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“Me, either.”
“Okay,” I said, and put down the coffee cup. I shifted on the stool to pull out the bauble I’d found at Cadogan House. “What about this?”
She didn’t take the handkerchief or the object, but leaned overto peer at it. “There’s magic in this,” Lulu said. “You don’t have to use magic to recognize it.”
I didn’t detect any magic, so it must have been faint. “Does it look familiar to you?”
“No. I mean, it’s pretty, but not familiar. What is it?”
“I don’t know. I found it at Cadogan House. Near where Tomas was killed.”
“Maybe someone dropped it,” Lulu said. “I mean, there was a party, right? Doesn’t mean it came from the killer.”
“No, it doesn’t.” But there was still something about it that seemed familiar, and that bugged me.
“Didn’t you take video of the reception or something?”
“Yeah, for Seri,” I said absently, peering at the gold. There was dirt in some of the filigree, but that might have been from my stepping on it. “Did you want to watch it?”
“No.” She chuckled. “Aren’t there supernaturals in that video? You know”—she waved a finger at the brooch—“dressed up?”
I looked up, stared at her for a moment. “Oh my god, you’re a genius.”
She huffed, sipped her drink. “You may be the Watson to my Sherlock.”
“Who’s your Moriarty?”
“TBD,” she said. “Let’s see some fringe and fangs.”
• • •
There wasn’t much of either in the reception. Plenty of silk and sequins, a dryad with skin patterned like birch bark, and, of course, Tabby, who was too sexy for her shirt.
But we didn’t see the brooch. Not pinned to a sash or a bodice or a hat.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “Maybe it’s a total coincidence. A bit of jewelry dropped sometime between 1883”—that’s when Cadogan House was founded—“and earlier tonight.”
“Or it could be a fairy.”
I tossed my empty cup in the recycling box. “Yeah, there were a few fairies there. But more vampires.”
“No. Not any fairy.Thisfairy.”
I turned back. “What?”
With a satisfied smile, she pointed at the screen. “I found your brooch wearer.”
“You are kidding.”
I hustled back to Lulu and the screen, watched the video she’d pulled up and enhanced. Something glinted on the tunic worn by one of the fairies—tall and pale, with sleek, dark hair and chiseled cheekbones—who followed Claudia and Ruadan in the procession down the runway. As he moved, the glint resolved. The gold knot was pinned at his throat.
“You were not kidding.”
“Nope. Do you know him?”
“No.” I hadn’t seen him at the party, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been skulking around.
Of course, the fact that a fairy had worn the pin found near the crime scene didn’t mean it had been used to commit murder. It could have just fallen off the tunic.
