There was no trace of that in him now. He opened his arms wide, as if welcoming her to make herself at home in the opulent living room. The cage at the center was empty, except for a smoldering pile of black lace and leather. Dominique du Froid was gone.

Valentine followed her gaze.

“She was a criminal,” he said. “I simply expedited the inevitable sentence.”

There were rumors about Valentine, about the change that had come over him when his father was killed. Dark whispers about the cruelties he carried out not just on trespassing Downworlders but on anyone who crossed him. Anyone who questioned him.

“You look worried, Céline. Even … afraid.”

“No,” she said quickly.

“It’s almost as if you think breaking into my apartment to spy on me might draw some kind of nasty consequence.”

“I wasn’t spying, I was just—”

He favored her with a smile then, so warm, so sunny, that she felt ridiculous for having been so afraid. “Would you settle for tea? And maybe some biscuits. You look like you haven’t eaten in a year.”

He set out a bounty: not just tea and biscuits but a sliced baguette, fresh chèvre and a small pot of honey, and a bowl of blueberries that tasted like they’d just been plucked from the branch. Céline hadn’t known she was hungry until the taste of honey hit her tongue. She realized she was ravenous.

They made polite Paris small talk: their favorite cafés, their preferred picnic spots, the best crepe stand, the relative merits of the Orsay and the Pompidou. Then Valentine took a hearty bite of cheese-smeared baguette and said, almost cheerfully, “You know, of course, that the others think you’re weak and not particularly bright.”

Céline almost choked on a blueberry.

“If it were up to most of the Circle, you wouldn’t be in it. Fortunately, this isn’t a democracy. They think they know you, Céline, but they don’t know the half of it, do they?”

Slowly, she shook her head. No one knew her, not really.

“I, on the other hand, believed in you. I trusted you. And you repay this trust with suspicion?”

“I really didn’t—”

“Of course you had no suspicions. You just thought you’d pay a social call. Behind my curtains. While I was out.”

“Okay. Oui. I was suspicious.”

“See? You are smart.” That smile again, warm and approving, like she’d fulfilled his intentions. “And what is it you’ve discovered about me, with your intrepid investigation?”

There was no point in pretense. And Céline was almost as curious as she was terrified. So she told the truth, as she’d surmised it. “Dominique du Froid wasn’t in business with two Shadowhunters. She was in business with you. You’re trying to set someone up, and you’re using us to do it.”

“Us?”

“Me. Robert. Stephen.”

“Robert and Stephen, yes. I’m indeed using them. But you? You’re here, aren’t you? You’re getting the full story.”

“I am?”