“Be prudish and proud, Célie.” I shrugged, my hand curling instinctively around Reid’s ankle. “We’ll be whorish and happy.” He would wake soon, surely. And if not, Isla—the Oracle, Claud’s sister, a goddess—would help us fix everything. We just needed to dine with her first. I glared at the brush on the dressing table. Following my gaze, Coco seized it before I could melt its golden handle into ore.

Planting one hand on her hip and grinning in challenge, she said, “It’s time, Lou.”

I glared at her now. “Everyone knows not to brush wet hair. The strands are weaker. They could break.”

“Shall we summon a maid for a fire, then?” When I didn’t answer, she waved the brush under my nose. “That’s what I thought. Up.”

Rolling my eyes, I slid from the hammock and stalked toward the mildewed chair. It sat before a full-length, gilded vanity mirror that had clouded with age. Golden serpents twined together to form its frame. I stared peevishly at my reflection within it: cheeks gaunt, freckles stark, hair long and tangled. Water still dripped from its ends, permeating the thin silk of my robe. I didn’t shiver, however; the melusines had cast some sort of magic to keep the air balmy and comfortable.

Before Coco could lift the brush—I suspected she secretly enjoyed tormenting me—Célie stepped forward tentatively, hand extended. “May I?”

“Er—” Coco flicked her gaze to mine in the mirror, uncertain. When I nodded once, part curious—mostly curious—she handed Célie the brush and stepped aside. “The ends tangle,” she warned.

Célie smiled. “So do mine.”

“I can brush my own hair, you know,” I muttered, but I didn’t stop her as she lifted a small section and began working the brush through the ends. Though she held the hair firm, she moved with surprising gentleness.

“I do not mind.” With the patience of a saint, she set about untangling two gnarled locks. “Pip and I once brushed each other’s hair every night.” If she felt me still, she didn’t comment. “We dismissed our maid when I was ten. Evangeline was her name. I couldn’t understand where she’d gone, but Pippa—Pippa was old enough to realize what had happened. We often snuck into our father’s safe as children, you see. Pippa liked to steal his ledger, sit at his desk, and add his sums, pretending to smoke his cigars, while I played with our mother’s jewels. She knew our parents had lost everything in a bad investment. I didn’t know until all of Maman’s diamonds disappeared.”