There was a bar all along one wall, which served alcohol from copper distilling vats. It spilled into mismatched mugs. On the outer edges, a few kids passed joints to one another, the heavy odor of hashish competing with a whiff of rot to spice the air.
In one corner sat the remainder of an old confessional; kids waiting in line to sit in it, draw their curtains, and tell their sins anonymously to a camera. A girl stood in line, tears running over her cheeks. Behind her, the dance floor was full of people thrashing and jumping and whirling. The cavernous Eternal Ball was oddly familiar; Tana had seen it before on the screens of friends’ computers and on posters in lockers. Now, moving with the crowd, it felt unreal, like being on the set of a movie.
She suspected that Pearl must love it.
A shiver went through her body, then a second one. She scanned the crowd, trying to pick out her sister. Her gaze snagged on a familiar figure, his back pressed against the staircase support beams. For a long moment, she studied his navy military jacket with the arms torn off, his garter belt with opaque white stockings and big black boots, his glittering blue eyeliner. He had something taped to his arm that looked like a shunt. It was Rufus, she realized, sweat tracing its way down his neck as he danced. As far as she could tell, he was alone. A red-eyed boy and a blond girl knelt in front of him, taking turns drinking from the tubing attached to his arm. Tana’s stomach lurched, half with disgust and half with hunger.
She staggered to lean against the rail of corrugated metal stairs leading to a cordoned-off second floor, taking breath after breath until she was sure she wasn’t going to be sick or attack anyone. She had to find Pearl, had to keep herself together long enough to take her back to the gate.
And horribly, in that moment, she thought of Gavriel watching her leave the glass ballroom. Gavriel, who had seemed utterly mad but who’d known exactly what he was doing the whole time. Gavriel, who’d put aside revenge for a little while to go on an adventure with her.
She shook her head, which was a mistake. It made her head throb worse than ever.
“Tana,” someone said, and then Valentina was there, beside her, pressing a mug into her hand. She’d changed her clothes, pulled back her hair, and washed off all her makeup. “Oh holy hell, Tana, you’re okay. You came back.”
She drank automatically, the alcohol burning down her sore throat.
“Look who we found,” Valentina said, and Aidan swung into view, smiling his innocent, fanged smile. Pearl was sitting on his shoulders, as though she were much younger, her gangly twelve-year-old legs dangling over his chest. Around her throat was the heavy garnet locket. She grinned at Tana, her expression dimming when she saw the blood staining her face and darkening the red of her dress.
“Hey, peanut,” Tana said softly, just as their mother used to.
“Don’t call me that,” Pearl said, dignity clearly offended. She was wearing a sparkly black shirt, jeans, and her favorite pair of blue cowboy boots. Her eyes were lined in black pencil.
Tana turned to Valentina, taking her hand and pressing it. “Thank you. I can’t thank you enough—”
The girl shook her head. “No, wait. It was Aidan who found her.”
“Aidan?” Tana looked up at him, disbelieving.
“I spotted her not far from the gates,” Aidan said. “She was pretty freaked out.”
Pearl gave him a look of deep betrayal. “I had a plan—”
“Aidan was the only one of us who knew what she looked like in person,” Valentina put in. “And the only one who wasn’t a stranger.”
Tana nodded, reaching for Pearl and staring at Aidan. “Thank you.”
“When Pauline called me, I figured I owed you one. Maybe more than one.” Aidan bent down, so Pearl could climb off his shoulders. She came into Tana’s arms, hugging her tight. Tana could hear the bird-wing beat of her heart and smell the sweetness of the blood under her skin, but if Aidan could bear it then so could she. She pressed her mouth to Pearl’s hair and drank in the scent of her, memorizing it.
“I just wanted to be here with you,” Pearl said. Her thin shoulders shook. “I wanted to help. I didn’t know—”
“It’s okay,” Tana whispered, hugging her even more tightly. “It’s going to be okay.”
“We saw you,” Aidan said, pointing to one of the screens suspended from metal girders. “I mean, not all of it, probably, but—with Lucien, at the end.”
She looked over at them. “You saw what happened?”
“Lucien Moreau’s dead,” said Valentina, over the music. “We saw that. We couldn’t hear everything, but it looked like he went crazy.”
“You looked awesome, though,” Aidan said, and for the first time, when he smiled, his red eyes and sharp teeth seemed like a normal part of him. “Nice dress.”
“I’m sorry, Tana,” Pearl said, her fingers digging into Tana’s arm. “I thought he—I really didn’t know.”