A small hurt sound formed at the back of my throat. I tried to stifle it, but it climbed out of me and got lost in thewhooshof the bedroom door carving theair.
“I was just coming to wake you.” Celeste carried a large mug over to me. “I made you a vanillalatte.”
“Thank you.” I sat up and took the mug. “I don’t think—I don’t think I wantto—”
“Nuh-uh.” She flung the comforter off my legs. “You’re going, and I’m going withyou.”
“Celeste—”
“If you don’t go, Evewins.”
“Maybe I don’t want to winanymore.”
“And I don’t wantherto win, so get up. Drink your syrupy coffee, then get dressed. We leave infifteen.”
I gave Celeste my hardest stare—or tried to. Glaring at her proved quite difficult, considering how she rolled her eyes at my attempt to lookangry.
“Besides, you made a pinky promise. Those areairtight.”
* * *
The arcade wasdark with bodies when we arrived on the Place des Vosges at noon, the line of supplicants wrapping around the block. I wondered how long Jarod had been doing this. Unless his uncle had started the monthlytradition?
“Le culot de ces deux-là.” The gall of those two.A bony hand clasped my forearm and twisted me around. “Hé-oh. Derrière.”Get back inline.
I shrugged the woman’s hand off. “We’re not hereto—”
Before I could finish my sentence and explain we hadn’t come for an audience with Jarod, Celeste snarled, “Don’t touch myfriend.”
“I’ve been waiting for over two hours!” the woman, who’d gripped my arm,squawked.
I pulled Celeste back. “We’re not here for the same reasons youare.”
The woman knotted her arms in front of her. “Why are you herethen?”
The person behind her, an elderly woman with a cloud of gray hair, wound a protective arm around a youngboy.
The looks lobbed our way ran the gamut from annoyed to concerned to downright aggressive. “Elles sont peut-être des putes,” I heard someone whisper.They’re probablywhores.
“La petite est un peu jeune pour se prostituer, non?” another answered.The small one is a little young to prostitute herself, isn’tshe?
Celeste’s fingers jammed into fists. “We’renot—”
“Celeste . . . it doesn’t matter.” I grabbed her fist, pried her fingers loose, and dragged her toward the blood-red doors guarded by Amir and another brawny guard dressed in an impeccablesuit.
“Bonjour,” Iventured.
Without a word, Amir jutted his head toward his fellow guard, who inserted a key in the metalplaque.
When the woman at the front of the line started forward, elbowing me, Amir shot out his thick arm to bar her way. “Notyou.”
I slid past the woman, then past the two guards, towing Celeste behindme.
“Just you, Mademoiselle Leigh,” Amir said, propping the dooropen.
I was startled he knew my name, but hehadrifled through my bag. “Celeste’s mysister.”
“Jarod mentioned you’d come. He didn’t say anything about asister.” The way he spoke the word told me he didn’t put much stock in the fact that we wererelated.
