacitate her like the faerie tales had made it seem like it would, but it also wasn’t comfortable.

“Here goes nothing,” she said.

With a spring, she jumped, reaching out for the enormous lantern suspended between the two balconies.

She caught it and swung back once, her muscles protesting the strain.

Then on her forward swing, when her momentum was at the right angle, she released.

She barely held back a scream as she launched, landing in a roll on the next balcony.

She heard a rip from her dress. Fucking great.

Kierse stood on shaky legs. Well, she’d made it.

She dusted off her dress and inspected the rip. It had only made the already high slit slightly obscene. This was why she wore practical clothing when she broke into places, but there hadn’t been another choice for this job. And now there wasn’t time to deal with it.

After a quick listen at the door, she pushed into the queen’s opulent chambers.

Everything was sixteenth-century chic, à la King Louis XIV, with patterned armless chairs and an impressive four-poster bed with gauzy white curtains obscuring it from view.

Kierse strode across the antique rugs and to a door at the back of the room.

Her contact had told her exactly where the bracelet would be.

She felt her thieving smile return as she swung open the door and revealed the safe behind.

Nothing fancy, but it didn’t need to be.

Kierse inspected the wards written around its edges—fleur-de-lis inside that illusive language she always felt hovered at the edge of her understanding.

The magic was old—a warlock had put these wards in place a long time ago.

Not that a magic’s age affected Kierse’s ability to bypass it.

Kierse’s main magical ability was absorption. Magic didn’t affect her unless she took in way too much magic at once. Which meant the wards weren’t a problem, and she could crack a lock like this in her sleep.

The safe was older than the warding, which always worked in her favor. She pressed her ear to the safe door, listening to the tumblers as she put together the code. Then she grinned devilishly as she turned the dial one last time and the whole thing popped open.

“Excellent,” she breathed.

Inside was an assortment of sparkling jewels all encased in lush gold and silver settings. It was a smaller collection than she’d been anticipating. Probably just what the queen wore on the regular—not the state jewels.

The bracelet she was after was goblin-made with an amethyst at the center of the silver filigreed band. It should have been here amidst the jewelry. While there was every other manner of gemstone, there wasn’t a single amethyst bracelet in sight.

“Fuck,” she hissed.

A goblin back in Dublin had assured her it was in the queen’s vault and that no one else they’d hired had been able to access it.

If she could steal it, he’d give her a coin to access the goblin market.

A coin she desperately needed. Part of her had known that all of this trouble meant the bracelet was far more valuable than what the goblin was offering in exchange, but she figured wiping the smug smile off of his face would be worth it. Except…it wasn’t here.

Everything had gone right, and yet there was no bracelet.

Where the hell could the queen be keeping it?

She scoured the safe one more time, testing for a false back or hidden compartments, but no amount of looking would make the bracelet appear.

With another curse, she sealed up the safe and made a quick sweep of the queen’s rooms, but there didn’t appear to be any other safe inside her chambers.

There was likely another vault deep in the heart of the palace hiding the rest of her jewels, but that was an entirely different sort of mission.

The kind Kierse would need a great deal more planning to attempt.

“Fuck,” she repeated as she backtracked to the window.

She made the return jump to the lantern, and her hand caught on the edge as she moved forward.

She withheld a cry as it split open. At least she’d judged the trajectory better this time and landed on her feet on the neighboring balcony.

Her palm was only bleeding a little, but still, she scoured the room until she found a handkerchief in a dresser drawer and wrapped it around her hand to stem the flow.

Once that was finished, she reclaimed her heels, pulled them back on, and went to listen at the door.

It was silent, save for the two guards she had already accounted for.

With a sigh, she pushed into slow motion and hustled back into the hallway.

The guards didn’t even turn in her direction as she bypassed them.

As soon as she was out of sight around a corner, she dropped out of slow motion with a huff.

Her thoughts were locked on the bracelet and what she was going to have to do to acquire it now.

Then a vampire guard strode out of an alcove, fangs extended. A girl in a low-cut blue dress giggled behind him, trying to pull him back into their liaison. His nostrils flared before his eyes widened at the sight of Kierse.

The cut on her hand. Shit.

He barked at her in French.

“I…” she said in panic. She started to backtrack, but there were guards in the other direction as well.

“Wait, stop,” the man said, switching to English.

This would have been a good time for the rest of her new wisp powers to kick in.

The powers she currently didn’t have but research said wisps were capable of.

While she had time manipulation, absorption, glamours, and an affinity for finding treasure—which amounted to the ne’er-do-well thief variety of wisp magic—she was still missing magical intuition, pixy lights, portaling, and persuasion.

Her ancestors had definitely been using the latter to lure people off their paths and manipulate them to a different course in all those old folktales.

But she had spent all spring fighting with her powers and had come to the conclusion that either she couldn’t access them…

or she didn’t have them. Since she was in dire straits with this vampire and they still didn’t manifest, she was going to go with the latter.

Which meant Plan B. Kierse could either play the stupid party guest or go for thieving rule number two: run. Running usually felt like the better option, but she didn’t have enough safe exits.

As the guard approached her, she made her choice. She put her hand to her chest and released a sniffle. “Thank God, I found you.”

Confusion flickered across his face. “You’re not supposed to be in here. You need to return to the party.”

“I got turned around,” she lied. “I’m not even sure how I got through here. And then I fell and cut myself.” She held her bleeding hand toward the vampire with a little tremble. “I would be so grateful if you could help me.”

She batted her eyelashes and tried to lay it on thick. She could act so long as she didn’t have to hold onto it for long. Stealth had always been a better option.

His eyes darted down to her hand, and then he hastily retracted his fangs. After clearing his throat, he said, “This way.”

He grasped her arm and propelled her down the hall.

“Wait, I—” she began.

Then a man rounded the corner ahead of them and said in a smooth voice, “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

A chill ran up her back as she promptly froze.

The guard stuttered in shock at the sight of the man dressed in a pitch-black suit.

His midnight-blue hair was artfully pushed off of his angular face, and his gray eyes held the power of thunderstorms. He was easily the most beautiful nightmare Kierse had ever seen.

“Graves,” she whispered.

“Unhand my wife.”