The quickest way from here was to enter the mansion through the Servants' Hall and head straight to the servants' shortcut. I stuffed the slingshot and the empty jar back into the backpack. Sliding my arms through the shoulder straps and creeping back around the treeline, I was about to push off and run toward the Servants' Hall when a shadow stretched long as someone stepped out from the very room I needed to get through. A woman, dressed casually in trousers and a cozy flannel jacket, sauntered down the porch's few steps and onto the pebbled pathway.

Oh my gods...

I froze. My heart rapped a staccato beat in my chest.

It was Joann, smoking a cigarillo. She stood there for a moment, staring up at the fireworks display, soaking in the sounds of clapping and uproarious yells of delight drifting from the dance, one arm wrapped around her middle and the other hand lifting to her thin lips where she drew in a mouthful of smoke, held it, and then let it curl from her lips.

I pressed my bulky body back into the shadows the best I could. Why did I even bother with this getup? I didn't know. I was a terrible overthinker.

I was horribly conscious of time slipping away. I needed to get past Joann, but I wasn't sure what to do. I silently cursed her for wanting to avoid social contact and stay within the mansion and our quarters.

Suddenly, something from inside the hall had Joann jerking around, startled. Her face scrunched into curiosity, her head and upper body weaving as she tried to see what or who was inside the hall. She shifted over to the trash can set up outside, stubbed the burning end of the cigarillo out against the metal rim, and dropped it inside. She quickly padded up the steps, her gaze swinging wide as if trying to spot who had drawn her inside before she disappeared into the hall.

I gave her as long as I could. Time was moving fast, too fast, and I had to move on. I tippy-toed carefully out from under cover, breaking into a clumsy dash in my too-big shoes across the open lawn, up the stone steps to the porch, and made my way quietly inside the Servants' Hall.

The hall, much like the kitchen had been earlier, was eerie without life. It was rows upon rows of long wooden tables and empty chairs, and a ghostly silence cloaked the room like a shroud. Joann wasn't inside, but as I crept up to the door that led to the main corridor and peered around, I heard her speaking a short distance away around the corner of the next corridor, thankfully in the opposite direction of where I needed to head. Though I couldn't make out what Joann was saying, her voice and tone were formal, and whoever replied to her spoke in a low, male voice. Mr. Volkov...or maybe someone else with a higher rank? One of the Deniauds? One of the upper-ranking family members, perhaps? I couldn't make them out.

My gaze swung down the other end of this corridor, toward the next corner where a wooden door was situated—a shortcut that led to the upper levels. There was a network of servants' shortcuts throughout the mansion, and that one, in particular, would take me upstairs near the middle of the northern wing.

Quietly, I snuck down the corridor, careful to make little noise on the worn, polished floor, but when I heard a stumbling footfall suddenly behind me, a slurred male voice calling out to me—"Hey, you there, boy,"—I just about had a heart attack.

I threw up my hand as if acknowledging whoever it was, my pace quickening, changing my walking gait as if I were indeed a boy, and swaggered like Mr. Whiskers, disappearing around the corner.

I threw myself into a run and scrambled for the shortcut's wooden door. Yanking it open, I entered and shut it behind me, plunging into darkness. Not switching on the light, I quickly slunk up the narrow, twisting staircase, engulfed within the pitch-black darkness to the uppermost floor, my heart thundering away in my chest, hoping whoever had called out for me wasn't trying to track me down. I pressed my ear to the door and listened—nothing—before I opened it and stepped out into a brightly lit hallway. Now I had to move through the mansion without getting caught.

I silently snuck through hallways and open-spaced rooms, vigilant for approaching family members, guests, and staff from all the Houses. When an armed guard walked by I ducked behind a full-length tapestry jutting out from the wall in an empty sitting room, desperately trying to keep from breathing too loud. Afterward, I pushed on, sweat rolling down from the back of my neck as I crept along a staircase balcony with an iron railing and balustrades twined with metal ivy. I was a blot of darkness in the opulent hallways, the artwork staring at me accusingly as I slunk past. Everything was too light, too bright, and I was stealth and shadows and wrongfulness.

A strange voice, indistinguishable against my messy thoughts, whispered inside my head—Ready to pounce or steal a ball of yarn, tabby-cat?—but I had no time to dwell on that voice or why it should've spun through my mind. I pushed it back to think on later. Time was swiftly running out. What I was about to do was wrong, terribly wrong, but it needed to be done. I needed to save my aunt.

With half a minute to spare, I was exactly where I needed to be—at a junction of hallways covered in a lemony wallpaper with a silky texture. Partway down the adjacent hallway was Laurena's bedroom. Quietly, I pulled a second jar out of my backpack. I unscrewed the lid, tipping the dirt into my cupped palm, and found the wriggling larvae amongst the chunks of fresh earth. This time I held up a small flashlight, switched it on and flooded the worm with yellowed light to trigger the catalyst and turn it into an incendiary distraction. I placed the writhing larvae, puffing and bloating, beneath an antique running table. Nearby, I left a couple of tom-thumbs as well as a child's woolen hat, as if it had fallen off while the child tossed the firecrackers and run from their shenanigans.

I edged carefully up the hallway and sent my senses curling around the corner. I could hear the pacing of the Wychthorn's bodyguard up and down the wooden floor, the bored sigh; caught the scent of him, male with a trace of garlic from something he'd eaten earlier; felt the retreat of footfall on the wooden floor which meant he was heading toward the window that overlooked the dance and frivolities outside. When the larvae exploded it would look like someone had lit firecrackers too close to the mansion. Anyone could have done it—even a child.

And then I had ten minutes to get everything done, and when the second distraction stole the bodyguard off down here, I'd escape through the secret servants' shortcut hidden in the wall near Laurena's bedroom.

I palmed the old-fashioned key that would open Laurena's bedroom, turning it over and over with slightly trembling fingers. Mrs. Deniaud had kept changing her mind right up to the arrival of the Wychthorns, as to which of the guest bedrooms she was going to place Laurena in for the weekend. Which was why I'd had to borrow the entire master set of keys two nights ago and ask the Purveyor of Rarities to make a secret copy of them for me.

I checked my watch for the time.

Three...

Two...

One...

The larvae stuck to the wall outside the mansion's window erupted—

A shower of crackling light and smoke—

Resounding pops that sounded like muted gunfire blasted against the stone wall and rattled the window pane.

A startled curse—

Quick heavy footsteps—

I poked my head around the corner and observed the bodyguard, who stood with his broad back to me at the window, the raining fireworks dancing against the glass.

I dashed silently down the hallway—one step, two, three, four, five—and then slid the key into the keyhole of Laurena's bedroom...quietly turning...

My heart raced—faster, faster, faster.

Beneath my pinched thumb and finger, the key's teeth were stiff inside the keyhole—

The key wouldn't turn the lock open—

Oh my gods...

Fear swelled in my blood, as frigid cold as Arctic ocean currents.

The larvae died along with the sparks of fire, smoke drifting apart with the currents of air. The guard unlatched the gabled window, the wooden frame stiff and grating as he pushed it open to work out where the explosion had come from.

I tried to turn it again—shift the key in and out for a better alignment. My heart beat so fast I thought it was going to smash through my ribcage and escape.

My palms were sweating, my forehead too.

All the bodyguard had to do was turn around and catch me. I heard his grunt, then the window being pulled shut—

Hells, hells, hells...

Finally, the key's teeth caught and the lock turned over.

The guard shifted, his shoulders going around, his body moving with the motion—

I pushed the door open, snatching the key free, and slipped inside muted darkness, shutting the door behind me, quietly. So quietly. Not a whisper on the floor nor a click from the metal door handle as I released it.

I slowly turned around, my frantic heartbeat slowing down. I didn't need to look to know Laurena was asleep. I heard her snoring like a rumbling chainsaw.

I took a moment to compose myself, draw breath and calm my frayed nerves. I pushed my hoodie from my head, glancing about the room. The curtains were half-open and light from the festivities and fireworks danced along the tangled-raspberry walls, shimmering over the gold-leaf furniture and the fireplace where the dying fire's embers burned a dark red in the hearth.

Her dress, which had cost thousands of dollars, was dumped on the floor as if she'd simply unzipped it, let it pool at her feet, and stepped out of it. Her high heels were kicked off and left lying on the wooden floor. Tonight there was no one to hang her dress up for her or put away her shoes, as all our staff had the evening off to attend the Servants' Dance.

I slunk over to the dresser and, on top of the white-washed surface, scattered with makeup and facial products, was Laurena's tiara—a Princess's Crown.

Besides the crown, I needed moonlight, which I'd tried trapping in a pail of water and in mirrors—all failing. However, I had more of a chance of trapping moonlight than obtaining the last item needed. It was something so elusive I was fast losing hope I'd ever lay my hands upon it: the blood of a beast that had been extinct for millennia. My only hope lay with the Purveyor of Rarities, that he would miraculously come into possession of a vial before Cernesse's forerunners scored across the sky.

But here, in this room, was a Princess's Crown.

I stroked a fingertip over the cool metal—a delicate twist of gold, holding sapphires and diamonds, their size and worth priceless. The crown wasn't even locked away in the bedroom's safe. It was simply a piece of jewelry, discarded and tossed aside as if it came from a discount store, one of many, and if it were lost, easily replaced.

I left it where it sat on the dresser and turned to face the Wychthorn Princess.

My heartbeat sped up with each silent footstep that drew me closer to Laurena—the rise and fall of her breath, shallow, the snore grumbling from her throat, loud. She lay in bed with the luxurious quilt tucked up to her chest, her head supported by large, soft pillows with all those magnificent blonde locks strewn over her shoulders and down her chest that was covered with a silky mauve nightie. Her mouth was wide open too, another bonus. She'd even been kind enough not to sleep in the center of the big bed, but over to one side, which was going to make everything much easier for me.

Her features were slackened and softer with sleep. She looked much younger and less viperish, a version of her I knew her not to be—innocent, even. Perhaps the young girl she once had been, before her position as Wychthorn Princess molded her into a creature who desired to hurt others to make herself feel better.

Guilt wrapped cruel fingers around my heart. Worry had me gnawing at the corner of my mouth.

Can I do this?

I have to...I have to.

I needed to do this to save my aunt. That thing would be expecting me to do it, and it wouldn't be pleased if I failed.

I stood beside the edge of the four-poster bed, the sheer taffeta curtains draping and tied to each post with cords of gold. On the bedside table, there was a half-filled glass of water and a vial with what I assumed to be stomach-pain relievers. But what I'd given her earlier, a concoction spiked within her Camomile tea had done the work already. She was fast asleep, and in a deep enough slumber, nothing should awaken her, not even what I was about to do.

I slowly eased the backpack off my shoulders and carefully unzipped it. Fishing within its depth, I pulled out a generous-sized ziplock bag, a plastic sheet, and the dressmaker's scissors, placing them side by side upon the mattress.

Right here, lying in bed, was one more item I needed to break my aunt's dark curse. One of the last three items I needed for the spell to save Aunt Ellena: the Crown of a Princess.

None of the items needed for the spell were man-made. The words on my list tucked safely away in the false bottom of my trunk needed to have their meaning bent. The Crown of a Princess wouldn't be polished gems and wrought gold. It would be something else entirely.

I gently lifted Laurena's head and laid the plastic sheet across the pillow before easing her back. Things were going to get messy. Really messy

I picked up the blades of silver and danger.

The rapid burst of golden fireworks illuminated the night sky beyond the bedroom's windows, and honeyed light struck off the scissors' heavy blades, as sharp as gardening shears. The blades cast an elongated shadow across Laurena's exposed throat, a throat that lay before me, vulnerable to anything I might do to it. Snip-snip.