Larimont was a huge city. Huge and crowded chock-full of strangers who would disapprove of everything that I could do…strangers just like the torch-wielding neighbors in our old town. Even if I could keep my powers secret for the length of my visit, the idea of me talking anyone into sales was ludicrous.

I looked at my father’s hopeful face…and my shoulders slumped, too.

“I’ll do it.” My words came out as a croak of horror. Still, I forced myself to keep going, even as visions of disaster and horror piled around me. “You write her a letter, and I’ll deliver it. More than that, I’ll—I’ll be polite to her. I promise. I’ll make conversation.” I cringed. “I’ll even drink coffee with her, if she insists.”

“Good girl!” He beamed down at me, his shoulders springing back to their normal, confident position and his expression clearing with miraculous speed. “I knew you’d step up if I really needed you.”

Wait. My eyes narrowed as I stood. Had he…planned that?

“Still,” he said cheerfully, “I hate to think of you travelling all that way alone, especially in our little uncovered wagon. It’ll get awfully lonely for you, and you’ll be rained on, without a doubt. Besides—”

“Larimont,” mused the Countess. She patted at her scarlet-painted lips with a jet-black handkerchief. “Is that really where you’re going, Mia? What a marvelous coincidence!”

“‘Coincidence?’” I echoed faintly.

“Why, yes.” She smiled at me. “That’s why I was in the neighborhood today, you see. I was just on my way to visit Leander, to ask him to run a little errand for me…and can you guess where he’ll have to go for it?”

I didn’t speak. I couldn’t.

Dad did, though. “How wonderful!” Lifting his teacup, he drained the rest of his drink in one satisfied gulp. “That’ll work out very nicely, then.”

He and the Countess met each other’s gazes with smiles of perfect complicity…

And I realized that I had been thoroughly outplayed by them both.

“This,” I said to Leander three nights later, “is absurd. Why did we let them talk us into it?”

We were already in his glossy black traveling carriage by then, with my trunks firmly strapped to the roof behind our undead driver. As the carriage swept smoothly away from my cozy cottage, pulled by four skeletal, red-eyed steeds, Dad waved cheerily to us both. Standing in the cottage doorway, he was backlit by the warm firelight inside and looking particularly dapper in his best waistcoat, with his hair as freshly washed and neatly combed as if he were the one setting out to make a good impression. The Countess hadn’t gifted us with her own presence for the send-off, but she had sent me a box of decadent-looking, raspberry-infused, dark chocolate truffles to enjoy along the way.