Rage drove through James like an arrow. “How dare you,” he said. “You would not just be hurting me and my sister, but the damage you would do to Daisy—”

“Her name is Cordelia,” snapped Elias. “I let you marry her, despite the rumors that swirl around your family, because I thought you would be generous. And this is how you repay me?”

James felt his mouth twist violently. “Repay you? You claim you do not want to rob your family, yet you speak of robbing Cordelia of the most precious hope in her life. And she above all people would be ashamed of you, trying threats where begging won’t do the job—”

“All I’ve told you is the truth,” Elias snapped, his face contorted. “There are many—many who don’t trust you. Many who would be glad to see you and your whole family burn.”

James caught his breath. In that moment, he hated Elias Carstairs, hated him so much he wished he could strike him dead where he stood.

“Get out of my house,” he snarled; it was all he trusted himself to say.

Elias turned and stormed out of the drawing room, nearly colliding with an astonished Cordelia in the hall. “Father?” she said in surprise.

“Your husband is a very selfish man,” Elias hissed. Before she could respond, he shoved roughly past her and let himself out, slamming the door behind him.

Lucie huddled in a sheltered doorway next to the Hell Ruelle, pulling her coat tightly around her, a shield against the icy air while she waited for Grace. It was a moonless night, the stars hidden behind thick clouds. The alley was a churned-up mess of mud and slush that stained Lucie’s kid boots.

Furtive figures slipped by her, heading for the Hell Ruelle. Lucie looked after them longingly. Whenever the nondescript door opened to a Downworlder’s knock, golden light flared from the darkness like a match being lit inside a cave.

“There you are,” said Grace, as if Lucie had been hiding. She stepped into view under the light spilling from the Ruelle’s upper windows. She wore a pale woolen cape trimmed with fur at the throat and carried a matching fur muff. Her hair was pinned up in an arrangement of tiny plaits threaded with silver ribbons. She looked like the Snow Queen in a book of fairy tales.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Lucie said. “They just put the curfew into effect, and we’re already breaking it.”

Grace shrugged. “You’re the one who’s insisting we do this the ‘proper’ way. So, here we are.”

She had a point: breaking curfew was better than doing evil. The brief discussion of necromancy in James’s drawing room earlier that day had sent shivers up Lucie’s spine.

“Have you been here before?” Grace asked.