back, using the tiny patio off my bedroom to reach the fire escape, in case the front of the house was being watched by any of Prospero’s minions. The night wind rose, whipping away the scent of the flowers and replacing it with a less-sweet combination of exhaust and evening meals. Daniel tucked Prospero’s cane under his arm and held his hands out for me to take the last step from fire escape to solid ground.
It was hard enough to manage all the magic sloshing around, let alone remember to insinuate, like Jessica showed me. We made our way down a tiny alley and reached the parallel street to the north of the townhouse.
Poppy and Victorine would leave separately, and be in the vicinity of the Royal Ball. Just in case. Aunt Belinda was staying behind to watch the townhouse, the dogs, and Jessica. No good having a doppelganger show up when you’re trying to be someone you’re not. James and Lily were holding down the evening shift at the shop, and although playing dress-up was fun, an apron and a ponytail sounded a lot more relaxing than this.
And Berron…
Berron had promised to stay out of it, because he was the only being left with Gentry magic, and I needed him.
Because of his magic, obviously.
But I had to assume he wouldn’t be too far away. He couldn’t not be involved—it wasn’t in his nature.
Unlike the first Vespers Club I’d crashed, in the Lower East Side, this one was closer to my own turf. Upper East Side. Almost straight across Central Park, not too far from Victorine’s. Another abandoned church—or, more accurately, a sold-out church. The diocese had ignored the pleas of the congregation in favor of a fat check from a developer. And so the church, which had been named for a Hungarian saint pictured with arms full of bread and roses, sat forsaken.
We took a cab, choosing to arrive a block away and approach on foot. The walk would give everyone else time to get in place. I looped the velvet train over my arm and silently thanked the magic for allowing me to wear my own comfortable Doc Martens while appearing to wear white slippers.
Daniel had barely spoken since we left, seeming to clam up around “Jessica,” but as we walked, he piped up again. “I looked up the church.”
“Yeah, I saw it was bought out by a developer.”
“Did you see who used to go there?”
I shook my head, thinking he was about to name one of New York’s many celebrity residents.
“It was the only Catholic congregation for the deaf in the city.”
“And they shut it down?”
“There was a whole thing in the Times about it.” Daniel, for all his polish and worldliness, hid a moral streak that ran deep in unexpected places.
I wasn’t religious, myself, but even I could be moved by devotion. Community. Having a place to belong. Apparently, when Daniel and I found common ground, it had to be formerly consecrated.
“I think this is it,” he said, gesturing to a building with a dozen gracefully arched windows in a brownstone facing. Crosses topped a green copper spire and two more decorative copper roof finishings. The main entrance consisted of four large red doors with gold kickplates, set beneath a matching red archway with a stained glass trefoil. The doorway seemed strangely oversized, a portal out of sync with the rest of the street’s more modest entrances.
This gathering wasn’t open to witches. There was a strict guest list of the Blessed who were permitted to attend. Victorine and James weren’t on it. Daniel and “Jessica” were. I put my free arm through Daniel’s and we walked up to the red doors.
Daniel knocked.
The door cracked open. A Blessed I didn’t know blocked the way. She saw Daniel first, made a skeptical face—
Then she saw me. “Jessica! Right this way. Lord Prospero has been asking for you.”
Insinuate, I thought. “This is Daniel,” I said, with that special mix of boredom, flirtation, and venom Jessica did so well. “He’s on the list.”
“Of course.” The Blessed backed away.
I let my train fall. It swept behind me as we passed through the doorway.
The entrance had me fooled. From the outside, it looked like the doors would open directly into the sanctuary itself. Instead, we entered an empty, pitch-black foyer facing a steep set of stairs. Daniel and I shared a brief look—Are you ready? it said—before climbing.
At the top of the stairs, a second set of doors, unguarded. Daniel stepped forward and pushed one open.
Inside, light bloomed. Everything bloomed. There were roses everywhere: garlands of red and white roses, scattered pink rose petals, all over a row of pews so simple and earnest that I wanted to pet one like it was a lost puppy. Only the ceiling laid claim to being truly grand. Stone vaults framed a ceiling painted midnight blue and covered with eight-pointed gold stars. At the corners of the vaults, solemn, haloed angels in white robes held harps and gazed down. Probably wondering where the previous congregation had gone.
There was no witchy bartender this time. No colorful punk band. Only the silky hum of a crowd of the Blessed in every kind of velvet and satin, crown and mask, and a Blessed string quartet playing a waltz in the front corner of the sanctuary. Candelabras threw orange light and shifting shadows over everything.
To the side of the pews, a statue of a woman with her arms full of baguettes and roses. I couldn’t decide if it was more or less respectful to copy a saint’s motif for party decorations. Then a flutter of black descended from the night sky ceiling and landed, with a balancing wingbeat, on the statue’s head.
Crow—come to watch, and thankfully invisible to anyone without elemental magic.
We walked down the aisle, crushing petals underfoot. Was my walk more like Aunt Belinda’s or Jessica’s? Too late to turn back now.
Prospero—Lord Prospero, if I was Jessica—waited. His deep black cape almost blotted out the ornate chair on which he sat. Beneath the cape, he wore a formal outfit straight out of Victorian times: tailored slacks of dark fabric; a navy sash crossing a pure white dress shirt; and, as decoration, a thick scarlet ribbon holding a gold medal suspended over his heart. If he had a heart left, and not a bag of dust.
Only a few short steps upward separated us from the dais where he sat. I dipped my head, curtsied exactly as Jessica had shown me. “My Lord,” I murmured.
“Jessica,” he said, a fond professor chastising his favorite student. “You picked a strange time to go on one of your jaunts.”
Eyes still down, worshipful at the feet of my superior. “I wanted to look perfect tonight, my Lord.”
“And so you do. I see you have brought our old acquaintance.”
I raised my head at last, to look at Daniel. Placing one hand on his shoulder, as if to give him permission. “As my Lord commands.”
Daniel held out Prospero’s cane with both hands. “I believe this belongs to you, sir.”
Prospero regarded him. “Why, indeed it does. How thoughtful.” He almost smiled, as if at a private joke, when he took the cane. “There are many in need of a waltzing partner this evening, my friend,” Prospero said. “Why not avail yourself? Return to me later, and we shall talk.”
Daniel, dismissed, glanced at me once more before fading into the crowd.
I climbed the steps, mindful not to clomp or loom, and took my place beside Prospero’s makeshift throne.
“I have been thinking about young Daniel,” he said, resting the cane, scepter-like, across his body.
“My Lord?”
“Despite our… rocky beginning, as it were, I believe he has fair prospects.”
“Prospects?”
“Wealth. Access. A sort of worldly ease that could allow him to move seamlessly between the society of the Blessed and that of the less gifted.”
I said nothing, figuring that was the safest bet.
“I should like to bring him into our set,” Prospero continued. “He belongs with us, not with the riffraff with whom he currently associates.”
We watched the dancers whirl across the floor in the open space between the front pews and the dais. Daniel’s pent-up energy had been flung into spinning a lady of the Blessed possibly a little harder than she bargained for, judging by the expression on her face.
“What say you, Jessica?” A generous monarch allowing an opinion.
The obvious answer: to agree with everything. “He would make a fine Initiate,” I said.
Prospero nodded, absently, as if my answer was acceptable but not quite correct. “After tonight, the Blessed will begin a new life.” Certainty in his dark eyes. “I am sure you are curious.”
I let Jessica’s teasing side come out. “Of course, my Lord.”
“Never fear, child. All shall be revealed.”
It was all I could do not to slap him across his perfectly calm face. Not only was he not going to tell me—Jessica—what was going on, he was going to do something tonight. This had been an intelligence-gathering mission only. Get in, get out, go have a late-night snack.
Not anymore.
And my only connection to the rest of the crew was a crow, sitting on a saint.