No one breathed.

Faust moved first, smiling as he checked his gilded pocket watch. “Seventeen minutes, twenty-one seconds, Madame. I win the bet.”

Madame gathered her skirts, the lacy sea tangling as she attempted to navigate around a tower of cheeses. “Oh, were we counting from when you and Perry arrived, or from when we were all assembled? By the latter count it’s under ten minutes, so I win.”

Perry bristled like a cornered boar. “What bet?”

Madame’s fan hid what must have been a smile. “You were doing so well, Merion. All you had to do was sit quietly through this and no one would have known. You’d finally made it back inside.”

“You knew?” He paled. “You knew it was me?”

“You think I don’t check all comers to my house? All comers to this room?” The Lady blinked. “A suicide is easy to fake, a face, a voice easy to change, but there are always traces. I never lose track of anyone.” Delicately as a hummingbird teasing the nectar from a flower’s heart, she lifted the silver cover from a tray to reveal a layer cake frosted with the chocolate greeting: “Welcome Back Merion Kraye.” Faust alone contributed applause.

I heard a hiccupped gasp across the line from the Anonymous, to my relief, and saw raw and innocent astonishment on Caesar’s face, Kosala’s too, Earth’s Mom and stony Father stepping close to one another, as if ready to battle back-to-back for their Hives and poor Earth’s sanity.

“Merion Kraye?” Ganymede clutched the knife-straight hairpin tighter.

“Calm, Your Grace, calm…” Madame warned.

“Casimir Perry is Merion Kraye?”

“Your Grace, I thank you to keep your temper in my house.” Madame did not raise her voice, but its firm timbre made the Duke—her ba’child as much as Heloïse—tremble.

Of all present, Carlyle had the most right to shudder. “You’re my father? Casimir Perry?”

I wonder if Perry, or rather Perry-Kraye, realized he was backing steadily toward the exit, or that I moved in to block him. I doubt it, for he stared at Madame like a lunatic at his hallucination. “You knew it was me this whole time? And you let me back in? Let me become Prime Minister? The last time you saw me I swore I’d never rest until I destroyed you and all that you’ve created. Why would—”

“Because I asked her to, Merion.” The King of Spain stepped forward, gently, as if trying to keep a cornered animal from panicking.

The Outsider paled. “Your Majesty? Why?”

Spain smiled. “You were young and foolish and in love, and you were one of the most promising political minds of our generation. You did not deserve to lose it all over one sour love affair. Europe needed you. I needed you. Madame recognized you easily after you took on your new persona as Casimir Perry. Madame told me who you really were, but I asked her not to tell the others. They might not have tolerated giving you a second chance.”