The Dark Glamour (666 Park Avenue 2)

entirely.
Jane glowered.
To them she’s just the little girl they kidnapped over twenty years ago.
    She stepped away from the door, and for a moment she considered blowing it off its hinges to confront André. Her anger sent fiery shoots of magic through her throat and hands, and she let the fury build, seeing an electric red tide rise behind her eyes.
    ‘You really can’t stay?’ Anne asked. Her words were a bit clearer now. ‘I’ve got a friend coming in a few minutes; I’d love for you to meet her.’
    ‘That’s nice,’ André muttered, and he sounded louder, as well. ‘But I’ve risked being late for my flight as it is.’
    ‘Of course,’ Anne answered quickly, and from her muffled tone Jane guessed that she had ducked her head. ‘It was really nice of you to come by at all.’
    Jane heard footsteps approaching the door, and her body reacted instinctively. She ran as quickly and quietly as she could back to the main hall, all thoughts of a confrontation forgotten. Anne would never trust Jane if she attacked the girl’s ‘family’ right at her threshold. And to keep him from warning Katrin that she was on to them, Jane felt sure she would have to kill André. She felt her body shaking with adrenaline by the time she reached the stairs, and hysterical tears replaced the sea of red in her vision. She could fight, but she couldn’t really win.
    Her feet flew down the stairs, but she could hear the door opening one flight up. She could hear their familiar voices more loudly now, and André would be able to hear her racing footfalls in another second, too. Her heart ready to explode, she risked a glance downward: the staircase was laid out in a fat, lazy spiral. The central opening was wide enough that she could clearly see the steps on the levels below. If he looked down once he reached the stairs, he would see her. She shook harder, nearly missing her footing on a slickly worn step.
He can’t see me.
    She darted off the staircase at the next opportunity, but there was no door to close behind her. The one just to her left, however, had no number on it, and, sure that she could hear his shoes on the staircase, she shoved her now-wild magic into its lock and then wrenched back hard. The door swung open with a creak that sounded almost surprised, and Jane leaped into the tiny electrical closet it had been concealing, dragging it magically shut behind her.
    It was dark inside, and she nearly screamed out loud when the bare bulb screwed into the ceiling glowed to life. But she could feel what was happening easily enough: she had too much magic and too much fear and too much anger in her system all at once, and that usually ended only one way.
    André’s footsteps were just passing her floor. She held her breath, but she heard a fuse pop into uselessness behind her back, and then another. Loud cursing came from somewhere farther down the hall, and André stopped on the stairs.
    Please, just go,
she wanted to scream. But as she thought it, her magic knocked out both the light above her head and the ones in the hallway outside. It was completely dark; no more light filtered in from under the door. And André wasn’t moving.
    She squeezed her eyes shut so hard that tears welled up, but she couldn’t stop the chaos in her heart. She could feel the smooth wall of nothingness that was André just steps away from her, and she tried so hard to break through it that she thought she might accidentally push him down the stairs instead. She shuddered, killing another fuse with a sickening pop.
    Just when she thought she might completely lose it and burn the place down, André began to move again, and Jane slumped first against the wall behind her, and then down to the ground. She stayed there for a long, long time after she was sure he must be gone.

Thirty-one
    S O THEY’RE JUST playing every game that exists,
Jane thought somberly once she was finally back in her hotel room. She had to almost admire the Dalcaşcus. In spite of being less overtly powerful than Lynne and her clan, they had a kind of enterprising spirit that would have been impressive if it weren’t so terrifying. After all, they had brought down Lynne’s dynasty with one stroke, and now were looking to cash in on that, twenty-two years later, by allying with her. That was the kind of strategy best handled by experts.
    Jane wriggled out of the Karen Millen cape she had picked up to keep away the drizzle and flung it unceremoniously onto a