The Lumen preview hall was white marble and gold light, and it was full of people who owned things.
Rosamund stood at the back wall with Yvette's wrap folded over her arm, exactly where she had been told to stand.
Yvette: This locket has been in my family for three generations.
Yvette: My grandmother wore it to her engagement dinner.
Rosamund had heard her practice that sentence in the mirror that morning.
Her chest felt hollow where the chain used to sit, but her face gave nothing away.
An old collector in the front row turned the locket over and frowned at the inside of the clasp.
He said there was a mark there, and it was not an Ashgrove mark.
Yvette: There is no mark. You are mistaken.
The collector held the locket up to the light. The silence around him grew teeth.
Yvette: Then the maid did it.
Yvette: She's a liar. She stole it out of my jewelry box and scratched it up.
Yvette pointed across the hall with one perfect hand, and every face turned.
Lyle: She's a stray my mother fed out of pity.
Lyle: Strays get put down.
Lyle's hand closed around her arm above the elbow and squeezed until the bone felt small.
Lyle: Say one more word about my family and I'll put you through that glass case.
Lyle: They'll sweep you up with the rest of the rubbish.
His fingers would leave marks. She knew that already, and she did not pull away.
She looked past him at the locket and let her voice come out level.
Rosamund: That mark is a raven in a ring.
She had looked the raven up in a library book when she was fifteen, and never told a soul.
Rosamund: It's the Ravell mark. It's stamped inside the clasp, under the hinge, where a thief would not think to look.
Serena: You will be silent.
Serena's pearls clicked as she turned. Her voice was soft and pleasant and awful.
Serena: Take her outside before she makes a scene.
Lyle moved before anyone could.
He dragged her two steps behind a marble column and slammed her back into it.
Her head struck the stone. Warmth ran down past her eyebrow.
Lyle: You don't get to say that name. Not ever.
Lyle: If I hear it out of your mouth again, you'll be in a hospital ward by morning, and nobody will ask why.
She believed him. That was the worst part.
Rosamund pressed her sleeve to her brow and looked at the red on the gray cotton.
Her hands were steady. They always were, when it mattered.
Rosamund: Hit me again if you like. The mark is still there.
Across the hall, a man in a charcoal suit had stopped walking.
Thaddeus March had come to the preview to buy a clock.
He stayed for the maid with blood on her face and no fear in her eyes.
Rosamund felt his gaze across the room, cool and steady, like a hand on her shoulder.
She did not know him. Her skin prickled anyway.
Tiernan Ravell stepped around the column. Auburn hair, green eyes, a jaw like cut stone.
He looked at the blood on her sleeve first. Then at the locket in Yvette's hand.
Tiernan: Who owns this locket?
Nobody answered. Yvette's mouth opened and closed.
Tiernan: I'll ask once more. Who owns it?