The Overstreets’ Atherton mansion looks like a Case Study house that came down with gigantism. It’s a tumorous monstrosity of white planes, jutting cubes and walls of glass, its bright glow clinical rather than inviting. As she and Misha languish in the valet parking queue, Evie keeps her eyes on the hard lines of the house as it emerges past the treetops like it holds the key to her salvation. It doesn’t. It just keeps her from staring at Misha.

It hurts to look at him.

It hurts not to look at him.

He’d knocked on Evie’s door an hour prior and she’d opened it and there he was, in the tight leather trousers and the fancy military jacket, leaning against the wall. He’d smudged a little dark liner softly around his eyes, and the tops of his already ridiculous cheekbones shimmered in the hall light.

It’s at that moment Evie realizes she’d never really seen Misha make an effort with his appearance before. Every time she’d seen him, he’d just rolled out of bed like that. Even his tuxedo at the Pickford engagement party he’d probably just thrown on after work. But this…

“What do you think?” Misha says, pulling his plush lower lip between his teeth.

Evie slams the door in his face and goes and hyperventilates in the bathroom for a good five minutes.

She removes her hands from the cool marble of the sink reluctantly, and returns to the bedroom. Calmly, a little numb, she picks up her bag (oversized; large enough to hide a hardback book) and puts on some lip gloss. Then she opens the door again.

Misha stands up quickly from where he’s been slouched against the wall, like a scolded schoolboy.

Evie doesn’t especially notice. She keeps her eyes firmly locked on the hallway’s pale grey striped wallpaper and its minimalist black and white photos of ocean horizons.

“Very Ballets Russes. Selene Overstreet should love it,” Evie says as she fiddles with the contents of her handbag: room key, wallet, phone, lipstick.

She definitely doesn’t notice when Misha jams his hands into his front pockets, which pull the already low waistband of his leather pants well below his hip points. Or at the play of muscles on the sharp V of his pelvic line as he pushes away from the wall and walks past her into the room.

“Okay. Good,” he says, his voice curiously hollow and unenthusiastic. “Masha sends her regards. And she’s right, you look… amazing. If any—”

“Where is she?” Evie says, looking past him.

“In our suite, watching an old Fred Astaire movie. She likes musicals.” Misha tucks a lock of his artfully mussed hair behind his ear. “If this all goes south… she has to finish the job. But for now, she stays in reserve.”

“Do you think the priests she saw are after you?” Evie carefully looks at a spot to the right of Misha.

He’s just staring at her, head tilted, a look of concern on his face. It takes him a moment to realize he’s been asked a question, and he shakes his head a little, hair coming loose again. “I doubt it,” he murmurs. “I have… a lot of protocols in place. Ways to stay off their radar.” He flashes Evie a wry smile. “Which, of course, I’m breaking with you. But it’s almost time for me to leave New York anyway. So the risk is manageable.”

He sighs and taps the toe of one boot against the carpet. “I think they’re here for the book, like me. Eric Overstreet hasn’t been as subtle as he thinks. In theory I could leave it to them, but…” He begins to pace, and says nothing for a whole minute. When he next speaks, his voice is rough with emotion. “Evie, I have to see this book burn. The last time I thought it destroyed, it had been in the possession of the priests. They said they burned it. He said—” Misha’s mouth snaps shut and he backs away, palms up. When he speaks again, it’s in a whisper. “I need to see it destroyed with my own eyes, this time.”

He reaches out and grabs her, and his expression is so raw, so full of pain that Evie gasps, tensing. “And if I don’t make it out of this, for whatever reason, I want you to bear witness that I tried to do the right thing. Can you do that for me?”

Evie nods, even as she tries to pull away from his grasp.

He lets go. But he doesn’t back off. He stays there, in her space, looking down at her. “Last chance, Evie. You don’t have to be a part of this. You can stay here in your room, have a nice vacation, maybe go for a swim in the pool. I won’t think badly of you for it. In fact, it’s the sensible thing to do.”

She stares up into his strange, pale eyes, waiting for him to blink first. He doesn’t. So Evie does. She turns away from him and marches out of the room, away from his gravitational pull. As she passes by the bed she lazily indicates the small mountain of new clothes on it, most still neatly wrapped in tissue. “Can’t stay behind,” she says. “Masha forgot to buy me a bathing suit.”

She is halfway to the elevators before she hears the slam of her room door and the heavy tread of Misha’s footsteps as he stalks after her.

Moments later, she feels his hand, hot and large, on her lower back. “We will talk about your foolhardy tendencies later,” he growls.

She can handle this. Everything is fine.

The hall photographs of the endless horizons at sea, dark on the bottom and light on top, they’re fine. The pale wood-paneled elevator with its screens advertising the hotel’s restaurants and day spa, that’s fine too. Bizarre, stalky flower arrangements in green and scarlet decorating the lobby, also fine.

All remains fine until they are ensconced in the car together. The road rumbling beneath them and the heat from Misha’s body, the juniper-and-leather smell of him: it is all terrifyingly close to her and yet not close enough. Evie stares out the passenger window, twiddling her fingers nervously, worried that Misha is going to try to engage her in small talk. But he doesn’t. He drives silently, solemnly, the entire half hour it takes to get to Atherton.

And now they sit in a valet line in the Overstreets’ winding driveway. A line that is barely moving.

“God, look at all the people,” Evie says, staring at the crowds bustling into the house, and the early birds already visible through the glass walls.

“Only seven hundred of his closest friends,” Misha mutters.

“And the place still doesn’t look full.”

“Mm,” he grunts. Then he shifts, restlessly. “Evie…”

“Hn?” She keeps her temple pressed against the cold window. She knows he’s looking at her, maybe even leaning towards her.

“Evie, promise you’ll listen until the end if I say something, without biting my head off?”

This was all the most terrible mistake, Evie thinks. Claudia was right, but not for the reasons she intended. The more time she spends around Misha, the more she sees the warm person that exists under that glossy, brittle surface, the harder she falls. Tonight is the hardest of all, because if she looks at him any more in that outfit, with the hair and the smudged eyeliner and the body, the words she’d been trying so hard to suppress are going to fly out of her mouth as soon as she opens it, like the evils of the world escaping from Pandora’s box. And she never wants to see his face when it happens, when he realizes how pathetic she is, falling for him just like everybody else does.

“Why would I be angry?” she says, tonelessly. The valets are only six cars away now.

“Other than you being a little… off, all night?” Misha grumps.

“I’m nervous, okay?” Evie snaps back. Valets are five cars away. “I’m allowed to be scared. Humans get scared, it’s a thing that happens. Just because you’re not—”

“I’m scared too,” Misha whispers. “I’m scared all the time.”

“… What?” she says, and she looks at him, and it’s all over. He’s so fucking beautiful, he makes her bones ache.

“Evie, I shouldn’t exist. And one day the universe is going to realize its mistake and wipe me out.” Misha stares down at his lap. “And when it happens, I’m not even sure I’ll fight.”

The silence in the car has tangible weight, pressing down on her, keeping her from breathing. She shoves her hand under her leg, so she can stop it from reaching out to him, running her fingers along his arm, calming the nervous fidgeting of his hands. If she weren’t such a mess, she could think of something funny to say. She could make his smile come back.

“You should fight,” she says, quietly. “You’re worth… you’re amazing, Misha. Just… as a person. You are.” She takes his hand, squeezing it gently in a way she hopes he takes as reassuring.

“I haven’t been a person since 1916,” he murmurs.

“What are you?” she asks. At this point it’s almost a reflex. Evie thinks she knows, but part of her still rejects the idea. It’s insane; far-fetched even in fiction, but to have it be real, and to have one sitting next to her…

Misha whimpers, a small, defeated sound. “I’m—”

“No. I know,” Evie cuts him off. “I know what you are.”

Misha’s lush mouth pulls into a grimace and he tries to turn away, tries to pull his hand out of hers.

But Evie just holds on a little tighter. “You’re my friend.”

Misha looks at her, startled. He goes to say something, but the words desert him, and he closes his mouth. Instead, he turns her hand in his, and laces their fingers together. He squeezes back, gently.

The silence that blossoms is lighter now; warmer.

Misha relaxes into his seat, the tension releasing muscle by muscle. “As long as I can do this. As long as I can get rid of that fucking book… I’ll have done one good thing.”

“Okay, now you’re just having a pity party,” Evie says. “You’ve done about eight good things since I’ve met you.”

Misha unlinks their fingers long enough to punch her in the shoulder, before dropping his hand over hers again. She looks at him out of the corners of her eyes and he’s trying not to smile as he gazes out the windshield at the well-dressed revelers streaming in through the glass doors of the Overstreets’ mansion.

“I’m worried about the crowds,” he says. “What I’d started to say earlier… I can… make a link between us. So you’ll always feel where I am, and I’ll feel where you are. It’s temporary. Only lasts about six hours. But I’d feel better if… It’s a big house, filled with a lot of people…”

“Sounds reasonable,” Evie says. “I mean, it sounds like it breaks several bedrock rules of physics but sure, why not.”

“Okay.” Misha blushes, his eyes dipping down to his lap again. “I have to tell you… the only way I know how to make the link is by kissing.”

Evie isn’t quite sure what her face is doing at this point but Misha takes it as refusal. He shifts in embarrassment. “I’m not being a creep, I swear. I didn’t exactly get an instruction manual when…” He bites his lip again, and Evie really wishes he’d stop drawing attention to his mouth. A mouth that he was talking about using to kiss her. “I only found out how to do this by experimentation. I’m not even sure if the others can do it, or just me.”

“So I have to kiss you,” Evie reiterates, trying to sound blasé.

“Yes. On the lips.”

Evie digs the fingers of her free hand into the thick leather handle of her bag, and wills her heart to stop thundering in her chest. “Fine,” she sighs. “If that’s the only way to do it.”

Then Misha’s hand is on her chin, gently guiding her face towards him. As he tilts his head to slot their mouths together, he whispers, “It doesn’t hurt. And it doesn’t… I don’t take anything.”

He touches his lips to hers, so soft, and she feels his tongue brush into her mouth. At first she isn’t sure if the overwhelming, sparking current lighting her up is the magic, or just the act of kissing Misha. She grips the leather of her bag more tightly. She’s not going to moan. She isn’t.

He pulls back slightly, breaking the kiss, and she fights the urge to chase after him. His lips hover over hers, so close, but not touching, as he watches her.

As the sense of electricity fades, a tingle remains, like the feeling after eating a piece of ginger. The feeling moves down into her chest and sits near her heart like it belongs there. While she’s thinking about that, wanting to touch the spot with her fingers, she realizes Misha has moved away.

“There,” he says. “Not so bad?”

She’s torn between sassing him and reassuring him and kissing him back and oh my god, she can feel him, she can close her eyes and know exactly where he is—

A loud knock on the driver’s side window startles them both.

It’s the valets. Misha pops the car’s locks and the valets open the doors for them, one valet extending a hand to help Evie out of the low bucket seat.

Misha takes her arm as they walk up the path. As they approach the security team at the door, he pulls up an app on his phone and displays a code from it to the guards. It does something complicated, and then the guards’ tablet flashes green, and the front door opens by itself. “Enjoy the party,” one of the guards says.

And then there they are, inside a huge, triple-height main room that seems part atrium, part art gallery. The vast space contains several hundred of Silicon Valley’s most important people, and the two of them. Misha snags a pair of champagne flutes from a passing waiter, and hands her one.

Evie narrows her eyes at the glass he still holds. “You going to drink that?” she asks.

“Of course not,” says Misha. “When have you ever seen me eat or drink? I’m going to carry it around as a social prop until I eventually pour it into a plant pot.” He clinks her glass and murmurs in her ear, and she can feel the grin on his face. “Bon courage, Evie.”

Then he’s off through the crowd, leaving ripples in his wake that range from admiring glances to outright staring. Tech bros are in no way hip or well dressed, and Misha stands out like a hawk among sparrows. Evie watches as some pale, round man in a Star Wars shirt points to Misha and says to his friends in disgust, “That dude is wearing makeup.” She resolves to step on his foot the first chance she gets. When she looks up to find Misha again, he’s vanished into the sea of schlubs in startup-logo hoodies and girls in polite little Banana Republic dresses.

Evie doesn’t know anyone here. She’s not big on parties at the best of times, and a party where she doesn’t know a single other person is her own version of hell. She’s still on edge from her last few minutes with Misha in the car (we kissed, he kissed me, her brain keeps whimpering) and she can’t gather her social graces enough to approach strangers and make small talk. The people around her are all talking about dev timelines and VCs and APIs and their Series B and Evie knows nothing about this world.

She stares instead at the truly jaw-dropping modern art gracing the walls. A Rothko here, an Ed Ruscha there, a Cy Twombly between the pair of staircases curving up to the second floor. They arch around a massive Egyptian black-stone statue of Osiris, his nose long ago broken off by the petty worshippers of newer gods. Other rough, weathered statues of broken gods from a variety of ancient cultures stand in counterpoint to the abstract art: a Venus without her head. A crowned Buddha without his body. All have been muted down by the centuries from their original jaunty polychromes into the acceptable drab of the modernist interior.

Her champagne gone, she heads to a bar and grabs a refill from the bartender. He’s black; there are only about five other black people in the whole gathering beyond the wait staff and the DJ. It’s an overwhelmingly white crowd, with a smattering of South and East Asian.

Evie looks around for another wallflower to befriend. At one end of the bar is a South Asian girl in a pretty cornflower-blue dress. She is by herself, reading something on her phone. Evie heads towards her, getting her courage up to start a conversation, when the girl is moved in on by a trio of people who are clearly friends or work colleagues. She tucks her phone away and kisses them hello, and never notices Evie peeling away at the last minute to edge past them.

She decides to postpone making friends for the moment in favor of checking on Misha. She touches the spot over her heart and closes her eyes, waiting to feel which way it would tug her.

Misha is to her right, and above; he must be on the second floor. He feels content, through the link.

Evie climbs up, and sees him as she reaches the curve in the staircase. He’s standing near the top of it, where the railing bends in close enough that she could reach out to the massive statue of Osiris and touch it, chatting to a group of people. She recognizes one of them as Selene Overstreet. The rest seem like hangers-on, all gazing up at Selene and Misha adoringly, looking for the right moment to impress. Selene wears asymmetric layers of beige/taupe over glossy beige leggings and gold heels, understated and incredibly expensive. Misha still looks like an off-duty rock star, but his outfit seems less out of place next to her than it did below, in the throng of brogrammers. The crowd is raucous, but Misha speaks softly, forcing Selene to lean in towards him, to move into his space. It’s startlingly effective.

She watches, as if through glass, Misha’s skill in working a conversation, his confidence with people. He knows he will be liked, whereas Evie hopes at best to be tolerated. She envies the ease with which he exists in his own skin, the way he wears his physical power so lightly, like it’s nothing at all. Until the moment it is. Misha pairs his confidence with a surprising level of sensitivity, however: for all that sexuality was his weapon of choice, he was more respectful of her and of her consent than almost any other man she has ever met. Usually when men were as striking and as confident as Misha, they acted like they had a right to things. Not Misha; never him.

His eyes meet hers, and he trails off whatever he is saying to Selene. Evie can see the slight tension that goes through the older woman when she notices that Misha’s attention has wandered away from her.

Evie turns and goes back down the stairs. When she looks back, Selene and Misha are arm in arm and laughing, disappearing further into the house. The sparrows who had surrounded them mill silently as they realize no more crumbs will be scattered for them and then, as one, they flock towards the nearest bar. They flow down past Evie, raucous in their comparison of this party, that retreat. Keeping pace with them, Evie learns that the near-billionaire founder of an e-commerce site bought an abandoned town in Montana and is paying people to come live there as his friends. But as his taste in drugs is as cheap as his appetite is large, they’re all afraid he’ll check out before the checks clear. “I’m going to do it anyway,” a man in a green polo titters. “What if we become best friends and he leaves me everything?”

“I don’t think he swings that way, Patrick,” an expensively highlighted blonde woman rebukes him.

Patrick groans. “Ew, no homo, Cris,” he whines, and then they’re past Evie and she looks out across the crowd to get her bearings and instead gets a perfect view of Nicole Hamilton walking alone through the front doors. Even from this distance Evie can read her lips as she shows her phone screen and says “Press” to the security team.

The clear logic of it hits Evie like a blast of cold air: of course Nicole has fled New York’s incestuous, gossipy magazine industry to insert herself into the more placid, sycophantic world of Silicon Valley tech journalism. She remembers at Gotham how the editors would mock their regular offers from Bay Area publications, all desperate to have a real New York editor on staff, as if anyone would fight their way up tooth and nail to the top of Manhattan magazine journalism, the toughest and best market in the world, just to leave it to go voluntarily to San Francisco. It’s absurd. Only a failure would do that.

And so here Nicole is, in a short, ruched metallic-fuchsia dress that looks like a candy wrapper, her smile brittle and tight, her stilettos too high, everything perfect for striding through the lobby of the Standard at 10pm in the Meatpacking District but wrong, wrong, wrong here. She looks up and in the moment their eyes meet, Evie can see the exhaustion in her features. Nicole’s gaze passes over her, expressionless, and Evie takes the coward’s way out.

She ducks down into the crowd, for the first time regretting how tall her boots make her, and beelines for the open doors to the back gardens. Her heart goes rabbit-fast in her chest. Misha is upstairs with Selene now, but he will come down, and Nicole will recognize him. But for Evie being there, she’d probably think Misha was an idle cad who took her out a few times then ghosted her, par for the course in New York dating.

But now, if she’s recognized Evie, she’s going to be reminded of the feature Evie pitched to her, The Break-Up Artist. If she’s looked through the folder Evie sent her, she’ll have seen his photos with Stewart Pickford, heard his voice on the recording with Greg and Erin, read Octavia Mortimer’s name in her notes as a Meserov client. And she’ll know Misha as the person who destroyed her relationship with August Mortimer and, with it, her coveted editorial perch, sending all the scaffolding of her New York social status crashing down around her.

As the warm night air hits Evie and the sound of the party falls away behind her, she prays that Nicole has retained her old habits of never reading anything she was sent. She looks around. She’s on a pathway through an immaculate lawn that falls into geometric terraces down a small hillside. Eucalyptus trees rustle at the edges of the grass, marking out the borders of the property. A pool lies off to Evie’s right, its aqua glow somehow rich and comforting in the night, its surface pristine and as yet unmarred by drunken revelers. Another bar, at a terrace just above the pool. The air smells like fresh-cut grass and the more she walks away from the house, the songs of crickets begin to drown out the braying of the rich and the aural wallpaper of the DJ’s mellow electronica.

Standing in the middle of this lush nocturne, alone among groups of happy, relaxed people, Evie pulls out her cloud storage app on her phone and stares at the research folder she shared with Nicole, a short week and a thousand years ago. Her finger hovers over it as she spares a moment of self-pity for the risks she took to collect all the information inside.

And then she deletes the whole thing.

Evie heads to the poolside bar, orders a whiskey, and grits her teeth against its burn. She resolves to talk to the next decent-looking person her age. What would Misha do? He’d be relaxed. He’d smile. She can do that, too. She turns and leans against the bar, posture open, and looks over the sparse poolside crowd.

Okay, there’s a guy staring at her boots. White kid with bleached hair and a My Little Pony T-shirt. Well, at least it wasn’t a tech company logo. Deep breath. “Hey,” she smiles. Lifts her glass up.

“Oh my god. Are those Rick Owens?” he says, pointing at her boots.

“Yeah,” she smiles.

“Oh thank Christ,” he groans. “Finally someone at this party who can dress. If I see one more girl in a polo dress I’m going to cut someone.” He puts on a falsetto and a big smile. “Hi, I’m Mimi and I’m a marketing manager at a tech startup! We just did our Series A and I’m so excited!” The smile bleeds away as he rakes his fingers through his spiky, bleached hair, rocking back and forth and growling, “Red. Rum.”

They blink at each other, then the guy’s eyes go wide. “I’m Andy and I was raised by bears so have no manners!” he chokes, sticking out his hand. Evie shakes it and introduces herself, and Andy gathers her into his group: two other bored-looking early-twentysomethings, their clothes and makeup noticeably trendier than the prevailing non-style of the rest of the partygoers. One Latina girl whose long brown hair fades to green at the ends is wearing pink leopard-print skinny jeans which, Evie has to admit, are pretty awesome.

Andy catches her assessing look over the group and stage-whispers, “We’re the neighbors. They had to invite us.”

“They had to invite you, Andy,” says Leopard Jeans.

“And I had to invite you because otherwise, chances of sliding into homicidal mania at the next mention of venture capitalist? ONE HUNDRED,” Andy honks back at her. Then he swivels to Evie. His pupils are dilated and she doesn’t know whether it’s because of the low light or because they had all been pre-gaming with something a lot harder than alcohol. “Anyway. Why are you here?” he asks. “You look way too cool for this crowd. I mean,” he says, gesturing over her outfit, “actual fashion.”

“I’m a writer,” Evie replies, swirling her whiskey glass and watching the ice cubes twist. “I live in New York. My friend and I got invited in some quota for non-tech people. I don’t even know the Overstreets.”

“Do you want to?” Andy asks. “Because I am in the mood to spill tonight.” The little group decamp for the bar, then assemble themselves across several deck chairs near the pool. Andy rolls a joint, and waves it like a conductor’s wand. “Now. Dearest Selene and Eric. Where shall I begin?”

“Aren’t you worried she’s going to write about this?” says the third person in the group, a skinny, short guy in corduroys with Ironic Eyeglasses and the biggest jewfro Evie’s ever seen.

“Darling, I’m praying she does the full Truman Capote on us all,” drawls Andy, sucking on the joint. He holds in the smoke, coughs, exhales in a long, contented sigh, and hands the joint to Jewfro. Then he blinks, and looks at Evie. “Oh, where’s your friend? We haven’t abandoned her, have we?”

“Him,” Evie says. “And he’s fine. He’s much better at parties than I am.” Then she touches over her heart, to make sure, and because she can. Misha is still on the second floor of the house, and she picks up that he’s slightly more stressed than he was before. I’m fine, she thinks back, I found people to hang out with. I’m by the pool. Watch out, Nicole Hamilton is here. She doesn’t know if any of that transmits. She has no clue how the link works, other than that it gives her a vague knowledge of where he is and that he’s okay, but she figures it can’t hurt to try. “I think he’s already made friends with Selene Overstreet.”

“Oh my god, abort, abort, she’s so creepy,” says Andy, aghast. “Baby Jane levels of creepy.” He catches Evie’s worried expression and leans forwards, patting her arm. “Okay so my dad works for Oracle, right? And we’ve lived here”—he gestures towards the bottom of the lawn, where Evie can see a French château-style grey stone house whose turrets just poke over the treeline—“pretty much my whole life. The Overstreets built this place about seven years ago and, god, I don’t know. I can see their bedroom from my window and they do not pull the curtains. This place is a fishbowl.” Andy makes a sour face, and reaches across to grab the joint.

“He’s like the world’s oldest goth,” says Leopard Jeans. “Which? Tragic.”

“Total germophobe,” confirms Andy. “Even wears gloves when he has sex.”

“You cannot know that!” squawks Leopard Jeans.

“Bitch I can,” hisses Andy. “I see into his bedroom window from mine.”

Telescope, coughs Jewfro into his fist, and Leopard Jeans cracks up. Andy flips them off and continues. “He buys weird statues and stuff. He never seemed that… interested in Selene? I mean, she seemed really sad when she moved in, quiet and kind of… lost. We assumed he was, like, secretly ace or something? But three years ago he started banging his PR girl and Selene, like, transformed herself.”

Andy sighs and leans back, crossing his acid wash-denim clad legs. “She’d been that girl. The model who got the billionaire. Well, y’know, ‘model’. Catalogue work or something.” He doesn’t do the air quotes, but Evie can hear them nonetheless. “No kids; too many bodily fluids involved for Eric, we thought. Also potential for hugging and actual affection. And nothing for her to really do, except play at charity and have status games with the other wives.”

“This doesn’t sound like Baby Jane to me,” says Evie, refusing the joint.

Andy rolls his eyes and takes another hit. “Okay, so she clearly decides she’s going to get off her ass and get her creepy man back. She drops like thirty pounds, starts putting some silicon in her valleys if you know what I mean, and hires a stylist to make her the best-dressed woman in tech, and you know what? He still didn’t want her. It’s kinda sad. I mean, she got what she wanted, the perfect life, and now she doesn’t even have to have sex with Eric any more, but around here… people only talk to her because she’s Eric’s wife. If she stops being that…” Andy shrugs.

“Are you sure she isn’t having an affair?” Evie asks, thinking of her laughing on Misha’s arm. The thought of Misha doing his job, seducing Selene, fills her with a hot, molten sort of misery.

“Girl. Girrrl,” laughs Andy. “Do you know how many little tech broettes come out here every year fresh out of college with the goal of using their boobs to get ahead, until they’re either hitched to some shitty rich brogrammer, or get to spend a year or two reveling in being the only girl in the boys’ clubhouse? Because she is so much cooler than the other girls, until of course another girl comes along who’s willing to put up with more of the brogrammers’ bullshit? Laugh off the drunken gropes, the casual sexism of ‘boys being boys’? There’s an inexhaustible supply of upwardly mobile twenty-three-year-old poontang in Silicon Valley, so why would anyone want her saggy forty-five-year-old butt? Like, she has no skills. Not even xml. Besides, here’s the thing,” Andy says, leaning close and adopting a faux-whisper. “Pretty girls have no game.”

Evie thinks of Nicole. “Pretty blondes especially.”

“Right?!” Andy exclaims. “They don’t even need to be that pretty. They just need to be young, in a short skirt, and have long blonde hair. They contour, they highlight, they laser off their body hair, they stay a size 2. And that’s all they have to do. Selene was a model. She always had guys after her. The only game she had to develop was about eight different polite variations of no thank you that would make guys she rejected go away and hopefully not try to kill her.” Andy smiles, wry and sad. “Then one day nobody thought she was pretty any mo…” His mouth hangs open, fishlike, as his commentary tails off into a startled whine. He stares past Evie.

The link tingles in Evie’s chest, so she isn’t surprised when a too-warm hand comes to rest gently on her shoulder. “This is my friend from New York,” she says, and Misha rubs her neck affectionately. “Misha, everyone. Everyone, Misha.”

“Hi,” Misha says. His voice is still down in the low, growly register he uses for flirting, and Evie hates how much she likes it. He squeezes her shoulder. “I’m sorry, I have to steal Evie away for a moment. Will you still be here in fifteen minutes?”

Andy has absolutely not recovered. He nods, mouth agape.

“Okay. We’ll be back soon,” Misha smiles. It’s his polite smile, not his real one, but it’s still devastating.

“It was great hanging out with you all. Thanks for rescuing me,” Evie says as she gets up. And she means it; talking to Andy and his friends has been the best part of the party so far.

Andy whimpers a little bit. He’s still staring at Misha. I know, Evie thinks.

They step off the pool terrace onto the flagstone path towards the house, Misha taking her arm in his. Out of the dark behind them comes a pained, high-pitched stage-whisper: “Oh my god, I want to ride that man like the Pony Express.”

Misha stops and glances back to Andy, smirking. “Hard and fast and all night long?”

They’re rewarded with the slow crashing sound of Andy falling over in his deck chair.

“You’re very bad,” Evie giggles.

“You have only just figured this out?” Misha hums. A drunk, laughing couple approach them, the girl’s strappy, electric-blue heels sinking into the lawn and her friend steadying her. Once they pass, Misha’s demeanor grows more serious. “I know which room the book is in. It feels muffled, as if it’s in a case or something.”

“What if it’s in a safe?” Evie whispers. “I can’t break into a safe.”

Misha chews his lip. “Don’t think it’s in a safe. Not sure I could feel it through anything that reinforced.”

Evie looks at him, aghast. Just how much is he winging this?

“Look,” he hisses, exasperated. “I’m doing the best I can. Which, for your information, is a hell of a lot better than most.”

They step back into the house, noisy with guests. The DJ has upped the tempo of the music and, lubricated by alcohol, revelers are dancing in one corner of the ground floor near the staircases, while excited crowds ripple and sway across the rest of the room. Evie watches Misha change his gait, loosening it, getting drunker before her eyes. She knows it’s an act, but he’s good. Then Misha grabs her and turns, yanking her into him. She’s pressed into his chest, their bodies touching and it’s like a fuse has been lit—

Evie has no time to react before he whispers, “Hit me. Hard as you can. Then head back towards the bathrooms.” Then his mouth is on hers, hard, inelegant, and messy.

She shoves at his chest and he staggers slightly, reaching for her again. She hauls off and smacks him right in his perfect cheekbones. Then she stomps off towards the ladies’ room, and she doesn’t have to fake the turmoil she’s feeling at all. There’s a smudge of gold on her palm.

She feels him behind her, pushing through the crowd, shouting for her. A few people look; she prays Nicole isn’t one of them. Evie’s lost sight of her and the last thing Misha’s shoddy plan needs is another variable.

Misha grabs her arm and pulls her around a corner. There’s a bleep of an access card, and then they’re in a small service elevator.

Evie tries to calm her breathing as the doors slide closed.

Misha leans over her, resting on one arm, careful not to cage her in. “Sorry. There are cameras everywhere. I need a reason for you to leave alone.” He hands her the valet parking ticket, and the access card. “Third floor, end of the hallway, door on the left,” he says, reaching for the door open button.

“What—” Evie starts.

“You can drive stick, yes? Take the car and drive back to the hotel. Don’t worry about me,” he says.

Evie nods, but she doesn’t like the look in his eye. It’s determined; dangerous. “Misha, what are you—”

“I am going to cause a distraction,” he says. “You get the book. Then walk out. Slowly. Have another glass of champagne. Go take a selfie with your friends by the pool. They’ll be checking the camera feeds later for people looking suspicious. Walk, Evie. Whatever you do, walk, don’t run.”

She stares at the buttons. B, 1, 2, 3. Pressing one of them will put her past the point of no return.

“I can’t,” she says, her voice small.

“Evie. Don’t back out now.”

“Why aren’t you doing this?” Evie demands. “This was your idea. You’re the criminal!” she whispers, furious. “I’m just supposed to witness you doing the right thing!”

“I can’t,” hisses Misha. He shoves his hands in his pockets and paces across the small space of the elevator, then leans his forehead against the opposite wall. “Please. You have to.” It’s the ragged edge in Misha’s voice that makes Evie look up. He’s pale, and just about shaking with nerves. His voice comes out a rough whisper. “It’s not safe for me to be near it, around this many people. I thought I was over its hold on me but… I’m not.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “I can feel it calling to me.”

Evie gapes. She knows she should say something to reassure him, but she’s too unsettled by the sight of Misha stripped raw, his usual self-assurance lost. It’s like walking out and finding the sky to be a different color than blue. Errors of order, mistakes in the fabric of being.

Misha wipes a hand down his face, his eyes darting away. “I’ve lost control around the book before. I can’t… I can’t do it, Evie. It’s not safe.” He presses his fist against the brushed aluminum of the elevator. “I’m not safe,” he finishes, barely audible.

Evie runs her thumb against the dull edge of the access card. Misha is watching her through his hair, a sort of desperation in his eyes. She sighs. “You’re bailing me out of jail if this goes horribly wrong, yeah?”

Misha nods, and the very fact that he doesn’t have a sassy comeback is disturbing enough. “Thank you,” he murmurs, his fingers brushing the back of hers as he reaches to open the elevator doors. “I’ll see you later.”

And then Evie is alone in the elevator.

She takes a deep breath, and pushes the button for the third floor. Her hand only shakes a little bit.

The elevator takes her silently upwards on her short journey, and deposits her in a short hallway hung with more multimillion-dollar abstract art and topped with a high, peaked skylight that runs the length of the hall. She creeps forwards as silently as she can, under the judgmental eye of the night sky. She clasps her handbag in front of her stomach as she walks, as if it can protect her from harm, and she listens for any sounds at all. There’s nothing; even her footsteps are inaudible over the distant buzz and hum of the party below.

She reaches the last door on the left and touches its knob, sure that it’s going to zap her or set off an alarm. But it’s just cold chrome, and she steps closer, grasping it and turning.

It’s locked.

Evie panics for a moment, then tries holding the access card Misha gave her near the door. She’s rewarded with the soft whir of a locking mechanism disengaging. Where had Misha gotten the card? She flips it over to see if there’s a name or a photo on it.

Oh.

He pickpocketed it from Selene Overstreet.

She briefly wonders if all supernatural people are this shady, or just the one that bad luck delivered as her friend. She was going to have a long talk with Misha when this was all over.

But then she is inside the Overstreets’ bedroom, a surprisingly Victorian affair with a black wood four-poster bed hung with silk canopies and a carved marble mantel around a crackling fireplace, the wall above it hung with early black and white erotic photographs.

The right-hand wall is one huge window. The left has double doors, presumably to a walk-in closet. But the rest of the wall space is lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases, each and every one of them full of ancient-looking books.

Evie’s heart sinks. How is she supposed to find Misha’s Book of Hours in a room overflowing with them? All she remembers is a flaking reddish-brown leather binding, but that describes almost every tome on the shelves.

Evie is about to start yanking them down at random when a rustling sound nearly has her leaping out of her own skin. She bites down on her own fist so she doesn’t yell, and takes a better look past the bed’s heavy canopies.

There’s a girl on the bed.

There is a girl on the bed and she’s Evie’s age. She’s wearing a ball gag in her mouth and a blindfold and her wrists and ankles are tied with thick red ropes to the bedposts. She’s a petite white girl, long silver-blonde hair, about a size 2. Her toes and fingernails are painted with a green metallic polish. The ball gag is bright red, with a black leather strap that’s digging into the corners of the girl’s mouth. Blindfolded as she is, she can’t see Evie, and she hasn’t yet seemed to realize there’s another person in the room.

Evie can’t do this.

She backs away, ready to flee, when she sees something else on the bed: a chased silver box, about the length and width of a sheet of paper, but about four inches deep.

A box large enough to contain a book.

Evie leans in and carefully opens the box. It’s lined in faded electric-blue velvet, and inside is an old book with a flaking, cordovan-leather cover and gilded edges. She lifts it out, and the book comes easily into her hands.

It feels warm. The book is warm, like Misha is, and it settles into her hands like it belongs there.

The leather doesn’t feel dry in her hands, despite what it looks like. It feels like the skin of a living being, soft and pliant, and the whole thing buzzes slightly, like a box of bees.

Evie knows it’s the right book, but she wants to open it up, just to make sure. Just to see if it’s really true that all the red letters spell out a sort of eldritch knowledge.

She picks a page at random; the beginning of Chapter 4. There’s a little painting of a maiden and a unicorn, and the maiden has light brown skin like her and wears a crown, and there are flowers all around her. The illustration is beautiful. She’d been to the Morgan Library and seen illustrated manuscripts before, but never up close. This… this couldn’t be the book Misha wanted to destroy. Why would he want to harm something so exquisite?

Unless it was because he himself was evil.

Evie begins to doubt Misha more and more as she flips through the book, the illuminated capitals and stylized red letters calling to her, but she keeps her eyes to the illustrations for now.

She’ll take the book home and study it, and then decide if Misha should have it. Besides, if there was something more to the book, a secondary text in it, she should see what it was, if nothing else as a matter of investigative record.

Or…

Or she could sit down on the carpet and read it right here. Just a page or two.

There is the girl, but… that’s an easy enough problem to solve. Not like she could fight back. Evie’s eyes skate around the room, looking for something she could use to…

… To what?

She shakes her head. A chill passes through her, even though the fire and the heavy furnishings make the room far stuffier than the rest of the house. She needs to go. She should tuck the book in her handbag and leave. Enough time to read it at leisure, later.

She traces her fingers over the leather, and wonders if it’s cow skin, or something else. She fights the almost unbearable urge to raise the cover to her nose and sniff it.

Which is when the door behind her clicks open, and a tall, cadaverously pale man in his mid-fifties walks in wearing a black silk dressing gown and black latex gloves. Evie recognizes him from the case research pictures.

It’s their client.

It’s Eric Overstreet.

She presses against one of the bedposts, hugging the book to her chest and hiding herself as best she can behind one of its heavy drapes. He walks around towards the other side of the bed, and maybe she can still get out if he takes a few more steps… then he notices the silver box lying open upon the bed, the book missing from it. His eyes travel upwards, unerringly, to where she’s huddled.

He chokes out a startled shout of “Thief!” and lunges forwards.

The bed is between them, and they’re both the same distance to the door. Evie squawks in terror and bolts as fast as she can for the door. She can hear the sharp bang of something falling over, maybe a bedside table, and thinks good, maybe it’ll slow him down. Her hand reaches out for the doorknob—

—when she feels something in her hair, burning through it, a hot, searing thing.

She ducks instinctively, and only after she sees the hole the bullet makes in the door, where her head had just been, does she associate it with the banging sound.

A second bullet tears into the wood of the door frame and Evie freezes, hunkering down into herself to present as small a target as possible.

“Turn around,” orders Eric Overstreet, in a surprisingly nasal voice, “and put the book down. I don’t want to hurt it.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Evie can see the pistol glinting in his hands.