“It’s so, so good to see my baby girls,” he says, pulling away. “I just got in from London. You didn’t answer my calls. Must have been Stökéwood service, huh?” He takes a sip of his drink. “Are you both good? I hope you’re not bored to tears with all these old fools. Boozehounds, all of ’em. They’re shocked to finally see the brilliant, beautiful daughters of Hëró Hammick here in person. But I know you expected as much,” he adds, nudging me with an elbow conspiratorially.

I nod and smile, and then reality rolls in with its stiff breeze. Lady Fleischman. “Teddy,” I say in low tones, my smile icing over, “we need to talk later.”

“What?” he asks obliviously, a shadow of concern passing over his face, just as Tai locks eyes with me and my state of mind judders over to her in a moment of perfect sisterly connection.

“Teddy,” she hisses, nails digging into his tuxedo jacket, “who the fuck is Lady Fleisch—” Midname, Teddy’s eyes pop wide, and so do Tai’s—a frenzied smile crowding out her face.

Because behind me walks a column of ice: Antella Arnoix, Linos’s mother and the most patrician of the Viloxin silver-spoon set, in pale-blue chiffon, her blond hair in a crisp updo, her copper skin flawless.

“Mrs. Arnoix!” Tai squeaks, and in those two words, I know just how much she lusts over Mrs. Arnoix’s son.

Antella surveys us with her unsettling dark eyes, emotionless, before whisking past Teddy—silent and ruddy-faced—and kissing the air an inch from Tai’s cheekbones, then mine.

“Girls,” she says, in her husky drawl. When Tai opens her mouth to reply, Antella turns away pointedly and drifts off to another group, leaving a drift of rose-scented air in her wake.

Tai turns to me, face pale. “What a b—”

I close my fingers in her face in a Hush, you uncouth imbecile motion, and she falls silent. But only for a second.

“Why even cochair this?” she asks me and Teddy. “Why even bother?”

Teddy looks nearly as flustered as Tai—but I can’t tell if it’s from what Tai almost said or Antella.

“The woman is unhinged,” he says under his breath. “My assistant caught a maid on the phone with her the other day, reporting on my schedule and my dirty laundry.”

I look at his flushed face. “Like, your business?”

He shakes his head. “My actual dirty laundry. She’s been spying on me ever since I expanded my house and we became accidental neighbors.” He rubs at his face and continues, dropping his voice. “But anyway, about—about Lady—”

So he heard what Tai said.

So—

“It’s true?” Tai says, head whipping up.

Our uncle’s eyes look hooded, aged by ten years. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow morning.”