“Bring hats, too,” said Bo, back from the bar, sliding in beside us. “If you have them.”

“For the party?” Wallis asked.

“No.” He grinned. “For church.”

“I need another drink.” I had the urge to stick my tongue out at all of them as I walked away. “Cricket, want to join me?”

“Am I in trouble?” Cricket said as we headed toward the booze.

“You shouldn’t have encouraged this trip,” I said. “Blake might be in Charleston. Wallis is going to go hunt him down.”

“So?” Cricket said. We scooted past a group that included a reality television star obliging people with selfies. “Why shouldn’t she?”

I halted, stared at my mother, astonished.

Cricket saw my expression, shrugged, and kept threading through the crowd. “Maybe he’s come to his senses,” she said.

“And what if he hasn’t?” I said, following again in her wake.

“Well, then, Daisy, maybe she’ll get some closure.”

“At what cost?” I asked, dodging a guest gesturing vigorously with a glass of red wine. “I’ve never known exposure to even more pain and possible humiliation to bring closure.”

“Perhaps that is because you’ve never been in love.”

An accusation, delivered so frankly, it took me a moment to really hear it. “That’s not true.”

Cricket grinned, lifted a finger as though she’d caught me and gave me a push toward the drinks line. “Get me another club soda, will you? I’m going back to your sister.”

The wine was absolute crap, and I hadn’t been planning on a refill, but this was what the night was doing to me. As I waited my turn, I stared at my phone, searching for a good reason for me—and Wallis—to avoid Charleston.

“You’d think they’d have another bar,” said someone behind me. I was in the middle of a nice little headline skim, but glanced up briefly, murmuring my agreement and catching sight of a pair of gorgeous, private-sector-paycheck shoes the color of rattlesnake skin. I focused back on my phone, hoping I might be spared the inhumanity of long queue chitchat. “Daisy Richardson,” the voice said, with just the slightest hint of bossiness, “you’re ruining my big surprise.”

I looked up in confusion, which swiftly became shock, as she opened her arms for an embrace. Without full comprehension of what I was doing, I hugged her, smelling the perfume of her hair, noticing her shoulder blades under her jacket, feeling awkward and big-boned in her arms.

“I’ve done it, then,” she said, pulling back and smiling.

I was incapable of words. When I spoke, I forced myself to do so cautiously. Calmly. “Ari,” I said, wondering, doubting, despairing. “What are you doing in DC?”

She smiled, her teeth uncommonly white, her canines just the slightest bit wolfish. “Atlas,” she said. “Why else?”

Nineteen

“Are you surprised to see me?” she asked again.