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“Thirty-four!” It was the Indian man from England. He hadn’t bid yet. His tactics had obviously been to wait until the auction was peaking and then swoop in. Okoro gave the man an annoyed stare, like he had no right to be entering the bidding at such a late stage.
“Where is the smoke coming from?”
The question came from the far end of the room, from one of the Shanghai twins. Lottie peered that way and saw that the people in the distance were less clear, like the air was thicker there and obscuring her vision.
“It’s not smoke,” Drummond said, sounding alarmed. He pushed off the wall and hurried across the floor toward Cassie. “It’s mist.”
Lottie frowned, not understanding.
“Give me the book!” Drummond demanded of Cassie. “Quickly.”
“What is this?” Okoro demanded.
The far end of the room was a gray wall now, the people there just indistinct shapes floating in the mist.
And then the mist parted, like curtains on a stage, and a woman was there, a beautiful woman in a layered black skirt that looked like crow’s feathers and a white bustier top. Her hair was jet back and slicked back from her head, and she seemed to be wearing smoke-effect makeup around her eyes. She was carrying a black purse, hanging by a strap from the crook of her elbow, and in one hand she held a book that was pulsing with gray light. Her head was up, her eyes traveling around the faces that watched her arrival.
“It’s the woman,” someone said.
Lottie sighed, almost too tired now for fear.
She had meant to get out of the business before it was too late. One or two last sales and then be done with it.
But it seemed she had pushed her luck too far.
It seemed that too late had arrived.
Death in the Ballroom
When Lottie had continued the auction, Cassie hugged Izzy furiously, holding on to her like a shipwreck survivor clinging to a rock in the vast ocean.
“I’ve missed you so much!” she exclaimed, her heart full and tears brimming in her eyes. When she pulled back Izzy looked shocked by the emotion, and then she studied Cassie’s face.
“What... what happened to you?” she asked. “You look... different.”
Cassie shook her head dismissively. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll tell you, but I’ve missed you. I thought you were dead.”
Izzy shook her head. “I... well... a lot has happened.” She nodded to the tall man who was standing in the middle of the room. “Lund helped me. That man Hugo, he was in the apartment, but Lund helped me.”
Cassie nodded and then hugged Izzy again.
It was too much. It was ten years of agony and uncertainty and emptiness, but Izzy was there. Cassie smelled Izzy’s soap, a smell so familiar it made her feel like she was back in the apartment, living their quiet, unspectacular lives, before all of this madness. In that moment Cassieyearnedfor that simple life with an ache in the center of her being.
“I am so sorry for everything,” Cassie murmured in Izzy’s ear. “I am sorry all of this happened. I should have listened to you. I should never have used the book.”
They were interrupted then by Drummond Fox, running up to them, making them both flinch in surprise, his eyes wide and panicked. “Give me the book!” he said to Cassie. “Quickly!”
Cassie read the fear in his eyes and looked behind her as the woman emerged from a cloud of mist like some sort of god or demon. Cassie had seen this woman before, in Drummond’s memories. It had been more than ten years now since she had lived that memory, but it had stayed with her.
The room seemed to adjust around the woman’s appearance, people shuffling into different positions, whispering to each other. And then the Black man who had been fighting with Hugo took a step toward her in the middle of the room.
“So you are the crazy white lady everyone is so frightened of?” he asked, breaking the silence and giving the woman a dismissive look. “You don’t seem so scary to me, woman.”
“Mr. Okoro,” the Bookseller said, a caution.
“Give me the book,” Drummond said to Cassie, his voice low. “I’ll take it into the shadows.”
Cassie shook her head at him.
