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Something in her chest had cracked open, as if the gargoyle wasn’t guarding her heart at all.

“Are you nervous?” he asked, head bowed, dark hair falling across his brow.

“Yes,” she said, and she was. About everything. And the last thing she needed was to be having useless feelings for someone who was either going to return to Fantillian if his curse was broken—or die if it came to pass.

But the way he was looking at her with those dark, sleepy eyes, as though they were the only two revelers in the garden, made her wonder what he might be thinking about her in return.

“Penbrook…”

“Fia.” It might have been the first time he’d spoken her name.

He bent closer, his mouth near her ear, and whispered, “No need for nerves. We’ll finish the dance, then we can step aside to catch our breath.” Spoken as if they were playing these roles and that was all this moment was to him. “No one will think anything of it,” he continued. “No one will notice us returning to the manor.”

Right, because that was what he’d been thinking about as they danced—and what she should have been thinking about—securing The Book of Ribs.

With Penbrook’s hand at her waist, Fia allowed herself one last indulgent pass around the garden floor. All the while she willed the gargoyle to tighten its hold on her heart again, filling every chamber with stone. Then, resolutely, she cut her ridiculous feelings into pieces—snip, snip, snip—returning her focus to what they’d come here to do. “Spin us closer to Andromeda.”

He hesitated, perhaps sensing some shift in her manner, but unable to determine what it meant, he guided them between the other couples. Fia left her feelings behind to be trampled by the buoyant dancers.

On the next turn, Andromeda and Sebastian came into view. They moved just out of sync with the music, and it was strange how lovely their disharmony looked. Fia wasn’t the only one watching, and she wondered if they saw what she did—a girl in a dress like the night sky, hair like the tail of a shooting star, and a boy in a velvet suit, his slipped-closed eyes the only thing softening the stern angles of his face.

Andromeda looked up past his broad shoulder, catching Fia’s eye with a slight shake of her head. She hadn’t found the book on him, which they’d anticipated. It was up to Fia and Penbrook now.

She couldn’t imagine Sebastian would dare cast any sort of curse that would give him away in front of so many people, so she pulled Penbrook from the grassy dance floor, then skipped barefoot up the stairs to the terrace. They lingered there only a moment—just long enough for Fia to sample one of those blackberry tartlets—then ducked back into the manor, which seemed unnervingly quiet after the din of the party.

Most everyone who’d been invited would have arrived by now, and it was much too early to leave, so the chandelier-lit hallway was thankfully empty of everything except shadows. Fia licked her thumb, savoring the last bit of jam from the tart, and considered the rooms and hallways that stemmed from the one they stood in. She suddenly realized the massive task before them.

The manor was huge, and while Penbrook’s sketch of the Willows had led them here, it hadn’t narrowed down which wing, much less which room, held The Book of Ribs. They could be searching for hours, and that seemed like time they didn’t have.

“Where should we start?” Fia asked, tiptoeing through the nearest doorway before Penbrook could share an opinion.

Overlooking the rear garden, the room might have been a conservatory once, plants flourishing in the afternoon light, but all that was left of them were brittle leaves forgotten in the corners and a few overturned pots spilling dirt. Peeking around the drapes so no one—so Sebastian—didn’t see her, Fia watched the ball unfurl soundlessly beyond the windows like a scene from an enchanted storybook, beautiful and not quite real. But little felt real in this room either, the space empty, the air riddled with dust motes. A staleness draped around them as if no one had breathed in here for a very long time.

A second room connected to the first, and in unspoken agreement Fia and Penbrook moved through it, lifting their faces to gaze at the beamed ceiling, brushing their hands against the long-cold fireplace for any hidden compartments. A single chair sat squarely in one corner, and Fia checked beneath the old, faded cushions in case Sebastian had stowed the book there, then turned a circle to ensure there was nothing they’d missed.

In the third room, right off the grand entryway, an old piano rested silent against the wall, the keys yellowed, a few chipped like broken fingernails. Fia crossed to the instrument, spun the wooden swivel stool seated before it, then pressed a low note chord. It rang eerily in the room, more a vibration than a sound. She peeked under the lid, inspecting the hammers and strings in case the grimoire had been wedged between them. All she found was more dust.

“Apparently our host isn’t one for decorating.” Penbrook sounded as relieved as Fia felt—that there weren’t a million drawers and cubbies to search. He swiped at his suit even though he stood well away from the dust she’d released into the air. “And apparently Smith isn’t one for cleaning either.”

“The Willows was abandoned for so long,” she whispered, and the place still felt that way. It would take Sebastian Smith—or rather, a team of maids and carpenters and designers—countless days to restore even one room, let alone the whole manor. No wonder he’d held the ball outdoors in that expanse of white grass and willow trees.

Though it did seem odd that he’d thrown the party at all. A dusty, decrepit manor was hardly the way to show off, or introduce himself—at least in Bramble society. She might have thought him eager to make connections, but with his frosty airs, she simply couldn’t reason it. Sebastian’s opaqueness only made her more curious about where he’d come from, what he really wanted, and what it might have to do with The Book of Ribs.

“Why do you think he’s invited everyone here?” she asked, running her hand over the faded wallpaper, strips of which had begun to peel. But there didn’t seem to be any hidden nook like the small closet tucked away along her stairway at home.

“I couldn’t say.” Penbrook stood near the door to the main hall, lined with those glittering chandeliers, peering out to ensure no one was coming—not that they’d yet ventured so far into the manor they couldn’t explain away their presence.

Which made Fia think the grimoire was unlikely to be here, where someone could more easily find it, or in the dining room or kitchen or whatever other rooms occupied this level of the manor. Sebastian Smith would likely tuck it far out of reach of any guests who might stumble into these rooms, their heads spinning from those fizzy drinks.

“And you think Andromeda’s all right with him?” She went to Penbrook’s side, eyeing the staircase that wound up to the second floor, then the third.

“I’ve known her a long time, and she’s more than capable of watching out for herself.” He said it fondly, as if past the disastrous wedding and the deadly curse, he and Andromeda would always remain bickering friends. But really, they didn’t have always.

“Still, we should hurry,” Fia said, all but hearing the grains of sand trickling through the hourglass she’d previously imagined. “Should we try upstairs?”

Still barefoot, they climbed the cold marble steps, Penbrook slower to follow, then peered down the east and west wings. Neither looked particularly inviting, with cobwebs hanging in the corners and dust coating the floors.

“Let’s try this way.” Penbrook veered down the left corridor, and they spent the next half hour searching all the many bedrooms lining the hall.