Read Chapter 3: The Glove's Secret

The summons came not as a knocking at her door but as a scent—a thread of jasmine threaded through with something acrid, like burnt honey—that seeped through the cracks of Camille's shuttered shop at three in the morning. She had not slept. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the silver light coiling from her fingers over that worktable, felt the perfume bottle shatter in her grip, remembered the look on Inspector Laurent's face as he'd held up her vial—guild symbol gleaming in the lamplight.

The scent grew stronger. And then a note, folded like a lily, appeared beneath her door.

*The Chambre d'Abeilles convenes. You will attend. —M.B.*

Camille's heart hammered against her ribs like a moth against glass. She had never been summoned. She had only heard whispers of the Chambre's gatherings—tales her late mentor, Marguerite, had told her in hushed tones while teaching her to blend rose absolute with a steady hand. *The guild will find you when you are ready, child. Or when you are needed. Pray it is the former.*

She dressed in her darkest wool, pinned her hair tight, and slipped into the fog-shrouded streets. Paris slept around her, breath misting from iron grates, gas lamps haloed in gauzy light.

The address led her to a glove-maker's shop on the Rue Saint-Honoré, its window display a careful arrangement of kid leather and silk. The door was unlocked. Inside, the air smelled of beeswax and orris root—so heavy it pressed against her tongue. She walked past counters stacked with gloves of every color until she found a mirror at the back, its glass clouded with age. Camille hesitated, then touched her palm to its surface.

The glass rippled like water.

She stepped through into a chamber that opened upward into darkness—a vast, domed space ringed with candles, their flames burning the color of amber and smoke. The walls were hung with tapestries. Bees, endlessly repeated, their wings stitched in gold thread.

Women stood in a crescent before her. Twelve of them. Twelve masters of the Chambre d'Abeilles, their faces half-veiled in shadow, their silks and velvets whispering with the faintest movements. None of them looked welcoming.

"Camille Delacroix," said a voice from the center of the crescent. The woman who stepped forward wore a gown the color of dried blood, her grey hair pulled back into a severe knot. Her eyes, pale as winter sky, fixed on Camille with the weight of a falling blade. "Marguerite's pupil. We have watched you since the night your gift hemorrhaged through the wards."

Camille swallowed. "I did not mean to—"

"To light every alarm in the Chambre like a struck bell?" The woman's lips curved, though there was no warmth in it. "No. We know you did not mean to. That is why you stand before us rather than lie bleeding in a gutter."

A murmur passed through the others. Camille's palms slicked with sweat.

"I am Séverine Vaux," the woman continued. "First of the Chambre. And you have placed us—all of us—in grave danger. The inspector who found your vial. The deaths he investigates. The trail that leads from your shop to our door."

"I told him nothing," Camille said quickly. "I don't even know what the dead have to do with me. I never sold that batch. I never—"

"We know what you did not do." Séverine's voice sharpened like the edge of a blade. "It is what you *did* do that concerns us."

She gestured, and one of the other women stepped forward, carrying something wrapped in black velvet. Séverine took it reverently, unfolded the cloth with deliberate slowness.

Inside lay a glove.

It was a woman's glove, fine kid leather the color of ash, its cuff embroidered with tiny pearls. And it was soaked through with blood—dark, dried, cracking at the creases where fingers had bent. Camille's stomach turned.

"Touch it," Séverine said.

"I don't want to—"

"Touch it."

Camille reached out, her fingers trembling as she brushed the stained leather. The moment she made contact, a sensation flooded her—not just the texture of blood-stiffened leather, but a *scent* that bloomed in her mind like a struck match. Vetiver. Smoke. A sharp, copper note of blood beneath. And buried deeper, beneath the chaos—lavender. The perfume of the dead woman.

Her hand snapped back.

"Marguerite," she breathed.

The word fell into the chamber like a stone into still water. The women around her shifted, some drawing sharp breaths. Séverine's expression did not change, but something flickered in those pale eyes—grief banked behind iron.

"Marguerite was found three nights ago," Séverine said. "Strangled by her own threads of power, in her own home. No marks. No struggle. Only this glove, clutched in her hand like evidence."

Camille shook her head. "Marguerite taught me. She was my mentor. I would never—"

"The glove reeks of your signature." Séverine lifted the glove, held it toward Camille like an accusation. "Your working scent—the blend of lavender and vetiver you used in Marguerite's shop for years. The one you mixed for her every winter to ease her rheum. It lingers here, Camille. On the leather. On the threads. As if you touched her—and she fought back."

"I didn't see her. I haven't seen Marguerite in months—not since I opened my own shop. She warned me away. Said the Chambre was dangerous—"

"Yes," Séverine said softly. "She did. And you resented her for it."

"No! I loved her—"

"Love is a perfume that sours fast." Séverine handed the glove to the woman beside her. "The testimony of your own hands is not enough for us. The Chambre does not sentence on emotion. We sentence on evidence."

She turned, walking a slow circle around Camille, her skirts whispering.

"Here is my judgment. You have one week to find the truth of what happened to Marguerite—to prove your innocence or produce her true killer. If you cannot, we will take what was gifted to you. Your magic will be stripped from your blood by the threads of the Chambre, and you will live the rest of your days as you were born—an ordinary woman who once smelled of starlight."

The words hit Camille like a slap of winter air. "And if I find the real killer?"

"Then you will take Marguerite's seat among us." Séverine stopped before her, close enough that Camille could smell her perfume—patchouli and something metallic, like old coin. "And you will help us bury whatever darkness walks among us. Because I will tell you a truth, Camille Delacroix. Marguerite was not the first. She was the third."

Camille's throat tightened. "Three deaths. The inspector—the deaths he is investigating—"

"His deaths are on the other side of the city. Laywomen. Perfume-touched." Séverine's chin lifted. "Ours are within the Chambre. Hidden. Silent. And they all carry the scent of betrayal."

Behind Séverine, the crescent of women shifted, and Camille caught sight of several faces she had seen before—the flower seller on the corner of Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, the modiste who dressed the opera's leading ladies, the librarian at the Palais-Royal who always smiled at her when she passed. These women had been around her for years, woven into the fabric of her daily life like threads in a tapestry she had never thought to examine.

And now one of them might be a killer.

"One week," Séverine repeated. "Begin at Marguerite's house. Her workshop has been sealed—you alone will have the key."

She pressed something into Camille's palm. It was warm—a brass key etched with the same serpent-and-rose emblem as the vial Laurent had shown her.

"A word of advice," Séverine added, her voice dropping low enough that only Camille could hear. "The glove was found in Marguerite's grip, yes. But her other hand was empty." She paused. "Unless you count what was clutched there—a curl of hair. Dark. Fine. Not Marguerite's own."

Camille's hand rose to her own dark locks before she could stop herself. Séverine's smile turned razor-thin.

"Go. And be careful what you smell for."