Read Chapter 24: The Trap Sprung

The invitation came on cream-colored cardstock, embossed with Lucien’s serpent-and-moon monogram, delivered to Evie’s dressing room at Chez Nous by a boy who vanished before she could ask a single question. A private soirée. His apartment on the Île Saint-Louis. Her voice, he wrote, would be the crown jewel of the evening. A generous fee, of course. Signed with a flourish that curled like a question mark.

“Don’t go,” Julien said when she showed him the card after their set. He stood close, his hand on her arm, his face tight with the strain of the past weeks. “He’s already suing us over the contract. He doesn’t invite you to sing out of generosity.”

“I know what he is.” Evie slid the card back into its envelope. “But he’s the only man in Paris who knows where Lily is, and he doesn’t know that I know. That’s an advantage I’m not wasting.”

“It’s a trap.”

“Then I’ll walk into it with my eyes open.” She touched his cheek. “Wait outside. If I’m not down in an hour, come up and make a scene.”

Julien’s jaw worked. He didn’t like it. She didn’t either. But Lily had been gone for months, and every lead had curved back to Lucien like a compass needle finding north. Evie could feel the time sliding away from her, each day burying her friend deeper.

Lucien’s apartment was all marble and gold leaf, the kind of opulence that whispered rather than shouted, meant to impress men who didn’t need to be impressed. A quartet played in the corner—classical, not jazz, of course. The guests were a blur of tailored suits and jeweled throats, men with the soft hands of inherited wealth and women with the hard eyes of acquired survival. Evie sang three songs that made the chandeliers tremble. Her voice had always been her armor, and tonight she wielded it like a blade.

Lucien watched her from a velvet chair, a glass of cognac balanced on his knee, his smile the patient, pleased smile of a man watching a game piece move exactly where he wanted it to go.

When she finished her last number, he rose and took her hand, pressing his lips to her knuckles. His mouth was cold.

“Magnificent, as always, Mademoiselle Hart. Shall we discuss your fee in my study?”

The study was lined with books that looked unread and art that looked acquired. Lucien closed the door behind them and poured two glasses of Armagnac from a crystal decanter. Evie didn’t touch hers.

“Your voice has grown since you arrived,” he said, settling behind his desk. “You’ve found a confidence that wasn’t there when you first sang for me. I wonder what’s given it to you.”

“Practice.”

“No.” His smile thinned. “I think it’s purpose. A mission. You sing like a woman who’s hunting something.”

Evie kept her face still. “I sing like a woman who wants to be heard.”

“Do you know why I asked you here tonight?” Lucien placed his hands flat on the desk. On his right ring finger, the serpent coiled, emerald eyes glinting. “Not just for the music. Though you are lovely to listen to—and to look at. No, I asked you here because I wanted to see whether you would come. Whether you were brave or foolish. And I find that you are both.”

“You wanted to see if I knew.”

“Yes.” He leaned back. “I know about your visit to Marguerite. I know you’ve been asking questions about a woman named Lily Dubois. And I know you’ve been poking around Le Cercle de Minuit like a child with a stick in a wasp’s nest.”

The air in the room went still. Evie’s heart battered against her ribs, but she held his gaze. “What do you know about Lily?”

“Everything.” Lucien’s voice was silk over steel. “I know where she is. I know who holds her. I know the terms of her arrangement. And I know,” he said, drawing out the word, “that she will never leave that villa unless her patron grows tired of her—or unless someone buys her contract out. And no one knows who to pay except me.”

Evie’s hands were shaking. She pressed them flat against her thighs. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I want something from you.” He pulled a folded document from his desk drawer and slid it across the polished wood. “Fifty percent of all future earnings from your records, your performances, your compositions—anything you produce in the next ten years. In exchange, I will give you the name of the patron, the location of the villa, and my word that I will never speak of your interest in Le Cercle de Minuit to anyone.”

“You think I’d sign my life away for that?”

“I think you’ll sign it away for her.” Lucien’s eyes glinted. “The way you looked at Marguerite when she told you about Lily—I’ve seen that look before. Guilt. You think you could have saved her if you’d acted sooner. You think you owe her something. And Lily Dubois, as I understand it, was your friend before she was ever my singer.”

Evie thought of Lily’s laugh, bright and careless as thrown confetti. Lily who had shown her the cheap cafés where the real music lived. Lily who had told her about the man in the alley with too-white teeth. “You sold her.”

“I connected her with a patron who appreciates rare voices. What she does with that voice in private is her own business.”

“You condemned her.”

“I gave her a future.” Lucien shrugged. “The same future I’m offering you, though mine is more generous than most. Fifty percent of your earnings, and you’ll share Lily’s fate only if you choose it. All I’m asking is a slice of your success in exchange for a chance to save your friend. This is not coercion, Mademoiselle Hart. This is commerce.”

The clock on the mantel ticked. Evie could feel the press of time, the weight of every day Lily had spent in that villa, singing for a man whose name she didn’t know.

“You’ll write it in the document that you will never speak of my search for Lily,” Evie said slowly. “And you’ll tell me everything you know about the patron and the villa.”

“I’ll tell you the location and the name of the man who holds her contract. That is what I know and all you need.”

“And the record company? The contract dispute?”

“Withdrawn.” Lucien smiled. “You’ll be worth more to me as a partner than as a defendant.”

Evie stared at the document. Her future, her voice, her freedom—all distilled into ten years of paper and ink. She thought of her mother’s locket, the inscription inside that had revealed a world of possibility, a birthright of titles and lands. None of that mattered if she couldn’t free Lily. None of it mattered if she couldn’t live with her own reflection.

She picked up the pen.

The ink bled into the paper, her signature curling beneath Lucien’s perfect script like a bruise. When she finished, he took the document, inspected it, nodded.

“Fontainebleau,” he said, folding the paper into his suit jacket. “The villa is called La Clairière—it’s off the main road, down a lane lined with poplars, about a mile past the château. The patron is a man named Étienne Valcourt. He collects voices the way other men collect horses. He will not let Lily go without a fight, but that, Mademoiselle Hart, is your problem, not mine.”

Evie rose. She didn’t thank him. She couldn’t. Her throat was too tight with swallowed rage.

“One more thing,” Lucien said as her hand touched the door. “If you try to break our contract, I will make sure every door in Paris closes to you. And I will make sure the Comte de Saint-Simon learns that his granddaughter is a woman of compromised reputation who cannot keep her word.”

Evie turned. “How do you know about that?”

Lucien’s smile was a crescent of teeth, white and sharp. “I know many things, Mademoiselle Hart,” he said. “I simply choose when to reveal them.”

He held the door open, and Evie stepped through it into the waiting dark.