“Almost.” I took the champagne flute from her hand and drained it with one gulp, then set it on the floor next to the wall. “What’s your plan?” I asked, glancing at the guard on the far side of the foyer. “Flirt? Take him a drink?”

She shook her head. “He wouldn’t buy either of those, coming from me. Don’t worry about it. Just wait until he steps away from the stairs, then haul ass. And be quiet.” Then she turned and headed across the foyer without so much as a glance back.

I tried not to watch her walk away, but failed miserably, and by the time I realized I was staring, she was in position. She walked right past the guard without a word, and I thought she’d changed her mind about the whole thing until he called out to her, though I couldn’t make out more than her name, from across the large foyer.

I started across the floor, my hands in my pockets, prepared to claim I was looking for the restroom if I were accosted. The guard in front of the near staircase eyed me as I passed him, but when I didn’t try to race up the stairs at his back, he turned to stare into the party again, obviously disappointed that his post wasn’t closer to the action.

There was a broad expanse of floor between the two sets of stairs, and in the center of that, opposite the double front doors, was a smaller set of doors leading to a courtyard in the middle of the house. Several couples milled outside, sitting on benches, drinking and nibbling from plates of those hors d’oeuvres Kori hated. I stood near the door, blocked from sight by the curve of stairs, listening to her conversation with the second guard. Which turned out to be less conversation than argument.

“Look who’s playin’ dress up…” the guard said, but his tone was neither friendly nor flirty. “I’ve never seen you in a dress before.”

“And you never will again, if I have any say.”

“You don’t, though, do you?” he said, and when she tried to keep walking, he grabbed her arm, hauling her close, his back to me and the staircase. And in that moment, I understood why she’d pulled away from me when I’d held her arm. “You don’t have a say in anything anymore, do you?”

“Fuck off, David,” Kori snapped, and I started to step in, thinking that her plan had gone awry. Then she jerked free from his grip and walked off. When he took several steps after her, I realized this was how she’d planned to distract him. Not by flirting, but by pissing him off. She’d known he’d follow. Maybe they had some kind of history. A grudge, or a former fling.

“I caught the show, you know,” the guard said softly, like he didn’t want anyone else to hear. Which meant he had no idea I was there.

I started to slip up the stairs, but then I noticed through the railing that Kori had gone still again, this time staring at the floor, fists clenched at her sides. “Shut up,” she whispered.

The guard stepped closer, so close his chest almost touched her back, and I could see her tense when he leaned down to whisper into her ear, words so soft I had to strain to hear them. “All this time, turning your nose up at everyone who wanted a taste, busting balls and splitting skulls with impunity because Tower liked you. But look at you now. My, how the mighty have fallen…”

“I’m pretty sure that’s a misquote,” she mumbled, as he circled her slowly, and I ducked behind the staircase again, out of sight, unless the guard on the other side of the foyer turned to look.

“Fits, though, doesn’t it. The taller the pedestal, the harder the bitch on it crashes to the ground. Do you want to know what we saw?”

“I want you to back the fuck off before I decide you’d look better with your nose on one side of your face.”

“That was some messed up shit, Kori,” he continued, like she hadn’t even spoken. “I mean, I wanted to see you taken down a peg or two, but that was hard to watch, even for me. How you doin’ in the aftermath? Need a shoulder to—”

The guard’s voice ended with the thunk of flesh against flesh, and I came forward until I could see him through the railing, lying flat on the floor, bleeding from his nose. Kori stood over him, feet spread in those stupid stilettos, bloodied fist still clenched from the blow.

She thought I was already upstairs—I could tell by the look of pure rage on her face, something she wouldn’t have intentionally shown a recruit. She didn’t know what I’d seen or what I’d heard. Hell, I didn’t know what I’d heard. But it made my stomach churn.

Aaron was right—they were monsters in human masks, and those masks were less convincing with every second I spent staring at them.

The guard coughed at Kori’s feet and started to sit up, but she planted one pointy heel in his crotch to stop him. I glanced across the foyer at the other guard to make sure he wasn’t watching, and when I saw that he was staring at the party still going strong in the main part of the house, out of sight from my current position, I jogged silently up the stairs—hunched over so she wouldn’t see me—and into the first open, dark room I saw.

Faintly, from below, I heard Kori’s heels click on marble, fading with each step as she headed for the front door.

For one long moment, I stood frozen, listening for anything that would indicate the west wing—the employee wing, where Kori’d once lived—was currently populated. But I heard nothing. So I pressed my back against the wall with the door still open to the hall and closed my eyes, slowly drawing darkness toward me from every shadowed corner and shaded nook in the room. I called to it, from every darkened crack beneath every door in the hall. And the shadows began to coalesce around my feet, curling around my shins, wisps of pure darkness rolling over me.