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not. He was murdered. I saw it!”
    His brows lifted, the corners of his mouth dipping. “The stable hand verified his departure.”
    Had she merely dreamed it? She twisted the blanket in her fingers and froze. Ruffles curled about her cuff. She did not own any nightwear with such frills. Her own gown must be somewhere, mottled with blood—but where? And how could Father not remember?
    He squeezed her knee and rose, jaw clenching. “Your mother will help you dress, and then we are leaving.” He started toward the door.
    “Father, wait!”
    He turned.
    “This change,” she indicated her exterior, “I—I do not understand.”
    “Understand what?”
    She pointed to the mirror.
    His cheek twitched. “What change, Alexia?”
    “I—I am beautiful.”
    His lips tucked back in a grin, a boyish dimple surfacing as he glanced away. “You have always been beautiful, child.”
    He placed a kiss on her head and stepped out of the room.
    She gaped after him. Now she knew something was wrong.             

6
    Old Friends, Old Lies
     
    His wife, Rosalind, swept into the entry with Alexia in custody. Charles Dumont froze near the exit. The girl’s skin radiated a warmth he had not seen in ages, a glow he’d convinced himself he imagined this morning. His heart clenched.
    Rupert, Abby and their father, Jonah, gasped in his periphery.
    Jonah stumbled a step back. “Charles—” His eyes darted from Alexia to his friend and back. “Why not let the children say farewell?” It was not the question he wanted to voice.
    Charles took a deep breath and readied himself for the assault. He nodded. “Rosalind, keep an eye on them?”
    The men left their curious children behind and walked out into the driveway. On the far side of the carriage, out of sight, Jonah Vanwick poked his friend in the chest. “What is this?”
    “Jonah . . .”
    “You told me—you said nothing came of it!”
    Charles groaned.
    “Does she know?”
    Charles shook his head. “And she cannot know, ever.”
    “But Charles—”
    He clenched a fist and lifted it. “I keep your secrets, Jonah, and you will keep mine.” He spun away from his friend, and returned to interrupt his daughter’s whispered conversation with her friends. From their shocked faces, she’d told them her story. Wonderful. That was precisely what she needed—gossip painting her as mad.
    He cursed, hurling his fury toward Rosalind who stood in the corner, glaring at the girl. Her irritated stare turned on him. They were in for an interesting ride home.

7
    Paper & Ink
                   
    Father kept Alexia confined to the estate, denying all social invitations. She regularly snuck into his study and thumbed through his letters, searching for a return correspondence from Baron Galedrew. Finally a letter arrived: House vacated. The baron had simply disappeared—no forwarding address—and only she knew why.
    Some days she questioned if Bellezza had actually murdered the baron, but how could a child shove a ladle clean through a man’s chest? Alexia fought to banish those mind-consuming blue eyes from her meditations along with Bellezza’s voice, but the terrifying girl’s words remained:
     . . . another of our kind . . .  
    Whispers in the hall pulled Alexia away from Julie or the New Heloise .
    “What is it?” she asked the maid.
    “A caller, my lady, unbelievably handsome, come to speak with your father. Would that I had an excuse to sit in and look at him!”
    Unbelievably handsome? The same kind of impossible beauty the mirror showed her? Another of her kind ?
    She slipped down the hall and out the side door. If she passed the study window from outside, she might catch sight of this caller and decide if Maurine’s tastes were jaded, or if her unsettling theory held weight.
    A stable boy rounded the far corner of the building, tugging the tethers of a speckled grey horse with a glistening white mane.
    She gasped. “Stop!”
    The lad halted as she