“And Lucius and Edgar?”

“Some stories can only hurt you. You’re in too deep here to dig into the past.”

Mom left, and they don’t like deserters. She doesn’t need to say it. I’m the wrong kind of legacy.

“I just want to know.” A childish begging enters my voice, but Julia’s face has already hardened against me.

She looks me up and down. “You have more fire in your belly than your mother ever did.”

I don’t know whether to take the compliment or be annoyed at the diss to my mom.

“Just don’t run like her.” She turns and disappears, and I’m not sure if she just fades into the crowd or if she actually disappears. I push after her and plow into a tall man in a gold vest with red sequins sewn into a pattern that matches the blood veined throughout the room. He smiles at me, and the six hoops piercing his bottom lip link and slide, switching places in his flesh while I watch. My fingers go numb, and my brain feels fuzzy until a hand grabs me and rips me away.

I turn my head to Xander.

“Please don’t stare at hypnotists too long.” His voice is overly bright. “You must be exhausted. Shall we go?” He links his arm into the crook of my elbow and gently tugs me to a cherry-stained door carved with ivy.

“I don’t think this is the door we came in.”

He chuckles. “You know it doesn’t matter.”

He opens it, and we’re thankfully in my hallway—apparently the magic is too full to play with us tonight. I shudder at the thought. My room is just two steps in front of us, with its rose-covered knob. He cracks it open for me and stands back so I can slip past him. I widen it for him, expecting him to come too. He shakes his head. A coy smile plays across his lips.

“Don’t tempt me.”

“Why not?” I try to smile seductively. I need a distraction, but it feels so wrong in my torn dress stained with blood.

He leans in and cups my cheeks in his hands, placing a chaste kiss in the center of my forehead. “You have a big day tomorrow.”