Hypatia, the owner of the Eden, six feet tall and built solid as one of those cursed-up mountains that encircled the town, rushed forward to secure the doors. She paused long enough to let a costumed couple slip through, the woman clutching the tip of a papier-mâché wing as the man, unsteady on high-heeled boots shaped like goat’s feet, leaned into her. They stumbled to the bar, where Zeke, the resident bartender, awaited them. But Celeste didn’t even notice them, already focused back on the card game.

“Place your bets,” she told the players now that the wind had quieted down.

An Elect man sporting a bowler hat and an impressive yellow mustache held his bet, gesturing for the other players to go first. Celeste eyed him, suspicious. He wasn’t one of her regulars, so she figured he must be in town for the holiday. Nothing unusual there, but he was worth keeping an eye on.

The man to Mustache’s right bore the Mark of the Fallen, that telltale ring of gold around dark eyes and a pair of curling ram’s horns. The Fallen man took the opportunity to lay down ten chips on the three of spades.

A mysterious woman in a wide-brimmed blue hat and matching veil extended a long-nailed hand to carefully set a dozen chips on the queen.

The revelry of the Eden had picked back up. The ill wind that had forced its way past the doors of paradise was quickly forgotten to the pleasure of gin slings and gambling. Somewhere nearby, a saloon girl laughed loudly.

The mustachioed man still hadn’t laid his bet, and Celeste tapped her fingertips against the felt loudly.

“Where’s that singer I heard about?” he asked with lazy indifference. His gaze flickered to the stage next to the piano on the far side of the room as his fingers tripped across a steadily shrinking stack of chips. “Heard she’s a beauty with an impressive set of—”

“That’s my sister.” Celeste cut him off.

“—lungs.” He glanced at the dealer, whistling low. “Well, I’ll be. Mariel Semyaza’s your sister? But you don’t have the…” He touched a finger to his eye.

He wasn’t the first to notice she didn’t have the Mark and wouldn’t be the last. “I favor our daddy.”

His face scrunched up, puckered sour as a lemon. “A half-breed, then? Well, well.”

Celeste kept a small dagger up her sleeve in a sheath attached to her forearm. It was an ingenious thing that Zeke had made for her, meant to shoot the blade down into her hand, hilt to palm, with just a twist of the wrist.

“Watch your tongue, Mister,” she said, low and matter-of-fact, “assuming you want to keep it.”

He had a dry, unpleasant kind of laugh, more wild dog than man. “Now, don’t get your back up.”

“Then don’t talk about my sister.”