A gleam of wonder entered Célie’s eyes as she watched a young man pull a roughly hewn flute from his pocket to serenade another. Some maidens nearby giggled. One even stepped apart from the rest, brave enough to dance. Célie nodded eagerly. “Yes. Let us do that.”

Coco eyed us, skeptical. “Is this what you’ve been doing, Célie?”

Beau scoffed and shook his head. Mutinous.

I gripped Célie’s elbow with pointed assurance. “If they’re here, we’ll find them.”

Though Coco still seemed doubtful, she relented with a nod, fidgeting with the locket at her throat. Readjusting her hood. “Fine. But you’d better search the market, not stroll down memory lane.” She jabbed a finger at my nose. “And be in plain sight when we get back. I want to see hands.” Jerking her chin toward Beau and Nicholina, she left Célie and me standing alone in humiliated silence.

Heat pricked my ears. Her cheeks burned tomato red.

“Thanks, Cosette,” I muttered bitterly. Forcing my jaw to unclench, I took a deep breath, adjusted my own cavalier, and guided Célie into the street. When the merchant rattled his scrying stones in our direction—he’d carved them from fish bones—I kept walking. “Don’t listen to her. She’s . . . going through a lot.”

Célie refused to meet my gaze. “I don’t think she likes me.”

“She doesn’t like anyone but Lou.”

“Ah.” For a split second, resentment flashed across her doll-like features. But then she smoothed her face into a polite smile, squaring her shoulders. Straightening her spine. Always the lady. “Perhaps you’re right.” Her smile turned genuine as she spotted a shabby confiserie. “Reid, look!” She pointed to the tins of almond candy in the window. Calisson. “It’s your favorite! We simply must purchase some.” With a pat to her leather satchel—I’d slung it over my shoulder, where it jostled against my own—she tried to steer me toward the confiserie’s pink door.

I didn’t move. “We’re here for black pearls. Not candy.”

Still she tugged on my wrists. “It’ll take two minutes—”

“No, Célie.”

As if Coco’s reprimand had struck the ground between us like a bolt of lightning, she dropped my hands. Pink returned to her cheeks. “Very well. Lead the way.”

We made it all of two minutes before she stopped again. Anger forgotten, she peered ahead at a group of men huddled around a barrel. Eyes wide and childlike, curious, she asked, “What are they doing?”

I glanced over their shoulders as we passed. A handful of dirty bronze couronnes littered the top of the barrel. A pair of wooden dice. “Gambling.”