The Dark Glamour (666 Park Avenue 2)

bite of falafel. Just as advertised, it tasted fresh, spicy, and good with the tomato. She liked to grumble at Dee, but considering that most ‘foreign’ foods readily available in Paris were tone-deaf, preservative-laden shells of the real thing, Jane was more than happy to branch out. And although she had been skeptical of this place – brightly lit and a little grimy with a long, fast-moving line of takeout customers filing by their cramped little wooden table – it had turned out to be just as good as Dee had promised.
    Jane couldn’t help but compare it to some of the stuffy, elegant Doran family dinners she had endured during her time on Park Avenue. The food had been good, certainly, in a refined sort of way, but this cheap-eats hole in the wall had a pulse and character that felt much more honest and appealing to Jane than the Dorans’ celebrity-filled haunts ever had. It reminded her of her student days, and then the low-key places she and her BFF (Best French Friend) Elodie had frequented. Although she had believed that Malcolm Doran was the love of her life, in a way she felt lighter, safer, and more at ease than she had since meeting him.
    But I’m not quite out of that relationship yet,
she reminded herself conscientiously, and mentally settled in to get down to business. She had already told Dee about Mystery Witch in the park that afternoon, but so far she had avoided bringing up her plan to find Annette. She knew that Dee would worry and would probably be right to: it was dangerous. But she also knew that Dee might be able to help, and if the last three weeks proved anything it was that Jane couldn’t afford to cut herself off from help.
    ‘So,’ she announced as casually as possible around a mouthful of lentils, ‘I want to do that . . . thing again.’ She avoided saying ‘spell’ at the last possible second with a pointed glance at the customers currently filing by them: a skinny, impossibly pretty boy in eyeliner and two women in short, floaty dresses. ‘From yesterday,’ she clarified when Dee didn’t immediately react. ‘I still want to find
him
, of course, but what I want to focus on first is finding
her
again. The sister.’
    Dee started to shake her head, but Jane waved her protest away and leaned closer across the wooden table.
    ‘She’s my way out of this,’ she explained in a hiss. ‘My
mother-in-law
wouldn’t need me any more if she was back. Hell, she’d probably throw me a parade. All I have to do is find the sister, and I’m safe.
We’re
safe; all of us.’
    ‘I know,’ Dee whispered, ‘but there are some pretty major obstacles.’ Her throaty voice rose a little as she got more strident. ‘For one thing, the unicorn is gone. There’s not a single piece big enough to pick up without tweezers, and you don’t have anything else to use in its place. For another, even if you found An— the sister, how do you think the negotiation would go? Your psycho mother-in-law would attack on sight.’
    ‘. . . Bullshit like
that
is why I’m glad I’m not married, seriously, no matter what my mother says . . .’
The stray thought drifted over to their table from a faux-redhead in black patent ankle boots. Jane suppressed a smile, but pressed her index finger over her lips anyway to remind Dee to keep her voice down.
    ‘I know there are problems,’ Jane whispered, and Dee snorted a laugh. ‘Okay, there are some huge, apparently insurmountable problems. But that doesn’t mean we should just totally ignore this massive opportunity that just landed in our laps, either. Obviously there’s no easy way to bring about this little family reunion, but if there’s any way at all I think we need to try.’
    Dee ran long fingers through her tangle of black hair, looking pensive. ‘That makes sense,’ she agreed finally. ‘So I guess we just have to start at the beginning and worry about the next problem when it comes up. Which means, first things first, we have to replace the unicorn.’
    ‘I was thinking about that,’ Jane admitted excitedly, feeling a bit of a flush rise on her cheeks. She had barely been able to think about anything else all afternoon. ‘Look, losing a child is a big deal for anyone, even if they’re pretty thoroughly evil, right? I mean . . . my mother-in-law is soulless, but I bet she’s still a little sentimental, too. She still lives in the same house as when An— I mean, her daughter, died. Her daughter had her own room there, and all of