So he knew. When he said that, he’d already interviewed Lillith. He had his answers. But he doesn’t know abouther. Still, she feels his eyes on her, as though he suspects something.
She looks toward the back of the lounge.
Avi sits alone at a tiny table near the exit, massive and still in the mask of Thanatos. Death personified. Expressionless.
A shiver runs over her skin.
Roshaan stands near another door at the back, watching through the slits of her mask as guests settle. Her dress shimmers with tiny emerald-green sequins. Poppy startles—she’s wearing almost the same gown. She spent a small fortune on hers at an Edinburgh chain store. Arrabella would say,What do you expect when you buy things off the rack?
Jealousy curdles in Poppy’s chest. Roshaan wears it a hundred times better. If Poppy could look just half as lovely, she might not mind that her gown is almost identical.
She scans the rest of the room but recognizes no one else—although it’s hard to tell with so many masked faces. The place is full with laughing devils, tragic heroes, goddesses of justice and nurture, and vengeful spirits. The energy is growing electric, charged, anticipatory. Music threads through chatter and laughter. But as theOrchid’s yawing becomes more pronounced, guests start reaching for the backs of their chairs to steady themselves, and a tremor of unease begins to rise.
“Still no word from Arrabella?” Poppy asks Patrick.
“Nope. Not expecting any.” He gestures to the room. “Look at them all. Everyone seems both excited and edgy.”
A silver-wrapped chocolate rolls across the table, and Poppy stops it with a fingertip. “I’d say it’s the weather and lurching ship that’s stirring them up.”
“I think it’s the show,” Patrick says. “That’s the thing about magic—or mind-reading acts, or séances. People come primed to be fooled. Theywantto be tricked. They actively work to suspend their disbelief. It helps the magician.” He nods to the decor. “So do all these trappings. Helps heighten the illusion, the hunger for wonder. And they’re nervous because everyone has secrets they don’t want exposed. Yet they also want the mind reader to read their minds. It creates this dissonance, this tension we see now.”
Their drinks arrive.
And suddenly—he’s there. Standing behind the empty chair next to Lillith.
Hendrick.
Her father.
Wearing the mask of Hermes—one side beaten gold, the other silver. One half warm, the other sly, sharp. A smile that begins on the gold side snakes into a smirk on the silver half. Simultaneously charming and mocking, beguiling and sinister.
Poppy freezes. Her heart begins to thud. She can’t breathe.
“Oh, Hendrick,” Lillith says brightly. She turns to Poppy and Patrick. “I hope you don’t mind—I asked Hendrick to join us tonight.”
Poppy
Poppy’s heart beats so fast she can’t breathe as she stares into the mask worn by the man who is her father.
He removes the mask and smiles. Warmth dances in his dark-brown eyes, and Poppy cannot look away from them. She sees it—she really can. The echoes and ripples of DNA. The round shape. The angles at the sides. The tone of his complexion. His hair. She has his hair. Similar color—except she’s only showing a few strands of silver. Her vision, her world, narrows. She steadies herself by placing her hand on the table. Or is it the ship swaying, not her?
He has a lovely face, to be honest. Should she be pleased by this—that her father has handsome, charismatic features? Because it didn’t exactly translate into beauty in her own face, combined as it is with aspects of Lillith’s. Or should she be wary because his appearance has been a tool—a gift—in his ability to beguile, and deceive? Like a colorful, graceful, lethal snake.
Lillith smiles and says, “Hendrick, this is my stepson I was telling you about, Patrick.”
Patrick rises and reaches across the table to shake Hendrick’s hand.
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” he says in that oddly formal-is-the-new-casual posh way of his, where one can’t be certain if he’s mocking or serious. “Can I get you a drink?”
“Not for me, thank you.” Hendrick’s attention turns to Poppy. A buzzing noise begins in her ears. She wants to look away, can’t. Dr. Marsh’s words echo in her head.
He’s a superficially charming, narcissistic psychopath. He constructed glamorous personas in order to mask deep insecurities. And he used people whenever and however he could.
“And you must be the assistant?” he asks warmly.
Lillith says, “This is Poppy Buchanan. A godsend.”
“Good to meet you, Poppy.” He reaches for her hand.
