The Dark Glamour (666 Park Avenue 2)

her clothes and toys and things. And it’s not like they would have ever needed the space for anything else in a mansion that size, so maybe her room is still her room.’
    Dee chewed slowly, her amber eyes far away. ‘It’s possible,’ she said carefully. ‘I still have my access code for the staff entrance from when I was working on your wedding, and I bet they haven’t bothered to change it. No one ever thinks about the help.’ She winked saucily, but Jane could see strain in her jaw. Her friend wasn’t nearly as confident as she was letting on.
    ‘Absolutely not,’ Jane told her firmly. She appreciated Dee’s willingness to help, but she had already considered and rejected that option as a million times too dangerous. ‘The moment my mother-in-law or her cousins got near you, they’d know everything that you know.’ Jane tapped her temple meaningfully. Dee would never intentionally give up Jane’s secrets, she knew, but that didn’t mean a whole lot around a family full of mind-readers. ‘And don’t forget who was with me when we first met,’ she reminded Dee. Lynne had spent the entire meeting barking orders at Dee’s boss and completely ignoring the bride-to-be and the baker’s assistant, but when Dee had asked Jane about Gran’s ring, Lynne’s full attention had turned towards them. ‘She would probably recognize you if she saw you; her mind is like one giant “Contacts” file.’ Dee’s face fell. Jane pressed her fingertips together on the table. She knew she had covered all the angles, but the next part was still going to be a tough sell. ‘I’m going. I know the house, they can’t “hear” me coming, and I’ve got some . . . special skills, just in case.’
    ‘You can’t be serious,’ Dee snapped, leaning away from their table. She glanced around and then leaned back in, clearly wishing that they were somewhere private enough to yell. ‘You think that the solution to your little dilemma is to shove your head into the lion’s mouth?’
    ‘It’s my head I’m trying to save,’ Jane pointed out reasonably. ‘It should absolutely be mine that I risk. And if it works—’
    ‘No,’ Dee told her flatly, reaching into her studded denim purse. ‘I’m calling Harris. If he can’t talk sense into you, at least maybe he can help me lock you in your room or something. Oh!’ Her eyes lit up. ‘He would go. Jane, he would absolutely go into the house and look around for you if we ask. And he’s been there before, he’s part of their social—’
    Jane glared at the cell phone that Dee was beginning to dial, and it jumped out of her kitchen-calloused hands. It lay on the table between them like an accusation, a tiny curl of smoke rising from the battery compartment.
    ‘Jane,’ Dee whispered, ‘did you just blow up my phone?’
    Jane opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Dee covered her mouth with a long-fingered hand, and after a moment, Jane saw that her shoulders were shaking slightly. A smile tugged at the corner of Jane’s lips, and within moments, the two women were laughing so hard that nearly the entire line of patrons had turned to stare.
    ‘I didn’t mean to,’ Jane admitted when she had her giggling more or less under control. ‘I was just trying to move it – I guess I need more practise.’
    Dee nodded faux-seriously. ‘Just don’t go trying to “move” any people until we do a little more work, okay?’ She tapped at her dead cell phone with one unpolished fingernail, the half-moon at its base glowing against her tawny skin. ‘So that was a “no” to the calling-Harris idea.’
    ‘It’s not like I’m about to go running headlong into the mansion,’ Jane explained lamely. ‘You don’t need to be that worried yet. And he does know that house a little, I guess, and he’s harder to “read” than you, but not by that much. Not by enough.’ Harris’s mind was more protected than most because of his magical blood, but he didn’t even have as much of that protection as Malcolm or Charles, and Jane had managed to read both of their thoughts at one point or another. Surely Lynne and the twins would make short work of Harris if he were caught, and Jane couldn’t stomach the thought of what they would do next. She spun the salt shaker around on the wooden tabletop, trying to put her thoughts into words. ‘Obviously we need a plan. But Harris isn’t the answer here, so we shouldn’t drag him into it.’
    Dee nodded briskly, removing the