“You could try.” Unimpressed, Lady Eris sat back down on her ornate stool. She raised her hand to taste Cody’s blood on her fingernails with the tip of her tongue, then made a face. I guess werewolf blood wasn’t yummy. She gestured to an attendant, who scrambled to bring her a bowl of water in which to dabble her fingers. “Is that what you really want?”

“No, my lady.” I got the words out before Cody could respond, elbowing him in the ribs for good measure. “Just the chance to look for the child.”

Lady Eris and I did the locked-gazes thing. What can I say? It was big in the eldritch community. I kept my expression neutral and my miniature shield shining between us. “Naturally, I have no desire to be in violation of Hel’s order,” she said at length, snapping her fingers at her attendants. One hurried to arrange her hair in a loose chignon, while the other eased a pair of open-toed mules onto her feet, careful not to smudge the fresh nail polish. “Come! Let us review the latest acolytes.”

Once acceptably attired, she swept out of the room before us, down the mauve-lit hallway and up the grand staircase to the ballroom on the third floor, where her early arrival—not to mention Cody’s and my presence—provoked consternation.

“My lady!” A tall vampire with a supercilious face protested. “The spectacle isn’t ready yet!”

I knew that face. Geoffrey Chancellor, the insufferable prat who was blood-bonded to Jen’s sister.

“Oh, my lady! It’s so important to get the lighting just right!” added a young mortal woman from above, tears in her voice.

And that would be Bethany Cassopolis, whom I did not expect to find up on a scaffold, arranging lighting. From what I could tell, they were in the midst of staging a scene from a play. On a low dais there were three, maybe four, people dressed in Renaissance-looking robes and frozen in poses around a platter with what appeared to be a bearded man’s severed head on it. Hence my confusion regarding the actual number of people on the dais.

Cody took a step forward. “What the fuck?”

“It’s a tableau vivant,” Lady Eris said irritably. “Caravaggio’s Salome with the Head of John the Baptist, tonight’s surprise spectacle, which you’ve now ruined. Well?”

I studied the tableau. Unlike the members of the string quartet in the corner, sitting bloodless and motionless with their instruments at the ready, the participants were mortal. Now that I looked closely, I could see that the severed-head effect was accomplished using a black curtain affixed to the rim of the platter. Phew.

All of them held their poses resolutely, but the young woman playing Salome, draped in a red robe and ostensibly holding the platter, was trembling.

“Heather Simkus?” I said to her. She didn’t respond, keeping her face averted. “Heather?”