The Gala of Ghosts was held in a mansion that should not have existed.
Victoria stood at the edge of the driveway, looking up at the building that rose against the night sky like a fever dream made concrete. It was enormous, far larger than any private residence should be, with towers and turrets and windows that seemed to watch her from every angle. The architecture was wrong, she realized — it was a hodgepodge of different styles, medieval towers beside art deco facades beside something that looked almost baroque, all of it mashed together in a way that suggested the builder had simply added whatever struck their fancy without any consideration for coherence.
It was the kind of building that dreams were made of. And nightmares.
“Impressive, isn’t it?”
The voice came from beside her, and she turned to find Sebastian Crane at her elbow, looking for all the world like he had been there all along. He was wearing a different suit tonight — charcoal gray instead of black — and his hair was slightly damp, as if he had been caught in rain that had not quite fallen yet.
“I’ve seen a lot of buildings,” Victoria said. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“That’s because this building was designed by someone who was trying to capture every style they’d ever admired at once. The result is something that shouldn’t work but somehow does.” He paused. “The owner is a collector, like Harrison. But his collection is different.”
“What does he collect?”
Sebastian’s expression flickered, became something more guarded. “Houses,” he said. “He collects houses. This one is just the latest addition.”
Victoria looked at him carefully. “You’re not telling me something.”
“I’m telling you what I can,” he replied. “The owner of this estate is someone you need to meet. Someone who has information about the stolen art network, information that could be crucial to your investigation. But he’s also someone who is very careful about who he speaks to, and very paranoid about the people who surround him.”
“Then why did he invite me?”
“Because I vouched for you,” Sebastian said. “And because he knows your work. He’s been watching it for years.”
The sky above them darkened further, and Victoria realized that clouds had gathered where there had been none before. The air had taken on a quality of pressure, of weight, as if something was about to happen.
“We should go inside,” Sebastian said. “The Gala starts in an hour, and there are people there who will want to meet you.”
The interior of the mansion was even more overwhelming than the exterior. The entrance hall was three stories tall, with a staircase that swept upward in an impossible curve and walls that were covered in paintings that Victoria recognized from a dozen different museum collections. None of them should have been here. All of them were.
“How did he acquire these?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“That’s a question you should ask him,” Sebastian replied. “But I suspect the answer will be complicated.”
They moved through the crowd, which was larger than Victoria had expected. There were perhaps two hundred people in the mansion, all of them dressed in the kind of clothing that cost more than most people’s cars, all of them carrying drinks and conversations and secrets. Victoria felt out of place immediately, not because she was underdressed but because everyone else seemed to know something she did not.
And then she saw him.
He was standing at the far end of the main hall, surrounded by a circle of admirers who seemed to hang on his every word. He was old — very old — with white hair and a face that was all angles and shadows, a face that looked like it had been carved from stone by someone who had no patience for softness. His eyes were dark and deep and seemed to contain more darkness than the room around them.
“That’s Maren Blackwood,” Sebastian said quietly. “The man who built this place. And the man who knows where all the bodies are buried.”
Victoria felt a strange sensation as she looked at him, a feeling of recognition that she could not explain. She had never met Maren Blackwood before, had never seen a photograph of him, had never encountered any reference to him in any of her professional work. And yet she knew him. She knew, with a certainty that went beyond logic, that he knew her. That he had been expecting her.
Their eyes met across the crowded room, and Victoria felt the world tilt slightly on its axis. Maren Blackwood smiled, and the smile was not a pleasant one.
“Ms. Hartwell,” he said, though he was too far away to have spoken at that volume. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
The Gala of Ghosts had begun. And Victoria was beginning to understand that she had walked into something far more dangerous than she had imagined.