Her deep brown eyes moved over me, and she smiled, her mouth full of perfect paperwhite teeth.

“Miss Morris will see to it that she is home safe and sound,” she called up to my parents, who were still standing on the porch with their mouths open.

I climbed in and she closed the door. The car’s interior smelled like warm vanilla, and the upholstery was the same red as the woman’s suit. The driver’s door opened and closed, and the partition rolled down.

“Comfortable?” the woman asked.

I nodded.

“Help yourself to anything you’d like,” she said.

A refrigerated chest filled with soda and water bottles and illuminated by a ring of white lights was built into the center console. I pressed my lips together to keep from asking, out loud, what in the entire hell was going on. I picked up a root beer.

“This is perfect. Thanks.”

We turned out of the driveway and onto the road that led away from the house.

“My name is Nyx,” said the woman. “I work with Miss Morris.”

“Marie?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Nyx.

“You work with her? Like, driving people around and stuff?”

Nyx smiled. “Among other things.”

I opened the root beer and took a drink. “You probably won’t be honest with me, but I’m gonna ask anyway. Is this a setup?”

Nyx raised an eyebrow. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Like, she’s not trying to kill me or anything, right? My parents worry.” I’d be so mad if I put on these hoops just to get murdered by the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.

Nyx laughed. “No, you’ll be safe with her.”

That answer was a little weird, but so was drinking root beer in the back of a luxury car on my way to a stranger’s house. I tried to make polite conversation. “So, the few people I’ve met since I’ve been here have lived in Rhinebeck their whole lives. Is that how it is for you and Marie? Are y’all from here, too?”

“Not me,” Nyx said. “I came here from California years ago. But Miss Morris has lived here in Rhinebeck since it was Beek-man’s land.”

“Who’s Beekman?” The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I’d heard it.

I thought I saw Nyx bristle in the rearview mirror. “An old man. But let me stop talking before I say too much. I fear I may have already.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m new here. I don’t know the town gossip.”

“That’s probably good. This town is full of nosy people, and now that you’re in that house, I’m sure you’ll be the talk of the town.”

“Yeah. I’m starting to understand that.”

We drove through town and crossed over Market Street. The hustle and bustle of Rhinebeck village faded as we drove south. Twenty minutes later, Nyx navigated a steep, narrow driveway. I peered out the window, but it was hard to see through the tinted windows.

“We’re here,” Nyx said.

She hopped out and came around to open the door. I found myself in the driveway of a very large, very expensive-looking house. The immaculately kept lawn looked like a sea of green carpet. Statues dotted the landscape and I was creeped out by the way they loomed in the encroaching blackness, their marble skin reflecting the soft light from the house. Beyond the driveway was a void, but I could hear rushing water.

“The mighty Hudson is beyond the bluff,” Nyx said.

“So, Marie is rich? Or her parents are rich? Because this place looks crazy expensive.”

Nyx laughed and gestured toward the door, but she didn’t answer my question.

As I followed her up the wide steps to the front of the house, I heard something beyond the muffled rush of the river. Pausing, I looked in the direction of the bluff, squinting against the darkness. A rhythmic rush of air, like bird wings beating.

“This way,” Nyx said, ushering me inside.

The inside of the house was just as impressive as the exterior. A floor of mottled gray marble, inlaid with hexagonal patterns of ebony tile, was polished to a glass-like shine. A painting of a regal-looking woman in a long, patterned dress hung in the foyer alongside watercolors of lush landscapes. An iron chandelier affixed to the exposed crossbeams drenched the entire entryway in a warm, undulating glow.

Nyx led me down a long hall and into a small library.

A library.

Inside a house.

A fireplace big enough to step into took up the entire back wall. The flames inside clung to the last of their dying embers, casting a dancing amber light all around.

“Please make yourself comfortable,” Nyx said.

She left, and I immediately went to the built-in shelves closest to me. I pulled down a beautifully illustrated book of fairy tales and took it to the large leather couch. As I thumbed through, I gently touched the well-worn pages. Something about the look and feel and smell of old books always sparked a sense of calm in me. The books Karter had gifted me and the ones I’d found in the turret gave me the same feeling. Nyx returned a few minutes later carrying an assortment of meats, cheeses, and crackers on a large wooden cutting board. She set it on the coffee table.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I said. “You had to walk like a block to bring this to me, huh? How far away is the kitchen in this mansion?”

“You’re not hungry?”

I stared into Nyx’s face. The room was fairly dark but not so much that I couldn’t tell if she’d been speaking to me or not. She had not moved her mouth at all. I followed her amused gaze to the wingback chair by the fireplace where Marie was sitting cross-legged, a half smile painting her lips.

Nyx gave me a wink before leaving the room, closing the door behind her.

“Were you there the whole time?” I asked. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you.” I hadn’t even registered the chair, much less the beautiful girl sitting in it, when I came in.

Her silver hair was slicked up into a perfectly twisted topknot. She was wearing a pair of fitted gray joggers and a matching cropped sweater. Her skin glowed in the firelight. And her eyes . . . I was staring again. I shook my head.

“I was waiting for you to call so I could invite you over,” Marie said. “But you took your sweet time, so I had to make the first move.”

Heat rose in my face. “I was gonna call you.”