The ballroom was as far from a party atmosphere as it was possible to get. Mrs. McTavet, having been brought down from her private rooms by the police, was loudly grieving in the corner near the band. They had stopped playing and were sitting together on the far side of the little stage. Coco was sitting near her mother, trying and failing to be any comfort at all.
An older woman was encouraging Mrs. McTavet to drink more from a cup that I dearly hoped held more than mere tea. Her guests were already on edge from their long entrapment. Her tears were making the situation near intolerable. Many of the women were starting to cry as well. The men looked like they were fixing to make another attempt at getting past the guards at the door. It was getting easier to tell who of the remaining partygoers were gangsters and who were more mundane businessmen.
I didn't linger. No one was near Coco, not Brianna or Sophie or even Charlotte, and I wished I could do something for her, but I had other duties that had to come first.
As much as the chief had said everyone was to be confined to the ballroom, the two guarding the door to the back corridor didn't even look up as I passed between them.
But when I reached the parlor, I found it empty.
I hesitated in the doorway. Had I somehow missed seeing Brianna and Sophie in the ballroom? No. With Sophie in that eye-catching red dress, there was no way I wouldn't see her if she was there. Or Otto in his bottle-green suit, for that matter.
The spell must have worked. They must be in pursuit of the murderer even as I stood there uselessly in the doorway.
I went into the parlor and sat down in one of the wing-backed chairs. It would only take a moment. I would pop into the world of threads and look around. Brianna and Sophie, I would know at once, and the key itself glowed like a beacon. I only needed a moment.
But the moment my eyes closed, before I had even steadied my breath, I heard the sound of the parlor door clicking shut. As if someone was trying to do it stealthily.
To trap me in there.
I had forgotten that I was bait.
I stood up from the chair, one hand holding my bag and the other inside of it, groping for my wand, but both hidden from view of the door by the back of the chair.
"Oh," I said when I saw who was there. It was Charlotte. "I hope we didn't frighten you before, up on the stairs. Or perhaps you've already run into Sophie and Brianna, and they explained?"
She didn't answer, just stood there looking at me. I could read no emotion on her face. The single lamp still burning in the room cast more shadow than light, but I could still see her face well enough that I should have gotten some clue as to what she was thinking or intending.
"Are you looking for Mary?" I asked. Which was a silly thing to ask. What if she said yes? I had no idea where Mary was. Searching with the others?
"I know Mary isn't here," Charlotte said. Her voice was as flat as her face was blank. She was starting to creep me out.
I went ahead and took out my wand. I let her see it. She glanced at it, but only for a split second.
"What do you want, Charlotte?" I asked. She took a step closer to me, shoving a mass of loose hair out of her eyes.
"You got so close to the answer, but then you danced away," Charlotte said.
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
"Before, when you were in the library talking to Edward," she said and took another step closer.
I held the wand up higher. "You were listening from that cubby."
"Of course I was .You heard me in there,” Charlotte said, unbothered. As she moved her face fell into shadow, but the light shone on her legs. The hem of her skirt was torn, and her shoes looked like mine: quite ruined by the snow.
"When were you outside, Charlotte?" I asked.
"It doesn't matter," she said. She started to take another step but froze when I thrust the wand out towards her.
"Not another step," I said. "Speak your piece, but do it from there."
"I wonder what you can really do with that thing?" she said.
"Finish what you were saying," I said. "You were listening to Edward and me talking. You said I was close to something."
"Yes," she said. "You wanted him to help you figure out who the extra person was that was tangled up in all of the mess. The one that threw all of the love matches out of alignment."
"That's not what I said. We were trying to figure out who the murderer was."
"Well, that's not a mystery any longer, is it?" Charlotte asked.
I reckoned it wasn't. Charlotte was up on the balcony when Ivy fell. Coco couldn't conceive of her friend doing such a thing, but looking at her now I had no problem believing that Charlotte had knocked Coco to the ground and then thrown Ivy over the balcony.
It was easier to see the size of her now that her ill-fitting dress was torn. She had looked round and soft before, but now I could see she was short but stocky. The largeness of her limbs was all muscle. Ivy would have been easy.
She must have lured Thomas into a false sense of security somehow. But I could imagine if he were near the rail already and she caught him off guard, she could upend his feet and send him over head-first. I could imagine it all too clearly.
But there was no reason to say any of that out loud.
"Then what are you teasing me about?"
"The extra person," Charlotte said, growing impatient now. "The one who destroyed everything. The one that drove Edward away from Ivy, the one that made Ivy take Thomas instead when he was meant to be with Mary."
"I thought you hated Thomas," I said.
"It doesn't matter how I felt! He belonged to Mary!"
"All right," I said as soothingly as I could.
I really hoped that spell had worked. Because if it had, then the others would be on their way back to this room now.
"We can't make other people love whom we want them to love," I said. "Thomas might never have chosen Mary even if he was free to do so."
"He would have," Charlotte said.
"And Edward didn't drive Ivy away. He loved her. You heard that yourself if you were listening."
"He says he never did. And I could tell he never did. And so could Ivy. Ivy knew he didn't love her, not really. That's why she finally turned to Thomas."
"Edward is not to blame for all of this," I said.
"We agree on that," she said.
"You stole my key," I said. She just grinned at me. "How did you know I had it, or what it did?"
She grinned wider. "I'm not allowed to tell you that," she said.
"Not allowed by who?" I asked. She said nothing. But she tipped her head to one side and something golden around her neck caught the light. A locket hung at her throat, dangling from a choker. Had she had that before? No, I was sure she hadn’t.
I gripped my wand more tightly. Her eyes darted over to it, noticing my movement.
"You know who's to blame?" she asked.
"You are," I said. "Although how murdering your sister's best friend and secret love is supposed to make her life in any way better is beyond me."
"No!" Charlotte shouted at me. "You are! You're to blame. If you hadn't turned Edward's head, we'd all be in the other room celebrating their happy engagement and waiting to count down to the new year. If only you didn't exist!"
Before I could reply, she charged me, throwing the chair aside to tackle me.
As I fell to the floor, my wand flew from my hand.
And wherever it landed, I had no clue.