I gestured over at the folks still chatting and laughing. “You told us to serve the guests. Well, some of the guests came out here, so I followed them.”
He harrumphed, as though my logic annoyed him. “Hurry up and get back inside. The ballet is about to begin.”
I dutifully nodded my agreement, even as I silently cursed the delay.
Another waiter had also stepped out into the hallway, and Jacques made a beeline over to him.
“How many times do I have to tell you?” he snapped. “The sweet-and-sour meatballs are to be skewered—skewered!—so the guests don’t have to pick them up with their fingers. Imbécile!”
The waiter cringed and ducked his head. Well, at least I wasn’t the only one who had incurred the chef’s wrath this evening.
Jacques kept muttering about skewers and imbéciles as he stormed down the hallway and through a door that led into the kitchen.
The second Jacques vanished, I hurried to the opposite end of the hallway and stepped around the corner. I waited a few seconds, but no footsteps scuffed, and no knives came flying in my direction, so I headed deeper into the castle.
Like many historic buildings, Tannenbaum Castle was open for tours during certain times of the year, and I had spent hours scouring social-media footage, as well as official video clips posted on the castle’s website, and comparing that to the structure’s schematics and other information. According to my research, most of the security cameras were in the public areas, like the grand ballroom, to make sure grabby tourists didn’t stuff expensive knickknacks into their pockets and purses, but a few cameras covered the hallways, including this one. Hence my masquerading as a waitress tonight. People were much less likely to think you were up to something shady if you appeared to have a purpose, like delivering drinks.
As I walked along, my gaze roamed over the furnishings, which were even more luxe and impressive in person than they were online. After my grandmother had gotten sick, I had been forced to sell off almost all her possessions, and mine too, in order to pay her massive medical bills. Furniture, dishes, clothes, jewelry. I had pawned, hocked, and sold pretty much everything that wasn’t nailed down in her apartment or absolutely necessary to my own daily existence, right down to the crystal stars Grandma Jane had collected for most of her life. An antiques dealer not unlike Elsa Eisen had given me two thousand dollars for the ornaments, which had paid for my grandmother’s medications, at least for a little while.
After living in Grandma Jane’s empty apartment for the last several months, I found the sheer amount of stuff in the castle a bit overwhelming. Tapestries, paintings, mirrors, tables, chairs, even life-size suits of armor clutching swords, battle-axes, and other weapons. And all of it was decked out with even more stuff in the form of holiday decorations, from the clusters of mistletoe and porcelain gingerbread men hanging on the walls, to the fresh evergreen garland and red balls outlining the archways and windows, to the blue and silver ribbons dangling from the necks of the armored suits like oversize bow ties, as though the medieval knights were heading toward the ballroom to join the other party guests.
My synesthesia flared to life, painting the sharp edges of the knights’ swords in a sinister scarlet sheen, but my magic didn’t stop with the obvious weapons. Practically everything in the castle glowed with a telltale color that hinted of danger.
A strand of white lights drooping out of some garland near the floor twinkled with a pinkish tint since they were at just the right height for someone to trip over. The same thing went for a crooked gingerbread man that was dangerously close to falling off the wall and bonking someone in the head. Even the white marble floor took on a gleaming gray tinge, given how easy it would be to lose my balance and fall on the slick stone.
I gritted my teeth and ignored the colors, but my own soft footsteps rolled out like a sinister drumbeat in a movie, signaling that something bad was about to happen when the heroine least expected it. I wasn’t sure if the odd noise was the result of my synesthesia or the castle’s strange, echoing acoustics, but it was giving me a headache.
“Hello, Gaby.” Desmond’s voice sounded in my ears. “What an unexpected surprise.”
Next came a snort, followed by a familiar voice. “Gaby? Really? Is that the best you can do?”
I frowned. What was Gabriel doing here? The last time I’d texted with him a few days ago, he’d been working on a job back home in D.C.—
“Where do you think you’re going?” a loud voice demanded behind me.
For a moment, I thought Chef Jacques had followed me after all, but the deep voice didn’t have the snarky French accent or the sneer of derision.
I stopped and turned around right in front of the grand staircase that curved down to the first floor. A tuxedo-clad man clutching a walkie-talkie was striding toward me. I gave him a bright smile, even as I silently cursed my bad luck. I should have been paying more attention to my surroundings, not wondering at Gabriel’s sudden appearance.
Way to go, Charlotte. Some superspy you are.
I didn’t know if the guard had spotted me on one of the security cameras or simply happened across me during his regular patrol, but it didn’t really matter. He had seen me, and now I had a decision to make: fight or flight.
I was still clutching the serving tray in my left hand, and I slid my right hand into my pants pocket, pulled out an object that looked like a silver tube of lipstick, and held it down by my side.
Flight wouldn’t get Desmond and me the information we wanted—needed—so fight it was. Then again, things almost always ended in a fight when Section 47 was involved.
The guard stopped in front of me. He was a mountain of a man, several inches over six feet, and his white shirt and black tuxedo jacket strained to cover his bulging biceps. “What are you doing in this part of the castle?”
I tipped my head down at the serving tray. “Ms. Eisen asked me to bring some champagne to her office for a private meeting.”
To my surprise, the guard chuckled at my lie. “Private meeting. Right.” He held the walkie-talkie up to his lips and pressed a button. “Hey, Vlad, I’ve got a straggler in another part of the castle. You want me to bring her back to the ballroom or deal with her here?”
“Ballroom.” A male voice with a faint Russian accent crackled through the walkie-talkie. “The show hasn’t started yet, and we’re still getting everyone into position.”
This was my best—and probably only—chance to get to Elsa’s office, and I wasn’t leaving without completing my mission. So I waited until the guard clipped his walkie-talkie back to his belt, then smiled at him again.
“Do me a favor. Hold this a second.”
Before he could protest, I shoved the serving tray at the guard, who instinctively reached out and grabbed it. Next, I hit a tiny button on the side of the lipstick tube still in my right hand. A needle popped out of the bottom of the silver tube, and I lunged forward and jabbed it into his neck.
The guard yelped in surprise and jerked away, the tube and attached needle sticking out of his skin like it was an electrode on Frankenstein’s monster. He snarled and tossed the tray at me, but I ducked out of the way. The tray hit the wall behind me, pealing like a bell, while the champagne flutes shattered as loudly as grenades exploding.