“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrogate.” He rubs the back of his head and looks into the well of his drink. “I hope I didn’t upset you.”

“Stop apologizing,” I snap. Because how could I begin to explain?

“Then what’s wrong?” he says. Before hastily adding: “Never mind, you don’t have to tell me.”

But he’s right: The rage is bursting out of me after a drink, the rage I thought I was keeping at bay while Tai released hers yesterday. Paranoia nibbles at the edges of every logical thought, and just thinking that I’m becoming paranoid again sends fresh, ugly flares from memory through my vision. A photo of Teddy and Dad, the smallest, palest husk on a cot. Mama, a bloodied teen in agony on-screen, assuring me with a tight smile in person it was only a little fake blood, before excusing herself to sit in the bathroom in the dark for an hour. I am a person made of secrets, fear, and anger, because my memory is riddled with false, too-dark moments that must stay hidden. Even if they are less like tangible objects and more like holes, spreading through the tissue that makes me Manon.

Something bad happened to her, the banshee wails. Someone did something to her.

Hérrakí’s face has gone pale, watching me. “Seriously, are you okay?” His hand reaches toward me, an inch or two, and that’s when I see it: a tattoo, on his forearm. A delicate pair of wings etched on his skin.

It happens in a split second, and I realize what I’ve done after I’ve done it, my fingertips hot. I brushed his skin, that moment’s touch furred with electricity.

He smooths his sleeve down, and there’s a beat of silence, two, before I lean toward the bar to ask for a water or something to cleanse my system.

His reaction tells me his tattoo is a secret. He has recorded something important, permanently, on his own skin.

“Manon,” he says, behind me, and when I turn back to face him, he’s mere inches away, and I’m leaning too close. I could almost taste his skin. I inhale deep and fall back.

“Waiter?” But the waiters aren’t paying attention to me. I scan the room for a distraction, anything at all.

And that’s when I hear the titters, from the groups of fashionable Viloki around us, their made-up, titillated faces ghoulishly awash in smartphone white.

Isn’t that…? Did they…?

I pull my cell out, noticing four missed calls from Uncle Teddy. A bloodred news alert reads: Mireille Foix’s Former Manager Makes Shocking Reveal in Disturbing 10 th Anniversary Piece. But the link won’t load.