My breathing turns shallow as the lamps of the room swirl in my vision. Lady Fleischman. She must have revealed it, Daria, the snake. I smell a rush of something heady and floral that makes me sick. Something deeply familiar and rank that turns my stomach.

I lean over and tug on Tai’s arm. “We’ve got to go.”

She doesn’t hear me—she leans in, confused and visibly frustrated to be torn from Linos. “We’ve got to go,” I whisper, pointing in the direction of a whispering posse of girls in black snakeskin and leather behind us.

Her eyes search the bar, glossy in the light, but when she turns back to me, she looks just as confused as before. She catches Hérrakí’s eyes, then mine. “Wait. Did you…?” she whispers, before making smiley googly eyes at a puzzled Hérrakí and me.

“We need to go,” I say, shoving my phone at her, and manacling myself to her wrist.

Tai squints at the text and must blessedly recognize the urgency in my grip, because she turns to Linos, who was scanning the room, but returns her attention with a smile.

“Dazdrasmygda’s unwell,” she says, all skewed blue lashes and flimsy Russian accent. “Could we trouble you to fetch the bill? We’ll run to the restroom and be back in a … Baltic jiffy.”

Patrician Linos briefly considers Tai with that frat-boy hunger that, to his credit (or maybe more frighteningly), dissipates swiftly. “Did he say something to you?” he asks me, motioning to Hérrakí, who sits there, pale-faced, smelling of soap. I realize with an ache I won’t see his forest eyes again underneath his long lashes, and I’m instantly mortified that even occurred to me.

“No, no,” I say, before Tai holds a hand to my stomach, then my forehead, then my cheek—measuring who knows what, since the problem is on our phones, and the phones of everyone in this bar.

“Nothing some vodka and a Slavic steam bath can’t fix,” she says, grinning apologetically, as we both stand, and I feel the room’s eyes on us, hot and sticky.

“Are you done now?” I whisper under my breath.

Hérrakí stands abruptly, while Linos just watches with amusement. “Please let me pay for your drinks,” Hérrakí offers.

“No way, no—” I say, just as Tai beams, all dimples and bubble-gum cheeks, and replies, “Okay! Thanks! The euro-ruble exchange isn’t what it used to be.”

Before Hérrakí can move for his wallet, Linos slides a huge wad of bills in a platinum money clip from his pocket and smacks it on the bar in a move he surely feels is incredibly suave. “I’ve got it.”

“You are just caviar and vodka in a single mouthful, aren’t you?” Tai says, tugging on her yellow silk coat.