Chapter 35
Thirty-Five
In Manhattan, the Society could not flaunt their conjury like they did in Avalon-on-Hudson. Instead, they slipped into the
back entrance of Stratton Mansion, the same one they’d used the night of Emmy’s debutante ball. Hidden from Fifth Avenue by
greenery and an illusory dead end, each guest stepped through the bricks and disappeared.
Emmy had to use the invisibility ring sparingly, so she kept to the shadows, wearing a simple homespun dress Caleb had bought
from one of the girls hawking goods by the ferry port. He had also changed, wearing a newsboy cap and trousers that he clearly
thought beneath him, but he’d held his tongue.
No one had so much as glanced their way as they’d ridden the el uptown.
Caleb’s eyes were squeezed shut, his mouth tight. “It’s time. They’ve started.”
Emmy glanced at the door. “You know what to do?”
Letting go of his conjury, he opened his eyes, his expression pained. “I really don’t like that we’re splitting up.”
“It’s the only way.” They had no idea just how large of a web Grace’s conjury could cast with the relic, but without the element
of surprise, they were doomed. Caleb could not be nearby. Which was for the best, given that he looked as if he was about
to pass out.
He gripped her shoulders. She gripped his.
“If you die,” he said softly, “I’ll be stuck as Paxton Fairchild forever, and I’ll never forgive you.”
But without Rose’s relic, he was already stuck forever.
Emmy buried the bitter truth as she hugged Caleb. “If you start feeling worse, get yourself to Bellevue. I’ll look there if you’re not at the ferries.”
Before she could lose her nerve, she let go of him, slipped the invisibility ring onto her finger, and left the safety of
the alley. After crossing Fifth Avenue, Emmy tiptoed along Stratton Mansion until she stood just opposite the back entrance,
before the illusory brick wall.
She stepped through it, coming to a stop in front of a door with a Society guard.
Her throat squeezed, but she could not clear it as he stared through her.
There had to be a late guest. There were always a few stragglers. But as the seconds ticked past, each one longer than the
last, Emmy racked her brain for some other way inside.
Finally, a tardy couple arrived.
The guard opened the door, and Emmy slipped in front of them, hurrying down the narrow hall.
This was the long corridor that she’d walked with Grace and Papa, their usual banter falling silent as they’d taken in the
austere mansion.
This was the back stairwell where the guards had separated her and Grace from Papa, where he’d blown a kiss over his shoulder
as they led him toward the servants’ entrance and the girls toward the main one. The last place they’d been together. Happy
and full of hope.
And this turn, here, was where she and Grace had glimpsed inside the Stratton ballroom, the orchestra’s greeting notes luring
them like a siren’s song. Where Grace had squeezed her hand and whispered, Is it possible to die from happiness?
Tonight, there was no music, only Keeper Windsor’s commanding voice.
“. . . witnesses have completed their testimony. Are there any additional persons who wish to speak against the accused?”
Still cloaked in invisibility, Emmy entered the Stratton ballroom once again.
The guests stood in a wide semicircle, too packed together for Emmy to pass between them. Their faces were familiar by now,
even though their attire was far more muted than it had been all summer.
“Ah, yes, Mrs. Stratton. Please come forward.”
Emmy slid along the wall. She hadn’t noticed the guards at the debutante ball—had not yet known to look for them. But now,
she stepped gingerly around the ones stationed at the exits, careful not to brush into the backs of the guests who stared
straight ahead.
“From the moment this vile boy was born,” Mrs. Stratton’s airy voice carried over the silent crowd, “I knew he was bursting
with wickedness. He clawed his way out of his mother. Killing her was the first thing he ever did in this world.”
Finally, Emmy reached the far edge of the crowd. Slipping around the guards, she glimpsed Mrs. Stratton, her arm supported
by none other than Grace Montgomery.
They both wore mourning black. Grace’s golden hair glowed against the dark shade.
Emmy tensed, but she was still invisible. And Grace was far too busy patting Mrs. Stratton’s arm with gentle sympathy as she
bemoaned the cursed life of Jack Fontaine, who had been hellbent on corrupting Oliver since they were in diapers.
Any guilt Emmy had felt about widowing Mrs. Stratton disintegrated.
Careful not to scrape her ballroom slippers along the tile, Emmy tiptoed around the edge of the crowd for a better look.
There, propped against an ornate column, was Jimmy.
His hands were bound around the column. A scab cut through his eyebrow, and a few bruises marred his cheeks, his knuckles.
But he was alive, peering over his shoulder at—
Jack. Emmy’s heart leaped to her throat. He was also bound, arms stretched around the column at a terrible angle. How she longed to run her fingers across his beautiful face, bruised but still impossibly alluring, because it was his. Jack’s.
How had she ever convinced herself that she could walk away from him? Remaining across the ballroom now required all her self-control,
especially as Mrs. Stratton continued to describe Jack’s wickedness, uttering all his worst fears about himself. That he was
vile to his core. That he ruined everyone and everything he touched.
All the while, Jack rested his head against the column, resigned.
For three long seconds, Emmy allowed her fury to flood her before she clamped it down.
“Thank you, Mrs. Stratton, for your testimony.” Keeper Windsor returned to the center of the stage as Grace helped Mrs. Stratton
descend the stairs. Her worth in the eyes of Oliver’s mother had gone up tremendously. Just as she’d planned.
In one week, Oliver and I will be engaged, Grace had said at the potion fundraiser. It was infuriating, all the ways Emmy had played right into Grace’s hands.
“Would anyone else like to bear witness in the case against Mr. Fontaine?”
A quiet murmur passed through the crowd. They were growing restless having to wait when, in their eyes, his fate had been
determined long ago.
“Very well. Are there any witnesses in defense of Mr. Fontaine?”
Someone snickered. With a gulp of air, Emmy slid between the guests. Now or never.
“In that case—”
She removed the ring. “I would like to speak.”
Confusion spread through hushed whispers as Emmy stepped forward. No one remembered her true face, save Grace, but Emmy was not looking at her. No, she was looking at Jack, who was staring at her as if she were a ghost.
She offered him a tentative smile, but he only grew paler.
“That’s her!” Mrs. Stratton shrieked, pointing at Emmy. “That’s the escaped prisoner who infiltrated us!”
“Emmy, behind you!”
At Jimmy’s warning, Emmy whirled as the guards made a beeline toward her.
“Are you so afraid of the truth?” Emmy planted her feet, her voice carrying above the uproar. “You won’t even hear my story
before you kill another innocent soul?”
“He is far from innocent,” someone snapped.
Three guards broke through the crowd, guns raised. They did not know Emmy. They would not pause to conjure their gifts, but
instead jump right to lethal force.
“How did you get in here?” Keeper Windsor demanded.
She shuffled back, but the guards were quicker, seizing her roughly by the arms. “This is justice with you at the helm?” Her
gaze locked on Keeper Windsor’s. “Witnesses dragged away before they’re allowed to speak?”
But the guards did not wait for his answer. They carried her through the glaring crowd, and it took everything Emmy had not
to fight back. Not yet.
“You’re no better than Chancellor Stratton!” she yelled. “You’re just as corrupt as he was!”
She had one card left, but she had hoped to save it until the very last minute.
“Wait.”
The guards halted at the command from Keeper Windsor.
“Bring her here,” he ordered.
She could have collapsed with relief, had the guards not been shoving her toward the stage. As she passed Grace, her former friend glared at her with pure, unadulterated hatred.
Emmy had surprised her for once.
With her head high, Emmy climbed the stairs just as she’d done two years earlier.
“According to our bylaws, witnesses for the accused are permitted to say their piece. No matter the obvious guilt of the accused.”
Keeper Windsor’s words hardly made it past his tight lips.
Breathe. Emmy’s heart thrashed as she faced the crowd. Jimmy strained his neck to see past the guards, his face full of concern. Jack
gaped at her, clearly alarmed that she was here.
“My name is Emilia Vallillo.” Emmy’s raspy voice carried across the ballroom. “I attended my debutante ball here two years
ago. I arrived with Miss Montgomery, my neighbor and my oldest friend.”
“Liar!” someone yelled, but Keeper Windsor silenced the heckler with a stern look.
With her aunt on one side and Mrs. Stratton on the other, Grace curled her lips.
“After I demonstrated my transformation conjury, I was accused of fraud by Grace Montgomery, who had convinced Clara Claremont
to sew fool’s gold into my hem.” She let her gaze slide around the crowd. She might have been forgettable, but surely they
remembered her gift. “I was arrested, right here in this ballroom.”
Still blank faces.
Anger stirred, a bone-deep boiling that laced its way into her voice. “My father was shot by Chancellor Stratton for attempting
to come to my aid. He died over there while all of you watched.”
That, they remembered. Emmy could not help it: she stole a look at Grace to see if there’d be any remorse, any grief in her
face. But Grace remained as impassive as a porcelain doll.
“I spent two years, three months, and seven days in Grimsbane,” Emmy continued. “With no blanket to keep me warm, no books
to occupy my mind, nothing but my grief.”