Page 63 of Thief of Night (The Charlatan Duology #2)

Never Be Forgotten

Two days after she got the invitation, Charlie went to a vintage thrift store in downtown Northampton, where she found a cream-colored satin dress that exposed a lot of skin, but in an old-fashioned, classy way.

In front of the mirror, she felt silly. Who did she think she was going to fool? Red knew exactly what she was and what she wasn’t.

And yet she couldn’t help hoping that if he saw her, he’d want her.

The night of the party, Malhar picked her and Posey up in his only slightly dented Subaru Forester. He looked dapper in the same suit he’d worn to Solaluna. And Posey was glamorous in green sequins, hair pulled up, a few stray curls spilling over her shoulders.

It was hard for Charlie to think of Salt’s mansion as belonging to Red, but there was no point in pretending otherwise as Malhar pulled his car onto the long driveway.

This was New Year’s Eve in the style of a scion eager to establish himself with the jet-set elite, drawing ultra-rich guests from Manhattan, Connecticut, and the Berkshires to attend on short notice.

Trees along the drive were hung with silver stars.

Long strings of white lights had been woven into a canopy overhead.

The effect was whimsical, promising greater delights to follow.

The house was decorated with enormous gold and silver orbs, each one larger than Charlie. As they pulled up, a valet in a black suit stepped forward.

“Deliveries are around the back,” he said, looking personally offended by Malhar’s Subaru.

“Good to know,” Charlie said from the back seat, then hopped out, careful not to let the hem of her satin dress touch the ground.

The valet looked skeptical rather than apologetic, but took Malhar’s keys.

“This car is a classic,” Malhar told him as he got out. “Vintage.”

“I’m finally going to see the inside,” Posey said, marveling at the building. “And the books.”

Charlie felt a twist in her gut remembering meeting her sister on the lawn of a different party. She was feeling too many things to be able to make sense of them all.

“Red told me about this place,” Malhar said, slinging a worn leather satchel over his shoulder. “About floating through the walls. His family. The torture basement.”

“Oh right,” Posey said, with a quick look at Charlie. “Is it weird that he’s living here?”

“It’s his childhood home,” Charlie said, avoiding the question.

Posey and Malhar shared a look.

As they approached, a man in a tuxedo opened the door before Charlie could even knock.

The high-ceilinged entryway was full of balloons in shades of gold, from pearl to reflective as a polished coin, each trailing a tail of golden ribbon.

A waiter moved to offer a tray of champagne, poured into coupe glasses.

Laughter bounced off walls no longer hung with Salt’s creepy art collection. Charlie glanced toward where she knew a painting of a decomposing fawn had been. An etching hung there depicting a naked man artfully posed like a dancer, the shadow behind him obviously a beast.

Well, the art was less creepy, anyway.

“Lots of people at this party,” Posey said, drawing Charlie’s attention back to the present.

“We’re going to try to find the library you told us about,” Malhar said. “See if the book still opens the secret room.”

Posey nodded, clearly enthused at the idea of getting out of the crowd. “I like to think Red would loan them to me. Maybe give me one as a Christmas present.”

“I’m sure he would.” It was perhaps a little ironic that they’d be the ones stealing gloamist artifacts while Charlie merely attended the party. “But if you get locked in the basement, it might take me a while to get you out.”

Posey made a face, then wandered off with Malhar.

Charlie ventured deeper into the crush of the party.

The lights on the chandeliers had been dimmed low in the ballroom.

In place of cocktail tables, someone had brought in dozens of leather couches that were arranged back-to-back around a dance floor.

Lots of people Charlie didn’t know lounged in shimmery dresses and fancy suits and tuxedos.

A band, all of the members wearing silver masks, played music for guests to sway to.

Red stood near one of the couches, the light turning his hair to bright gold, a contrast to all the shining silver decorating the room.

He had a gentle half-smile on his face. His grandmother pointed into the crowd, looking as though she was telling him a story about someone there.

Adeline hovered nearby, throwing her head back as she laughed at something Topher said.

Her long hair spilled over her shoulders and her strapless cocktail dress of deepest blue.

The last thing Charlie wanted was to face Adeline’s friends again, although she should have suspected they would be around. More surprising was Fiona standing by Red’s side. She’d been at the courthouse, but there could have been many reasons for that. Laughing with him now was something different.

Charlie knew she should go up to Red and let him know she’d arrived, but she hesitated.

Instead she stuck to the outskirts of the room.

Contrasted against the backdrop of this environment, she was conscious of how her dress had wrinkled on the way over, how her earrings were costume.

Even her perfume was a half-full bottle swiped off a Macy’s countertop.

Delaying, she moved from room to room in her cream satin dress.

People stared, clocking her as not one of them.

Perhaps a singer, part of the entertainment?

When she caught an image of herself reflected in the glare of a window—hair slicked back, bangs pinned away from her face with a rhinestone clip, her lipstick red as a button you only pushed in an emergency—she thought she looked good. She just didn’t look like she belonged.

Bartenders in tidy uniforms of black pants and white button-up shirts were mixing drinks, most of them involving Krug, poured golden from enormous magnums. She didn’t recognize a single person on the staff. Even the bartenders were too fancy to be people Charlie knew.

To have something to do while she wandered, she drank.

Coupe glass of champagne after coupe glass of champagne, cycling through the things that might be put into one—sugar cube and bitters for a classic champagne cocktail; Chambord for a kir royale; gin and lemon for a French 75; peach juice for a bellini; and then plain old vodka, just to wake up the bubbles.

By the time she ordered that last one, Charlie was well on her way to drunk.

“Your shadow!” a girl exclaimed, staring at the space where Charlie’s shadow should have been. Then the girl slapped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry! Everyone is always reminding me not to just say what I think because it can be very rude.”

She was younger than Charlie, probably in her early twenties, and had that highly scrubbed polish that made her seem more beautiful than the set of her features alone. She had a faint accent, and spoke as though she’d learned slightly too-proper English.

“I’m fine,” Charlie reassured her. “Are you a friend of Adeline’s?”

“Her cousin,” said the girl. “On her mother’s side.”

Her mother the model, who’d fled back to Europe after divorcing Salt.

The one who disapproved of bad manners in children, though she’d abandoned her own, leaving Adeline alone with her sinister father.

It occurred to Charlie how odd it was that Adeline’s mother had never made an appearance after Salt’s death.

But then, perhaps Adeline wouldn’t have welcomed such a belated visit.

“I’m going to be her assistant for the next year,” the girl said.

“We’re going to Amsterdam in a week. She wants to buy a place in New York before we leave, so I have to look at all this property, but it moves so fast. We have a flight tonight down to the city for the three of us, right after midnight. Private helicopter.”

“The three of you?” Charlie echoed.

“Remy is coming, which is good because she’s nicer when he’s there.” The girl sighed. “See! That’s the kind of thing that I am not supposed to say.”

So he’d invited her tonight for some final farewell? Charlie’s polite smile turned poisonous. “Is that drink for Adeline?”

The bartender was pushing a second coupe glass in the girl’s direction. “Yes?” the girl said, something in Charlie’s tone making her hesitate.

“You go ahead and mingle,” Charlie told her. “I’ll bring her the champagne.”

Now that she had a purpose, it was easy to cut across the ballroom. This conversation had been coming, but Charlie thought that she’d pull Adeline discreetly to the side. That had been foolish. In her real life, Charlie had never been much for discretion.

“Your drink,” she said, handing the glass to Adeline.

Red spotted her. “Char,” he said, breaking off from the conversation he’d been engaged in.

Fiona elbowed him in the side. “What a pretty dress. Tell her.”

“Where’s—” Adeline began.

Charlie’s poisonous smile was still in place. “Your cousin? Around somewhere. I told her I’d bring you the drink since we need to talk.”

“Do we?”

“Let’s take a turn around the party,” Charlie said.

“If you like,” Adeline replied, her smile faltering. “But I think you ought to have a conversation with Red first. There are some things he needs to tell you.”

“Nah,” Charlie told her, with a flash of a smile in his direction. “Let’s put business before pleasure.”

“Well, then,” said Adeline, taking a sip of her champagne. They walked into the hall, toward one of the parlors where there was less of a crush. As they passed a crystal bowl filled with tinsel hats and curled-up party horns, Charlie took one, turning it in her fingers.

Adeline paused beside a black-and-white photograph of her younger self, hair in pigtails as she sat in a garden full of flowers.

“All new art,” Charlie observed.

“We dragged it out of storage,” she said. “I am bringing some with me to New York.”