The mood was interrupted by a rustling noise that had Lara sitting up like a shot. She heard something slide under her door. At first, she assumed it was a bill, but after everything that had happened today she wasn’t taking any chances. She rose from the bed and saw that there was a half-inch space under the old door. Lying on the floor in front of it was a white envelope that had been pushed through the opening. Snatching it from the floor, she quickly tossed it on the bed. The envelope had been too heavy and bulky for the hotel bill.

Plucking it off the bedspread, she could feel the heaviness of the object. It was rectangular, like a—

Like a ticket.

She opened the envelope by unwinding one of those old-fashioned cords over a button. Plunging her hand deep inside, she pulled out a cream ticket with gold embossed lettering—the very invitation Mourier had gone mad trying to secure a second time. Yet here it was, on her bed, beckoning to her. The wicked ticket.

Admission pour une

(Mademoiselle Lara Barnes)

Le Cirque Secret

Trois Juillet

Vingt-trois heures

Palais Brongniart

(Rue Vivienne et Rue Réaumur)

Crouching down, she looked under the door to see if someone was still standing there. Seeing no shadow, Lara walked over to the door and looked out the peephole and found the hallway empty.

The ticket was lying flat on the center of the bed. “I’ve heard about you,” she said to it. After a few minutes, she picked it up. It felt heavy in her hand, not like any paper she’d ever touched. She tore at the end of the paper but found the parchment didn’t give. Again, she tried, and it seemed that a liquid came from the very end of it. She looked down at her fingers. Was it blood? Lara sniffed at the garnet-red smudge on her finger and dropped the ticket back on the bed, horrified. The ticket was bleeding. “You bleed?”

None of the tickets to Le Cirque Secret remained. Except this one.

Althacazur had said he’d find her. And it appeared he had.

Chapter 18: The Journal of Cecile Cabot—Book Two

The Journal of Cecile Cabot—Book Two

May 25, 1925