I nodded. “Thanks, Georgia.”

“I hear your boyfriend’s the king of revenants now. Does that make you the Queen of the Dead?”

I rolled my eyes. And then noticing Arthur standing behind Georgia, I said, “Hi.”

He gave me a broad smile and tucked his blond hair behind his ear. “Thanks for bringing Vincent back,” he said. “Now that he’s once again corporeal, I feel a little less guilty about having been Violette’s stooge.” Leaning over, he gave me cheek-kisses and his stubble prickled my skin.

“Ow,” I laughed, rubbing my face. “Excuse us, please,” I said to Arthur. “We need a sister-to-sister chat.”

“Of course,” he said, making an effort to smile at me but unable to keep his eyes off my sister.

Catching Vincent’s gaze, I mouthed, Do you need me? He shook his head. I pulled Georgia over to a secluded corner of the library where no one could hear us, and we flopped down on armchairs in front of a window. I pressed my cheek with my fingertips. “How do you not get razor burn?”

“Because I’m playing hard to get,” my sister responded.

“What? You haven’t even kissed him?” I stared at her while she smiled beatifically. I eyed her suspiciously. “Who are you, and what have you done with my sister?”

“God, Kate, you make me sound like a total slut.” But the way she said it sounded like she considered it a compliment. “He’s medieval. I figure I should act like one of those maidens from his time and protect my innocence.”

I burst out laughing. “Georgia, you really like this guy, don’t you?”

“Yes, and now that Violette has replaced him with someone else, I feel like I’m no longer her Public Enemy Number One.”

“Violette has replaced Arthur?” I repeated. “What are you talking about?”

“Well, Arthur says that every time she’s been spotted, she’s had the same numa guy with her.”

“That would be Nicolas,” I said, waving my hand. “He was Lucien’s second. That’s not news.”

“No, silly,” said Georgia. “I’m not talking about fur coat guy. This is another numa. A really young one. Like adolescent. No one’s ever seen him around before. They think he’s either new or one of the recent imports from another city. Whatever, Violette doesn’t go anywhere without him.”

“That’s creepy,” I admitted.

“Yeah, he’s like her prepubescent lapdog.”

I wrinkled my nose, and Georgia nodded, agreeing with my sentiment.

“Anyway, that leaves Mister Hunky Medieval Author Guy all for me!” She lifted her eyebrows and got comfortable in her chair. “But my adventures in boyland aren’t important. What I really want to hear is . . . what was it like to be back in New York?”

It was dark when Ambrose dropped me off at home. Georgia had won her freedom and went out with some friends for dinner—friends who were probably unaware that they were being trailed by Arthur and another guard-revenant.

I let myself in. “Mamie? Papy?” I yelled, throwing my coat over the hall chair. The apartment was unusually silent. Most nights at this time Mamie was getting dinner ready and jazz or big band music accompanied her cooking. I hesitated in the dining room, feeling a little creeped out.

“Back here in my study,” came Papy’s voice.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I hung up my coat and headed back to his office. My grandfather was sitting in his favorite position, tucked in a corner in an old leather armchair with his lit pipe in one hand and a book in the other.

“Where’s Mamie?” I asked, perching on the edge of his desk.

“On a house call,” he replied, puffing a stream of smoke as he spoke. The room filled with the citrusy odor of Papy’s pipe tobacco, a smell I always associated with him.

I glanced at the marble clock on the mantel. “At seven p.m. on a Thursday?”

“It’s a foreign client, in town for a few days. Your grandmother’s gone to their hotel to inspect a painting they have out on approval from a Parisian art dealer.”

“She went to someone’s hotel room?” I asked doubtfully, picking up a glass paperweight and inspecting the iridescent beetle trapped eternally inside. “I can’t imagine Mamie meeting a client in a hotel.”

“Not just any hotel. The collector is staying at the Crillon, so Emilie felt it was worth it,” Papy replied, looking back down at his book and thumbing through the pages.

The paperweight crashed loudly against the hardwood floor, breaking into splinters and releasing its prisoner, who lay gleaming in the lamplight.

Papy leapt up from his chair, the alarm on his face echoing mine. “What is it, Kate?” he asked.

“The Crillon. Are you sure?”

“Yes. Kate. What in the world is the matter?”

“Violette is staying at the Crillon,” I said. My voice sounded like someone else’s, hollow, as if I were hearing myself from the outside.

“Violette?” my grandfather asked, confused.

“Violette. The medieval revenant who destroyed Vincent.”

“No,” Papy gasped, suddenly looking his seventy-two years.

From across the room came a string quartet ringtone. Papy strode over to his desk chair, reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out his cell phone. His hand shook as he held it up to see the caller’s name. He raised the phone to his ear and sank down into his desk chair with a sigh of relief. “Oh, Emilie, thank God you’re there. Kate and I were . . .”

His face suddenly changed, and as he listened, the blood drained from his face. “What? No! But how . . .”

I could hear the tone of my grandmother’s voice through the earpiece. It was careful—measured and slow. Papy hung up the phone and lifted his eyes to meet mine.

I shivered, as if a gust of air had just rushed through the study and clasped me in its frigid fingers.

“Violette would like to speak to you and Vincent at the hotel. She’s keeping your grandmother as a guarantee that you will show.”

THIRTY-FIVE

OUR ARGUMENT TOOK ALL OF A MINUTE. PAPY didn’t want me to go. I didn’t want him to go. In the end, we both dashed out of the apartment, throwing our coats on and running down the stairs, too rushed to wait for the ancient elevator.

As usual, there were no taxis in sight. “How about the Métro, Papy?” I asked him.

“And risk a delay? No, thanks. It’s almost as fast by foot,” he responded. We resorted to speed-walking down the rue de Bac. The chilly March air and glowing lampposts lent the scene a false sense of security—as if all was right with the world—when in actuality we were on our way to a meeting that threatened to end with someone getting hurt. Or worse.

My phone rang. I fished into my pocket for it, and saw it was Vincent. “Where are you going?” he asked. I spun to look behind me, but didn’t see anyone following. “I asked, where are you going—without revenant escort?”

“Vincent, I’d rather not tell you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked, sounding more angry than hurt. “Two bardia from Geneviève’s house are following you and your grandfather. They called me to check in—said you guys took off at top speed without even waiting for them.”

“Well, if they’re following us, then they’ll keep us safe. Why are you calling me?”

“Kate, what is going on?” Vincent asked, sounding alarmed.

“Violette has . . . she has Mamie at . . . They’re at the Crillon. Papy and I . . . we’re going there.” I was trying to speak clearly, but our hurried pace mixed with panic about Mamie made my words come out all garbled.

“Why didn’t you call me and tell me that? I would have come with you.”

“No, Vincent! Don’t come. We don’t need you,” I said, choking back panic.

There was a split second of palpable shock, and then: “Violette wanted me to come, didn’t she?”

I didn’t respond.

“Kate, you can’t go. At least tell me you’ll wait until I get there,” he said. I could hear he was moving quickly while holding the phone to his ear.

“My grandfather and I will be there in about fifteen minutes. Tell Geneviève’s people to accompany us, but we don’t need you,” I said, trying to catch my breath. Papy walked with a fast gait on a regular day. Tonight I was practically jogging to keep up with him.

“Ambrose, Charlotte, and I will meet you in the Crillon lobby,” he insisted, ignoring my request. “Don’t go up to the room without me.”

I didn’t respond. I heard Vincent cursing on the other end as I hung up. Pocketing the phone, I sped up to match Papy’s pace. We had to get there before Vincent could join us. Violette’s plot to lure him to her by kidnapping his girlfriend’s grandmother was transparent. I wasn’t going to let her win the fight this time. Papy and I would find some way of saving Mamie without Vincent having to sacrifice himself again.

Within ten minutes we were crossing the Pont de la Concorde and entering the grand square. Papy threw himself into the oncoming traffic, and I held on to his arm to minimize the chance of one of us getting hit. We made it intact to the entry of the museum-like building housing the Crillon Hotel, and slowed as we passed under the monumental stone entryway and through the glass doors.

“Where do we go?” I asked as we glanced around the sumptuous lobby filled with giant flower arrangements and lined with marble columns. And then I spotted two men walking toward us from a far corner of the room. “Okay, here come the numa,” I said.

“How do you know they’re numa?” Papy looked at me quizzically.

“Can’t you see that black-and-white kind of fuzziness around them? Like an aura where all of the color has been sucked out of the air.”

“No,” he said, peering at them and then back at me worriedly. I’ve been hanging around supernaturals too much, I thought, just as Vincent, Charlotte, and Ambrose strode through the door, suited up in their black leather battle gear. Papy’s eyes widened, but the hotel staff just glanced at them blithely as if they had seen it all before. Add the two similarly dressed numa, and it looked like a rock band was throwing a party in a hotel suite.

Vincent made a beeline toward me. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, glancing worriedly toward the advancing numa, “but I didn’t ask you to come.”

Vincent ignored my protest. “Kate, don’t say anything about me not being the Champion. If Violette hasn’t figured it out, that’s the one card we can still play.”

The numa shot the bardia lethal glares as they neared. “Please, follow us,” said the shorter of the two. I saw a flash of silver from underneath his long black coat.

“Only you two,” said the second one, nodding to Vincent and me.

“I am coming with them,” said Papy in a voice that indicated they would have to forcibly restrain him from following.

“Ditto,” said Ambrose. Charlotte slid her hand down her waist to show the outline of the weapon hidden beneath her duster.

The numas’ eyes flicked to each other and then toward the desk staff and back to us. “You can accompany us as far as the suite, but you’re not going in,” Shorty said finally.

They turned and led us past an elevator bank to a stairway, insisting we go first. Our group climbed two flights of stairs, and emerged into a long corridor with scarlet silk lining the walls and gold sconces lighting the passage.

At the end of the hall, a numa with salt-and-pepper hair, wearing an expensive suit and a silk cravat, stood outside a double door. It was Nicolas. He stiffened as he saw the size of our group. “She’ll only see the two,” he said, nodding imperiously toward Vincent and me.

“We couldn’t make a scene in the lobby,” explained one of our escorts.

“And we can’t all stand around here in the hall, now can we?” said Ambrose with a wicked smile. “Being a public place and all.”

“You will guard them in the suite’s antechamber,” hissed Nicolas, giving the numa a look that promised trouble once he had them on their own.

“So, Nicolas,” said Vincent as we followed him through the door. “Once Lucien’s right-hand man, now you’re playing second to an adolescent?”

Nicolas stood aside to usher us into a small entryway-like room with chairs and coat and hat racks. He smiled sourly at Vincent. “In my world, being second involves much less responsibility. And risk. Why, just look at you—you’re once again in danger, saving an old lady, while Jean-Baptiste is safe and sound back ruling the castle.”

Charlotte’s and Ambrose’s gaze shifted toward each other and then back to Nicolas. The numa didn’t know about JB’s departure. At least we had that going for us. Violette wanted Vincent because she still believed he was the Champion. But if she discovered he was also the new bardia leader, who knows how she would use that to her advantage?

“Sit,” commanded Nicolas, gesturing toward the chairs. “Not you,” he said to Vincent and me. Opening a door that gave onto another long corridor, he gestured for us to pass through.

“I will not stay out here while my wife is inside,” insisted Papy.

“Oh yes, you will,” said one of the guards, shuffling off his coat to show a belt equipped with several knives and a sword in scabbard, superseded by a shoulder strap holding a gun. My grandfather frowned.

“If all goes well, your wife will join you momentarily,” said Nicolas.