“No,” Cordelia said firmly. She might be as naive as the Ruelle’s clientele assumed her to be, but even she knew the right response to a faerie trying to make a deal: walk away. “Enjoy the party,” she added, “but I must go.”

As she turned away, the woman said, in a low voice, “You need not marry a man who does not love you, you know.”

Cordelia froze. She glanced back over her shoulder; the faerie was looking at her with all the dreaminess gone from her expression. It was pinched, sharp and watchful now.

“There are other paths,” the woman said. “I could help.”

Cordelia schooled her face to blankness. “My friends are waiting for me,” she said, and walked away, her heart hammering. She sank into a chair opposite Anna and Lucie. They greeted her with cheers, but her mind was miles away.

A man who does not love you. How could that faerie know?

“Daisy!” Anna said. “Do pay attention. We’re fussing over you.” She was drinking from a tapered flute of pale champagne, and with a wave of her fingers a second one appeared, which she handed to Cordelia.

“Hurrah!” Lucie cried in delight, before returning to ignoring her cider and her friends completely, alternating instead between scribbling furiously in a notebook and staring into the middle distance.

“Did the light of inspiration hit you, pet?” Cordelia asked. Her heart was beginning to slow down. The faerie had been full of nonsense, she told herself firmly. She must have heard Hypatia talking to Cordelia about her wedding and decided to play upon the insecurities of any bride. Who didn’t worry that the man they were going to marry might not love them? In Cordelia’s case it might be true, but anyone would fear it, and faeries preyed upon the fears of mortals. It meant nothing—just an effort to get from Cordelia what she had asked for before: a coin and a promise.

Lucie waved an ink-stained hand to get her attention. “There is so much material here,” she said. “Did you see Malcolm Fade over there? I adore his coat. Oh, I’ve decided that rather than being a dashing naval officer, Lord Kincaid should be an artist whose work was banned in London, so he fled to Paris, where he makes the beautiful Cordelia his muse and is welcomed into all the best salons—”

“What happened to the Duke of Blankshire?” said Cordelia. “I thought fictional Cordelia was about to become a duchess.”