The Dark Glamour (666 Park Avenue 2)

people, by the way – you probably shouldn’t get too attached. He’ll let you down.’
    ‘Sisters are important,’ Dee offered softly.
    Jane thought about Annette, Katrin, and Maeve, and the way Dee had become almost like a sister to her, even if their bond had become strange lately.
    ‘They really are,’ she agreed, her voice barely above a whisper. She raised her glass in a half-loving, half-melancholy toast, and Dee and Harris followed suit. ‘Thanks for the perspective.’

Eighteen
    J ANE STUDIED THE heavy stone archway of the Dorans’ house. It struck her all over again that, squatting gloomily between 664 and 668, the building shouldn’t really have been numbered 665 at all.
Were they superstitious,
she wondered,
or afraid that using the right street number might give something away about them?
The greenish-grey mansion easily rose eight storeys from the street, but there was nothing graceful or sleek about its height. Even though her inner architect, which tended to see things in blueprint form, insisted that it was vertical, it seemed to almost be looming over the sidewalk. The windows, although moderately sized, were set deep back into the thick stone. She remembered how little daylight penetrated the fortress, even on the higher floors. André typed a short code into a discreet keypad to the right of the entrance, and a massive wooden door swung open on silent hinges. They stepped through the enormous arched entryway into the foyer.
    An icy shiver ran down the length of Jane’s spine at the familiar marble and gilt.
That’s where Cora fell when I hit her with that ball of magic . . . That’s where they re-panelled the wall after I nearly killed Malcolm’s father by accident . . .
It was a nerve-racking trip down evil memory lane. No one will recognize me, she told herself with as much conviction as she could muster. And it was true that Gunther, the ancient uniformed doorman, barely opened his bleary eyes as they passed by. Although her return to the mansion was momentous for her, to everyone else she was just another slinkily dressed invitee.
    The atrium was full of those, Jane noted when the wood-panelled elevator let her and André off on the eighth floor. The eighth floor had always made Jane a little uncomfortable. Although normally she liked airy spaces – of which there were few enough in the Dorans’ massive house – something about the floor-to-ceiling glass that ran all the way around the building made her feel as though the mansion might try to throw her out. The view was spectacular, somehow avoiding taller buildings to create a sightline from Central Park to the East River, but Jane hugged the solid interior of the hollow square, reassured by the cool wall at her back.
    Her first instinct was to locate Lynne and then the twins. The semi-familiar woman Jane had noticed with them at the last party was nearby, apparently deep in conversation, but Jane felt sure she was keenly aware of André and Ella’s entrance all the same.
That must be André’s sister,
Jane realized. She couldn’t see much of the woman’s face in its one-quarter profile, but there was a similarity in their colouring.
    She doesn’t want me here,
Jane thought, her smugness at getting in tinged with anxiety.
But I don’t really want to be here, either, so once I get what I came for we’ll both be a lot happier.
    Unfortunately, getting what she came for seemed to be a lot easier thought than done. It required slipping away from the party, for starters, and although Katrin Dalcaşcu seemed determined to spend the evening with her back pointedly turned to Jane, the resident witches were a lot less inclined to lose sight of her. Lynne, in particular, kept her dark eyes riveted on Jane. Her scrutiny was so intense that Jane kept feeling the urge to check the artful folds of the black fabric of her sheath dress to make sure nothing had slipped. She had been going for ‘elegant but understated’, hoping it would help her blend in to the shadows, but that wouldn’t help if she couldn’t even get to said shadows unnoticed.
    André’s arm circled her waist possessively, and Jane jumped a little.
A whole floor full of people keeping their enemies closer.
At least André’s presence seemed to keep Lynne away, and Jane felt a tiny sliver of relief at not having to make up more information about Malcolm.
    She sipped at her champagne, then took a longer drink of it.
Maybe everyone will just get drunk,
she thought