We found neither of those things here.
“It’s like an interior designer masturbated in here,” Vivi said, tapping her fingernails against a vase, “and came on everything.”
“Gross.”
“But true. None of this is Grey. She must’ve paid someone to do it. Either that or a reptilian shape-shifter is wearing her skin.”
“I didn’t know reptilian shape-shifters were renowned for their interior decorating skills.”
“And that’s why you’ll never be part of the Illuminati.”
The master bedroom was something out of a luxury hotel—chic, modern, soulless. The bed was made with neat hospital corners and there were no personal items on display, not so much as a hairbrush or photograph. I opened the walk-in closet. Here, too, it was painstakingly ordered. Rows and rows of unworn heels, bright as beetle backs. I ran my fingers over the clothes. Sequins and braided velvet and silk, all heavy and expensive. Oscar de la Renta, Vivienne Westwood, Elie Saab, Grey Hollow.
Vivi held up a pair of snakeskin pants. “The reptilian shape-shifter theory is starting to check out.”
“It doesn’t look like anyone has been here for weeks,” I said.
“It doesn’t look like anyone has been here ever.”
“I suppose she has a cleaner or something?”
Vivi trailed a finger over a shelf in the closet; there was no dust. “Has to be, right? Grey is not this tidy.”
“What do we do now?” I asked.
Vivi shrugged. “I don’t know if we need to worry. Maybe she never even made it home from Paris.”
I looked back at Grey’s closet. The green tulle gown she’d worn to Cuckoo Club in her Instagram post from five days ago was wedged in there, pressed and lifeless now that it didn’t have her body to animate it. “If she’s in London, I think I know where she might be.”
* * *
It felt like some holy ritual. Something I had waited my whole life for. To sit where she sat, to paint my face with her makeup, to slip my body into her clothes. To become Grey.
We thumbed through her wardrobe and draped ourselves in her vestments. Even Vivi, who was generally unimpressed by fashion unless it was ripped or studded, was breathless and giddy at the prospect of unlimited access to Grey’s wardrobe. We tried on piece after piece. Eventually, I settled on a gold minidress and a green silk coat that drifted over my skin like cobwebs. Vivi chose a cardinal-red power suit with cigarette pants and lipstick to match, her peach fuzz slicked flat to her skull with shimmery gel.
I called Grey again and again during the cab ride to Cuckoo Club, certain that we were overreacting, certain that she would answer my next message and Vivi and I would spend the rest of the week cringing at our silliness, but Grey never answered, never read any of my messages.
We got out of the cab on Regent Street and walked beneath a huge shadowed archway to the backstreet that Cuckoo called home. Fairy lights were cast over the street like a net, and restaurants still hummed with late-night drinkers and diners huddled beneath outdoor heaters. There was no line outside the club. The door was unmarked, unassuming. A couple walking in front of us buzzed, and it opened an inch to seep out neon-purple light and electro house music. They had a hushed conversation with whoever answered and were turned away.
Vivi and I stepped up next. I buzzed. The door was opened by a short blond woman with eyes like a cat. “Sur la liste?” she asked, and then she looked at us closely and her mouth fell open a little. We were the ghosts of Grey; of course she would recognize us. “She’s not here,” she said in English; her accent was so heavy, her tongue sounded swollen.
“Do you know where she is?” Vivi asked.
“I told your friend yesterday—I haven’t seen her.”
“Someone else was looking for her?” I asked. “Who?”
The woman’s expression darkened. “A man. A man who smelled like . . . death and burning.”
My heartbeat shifted into a higher gear. I thought of the woman who’d slipped through my bedroom window when I was a child and cut off a lock of my hair, of the man who’d tried to pull Vivi into his car because he’d read about her on the internet. “Did he say why he was looking for her?” I pressed. “What he wanted?”
The woman shook her head. “I didn’t let him in. He was . . . His eyes. They were black, like ink. I was afraid of him.”
Vivi and I shared a look, and a thought: We need to find her.
“We want to talk to this guy.” I showed the hostess a picture of Grey’s boyfriend. “Tyler Yang. Is he here?”
“Yes, but it’s a private event tonight,” she said hesitantly. “If you’re not on the guest list, I can’t let—”
“I won’t tell if you don’t,” Vivi said, practically purring. She put a finger against the woman’s lips—and that was all it took. The woman closed her eyes at Vivi’s touch, dazed and drunk on the heady smell of my sister’s skin. With her eyes still shut, she opened her mouth and sucked on Vivi’s finger.
I had seen my sisters do this thing before. I had done this thing before too, a couple of times, though the power of it terrified me. The things I could make people do when they were high on me.
When the woman opened her eyes, her pupils were huge and her breath smelled like honey and rotten wood. Vivi stroked her cheek, then leaned in to whisper, “You want to let us in.” The hostess opened the door, giddy, a dumb smile on her face. Her gaze was fixed on Vivi. In the purple light of the vestibule, I saw what she saw: how frighteningly beautiful my sister was, sharper and skinnier than Grey, like a rapier where Grey was a broadsword.
“You shouldn’t do that to people,” I said as we headed down a hall toward the source of the music. A thick bass jumped in my chest.
“Do what?” Vivi asked.
“Whatever the hell that is.”
The club—Grey’s favorite, if her Instagram was to be believed—was lit from all angles by screaming pink neon. For the private event, the ceiling had been laced with a forest of cherry blossoms that dripped down over the dance floor. Oversize buckets of Dom Pérignon with glow-in-the-dark labels gave every table a soft green phosphorescence. The bar was gold and glass and framed by a set of sumptuous purple velvet curtains. Drinks were served in tall, impossibly elegant glasses that looked remarkably similar to the tall, impossibly elegant women who drank from them. The crowd was made up mostly of people in the fashion industry—models, designers, photographers—but I also spotted a famous rapper, an actor couple from an American cult teen TV show, the socialite daughter of an old British rock legend. Many did a double take when they saw us, then leaned together to speak in hushed tones.