She focused in on another entrance, past the registers, coming from the palace itself. People finishing with their tours were emptied out into the gift shop before leaving, so that they could make their purchases before heading to their tour buses.

Casually, she made her way over to it, pretending to look at a rack of postcards while watching the clerks at the checkout desk. There were two there, handling a long line of customers.

She took a deep breath, waiting. The second one of them turned to grab a bag and the other faced away from the door to give another visitor directions, Diana quickly squeezed out the door, disappearing into the crowd.

When she got far enough away from the gift shop, she looked back. No security guards were coming after her. She’d done it.

She let out the breath she’d been holding and walked in the opposite direction of the tour groups, skirting along the edge of the exhibits so as to call as little attention as possible to herself. She remembered the restrooms across from Chevrolet’s office, so she walked that way, pausing in front of it. Streams of people were coming in and out of the door, so she simply side-stepped her way across the hall, pushing open the door that said, pas d' admission sans affair.

Inside, the vast office was dark. Diana closed the door behind her, scanning the room, letting her eyes adjust to the lack of light. When she could see reasonably well, she crossed to the desk and looked over the desk.

He’d cleaned it recently. Now, the papers and reports of incidents at the ball were gone. She spun around and faced a filing cabinet she hadn’t really taken much notice of before. Holding her breath, she pulled on the handle, and it slipped open to reveal hundreds and hundreds of manila folders, all neatly organized.

Just looking at them all made her dizzy, not that she could see what they were in the minimal light. She strained to read the first one, then gave up, went to the desk, and pulled the chain on the lamp, casting the room into warm light.

Quickly, she started to rifle through the papers. But everything was in French or had a name on it, and none of it meant anything to her. I will seriously be here forever if I have to go through all this.

Wondering whether there was an easier way, she’d just begun to close the cabinet when she heard an audible click coming from the doorway.

She looked up to see Blaise Chevrolet staring at her, hand on the doorknob, a questioning look on his face. “Qu'est-ce que tu fais ici?”

*

She could’ve lied. There were about a dozen of them, bubbling at the tip of her tongue, but every one of them seemed inadequate. After all of her strange behavior, he’d likely had his suspicions, but now, she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Nothing would get her out of this.