that are holding the permits in perpetual review? They’ll nix them for good. “So everyone will be there. Can we get tickets?”
“It’s been sold out for weeks. Damon and I have been looking forward to it since we heard. And I happen to have a couple of extra seats in my box.” She glances sideways where Sutton sits, watching us now with an unreadable expression. “Only two, but we know the owners of the theater. They’ll let us add another chair to the box.”
“Thank you so much,” I say, clapping. “This will be perfect.”
Christopher sounds droll. “I don’t suppose you’d accept money in exchange for the seats.”
She laughs. “Of course not. You’ll owe us a big favor, because if there’s one thing Damon Scott loves collecting more than information, it’s favors.”
“He has friends,” I tell Avery, on my bed and staring up at the chandelier hanging from the ceiling. I took a cab back to L’Etoile, refusing to let either Sutton or Christopher bring me home.
“He’s probably had friends before.”
“I don’t know.” I remember how he looked bent over his textbook, forlorn and serious and determined. “He may have given his textbooks names and had whole conversations with them.”
“You just never lived in the same city as him,” she says.
“Did you know about this Thieves Club? That’s what they call themselves, Sutton and Christopher and Hugo. And this man whose name is Blue, like the color.”
“Because they steal jewels from the bank?”
“That’s what I asked!” This is why talking to Avery grounds me. She understands me like no one else. Besides she asked for the scoop, which is only fair since she gave me the tip about going to the Den. “Apparently it’s because every dollar they earn is one taken from someone else and money is finite or something.”
“Hmm,” she says. “So he has friends and you met them. Does that mean he’s human now, instead of a big symbolic version of your dad you can hate?”
“Don’t psychoanalyze me,” I say in a singsong voice. “Two can play at that game and you sold your virginity in a public auction, so you’re always going to be weirder.”
That earns me a laugh. “So you’re going to the theater tomorrow.”
“And I still have no idea what I’m going to say to Mrs. Rosemont. Hey, the library is a gorgeous piece of history. Can we have your blessing to burn it down?”
“Burning it seems inefficient. Won’t there just be a wrecking ball or bulldozer or something?”
“In my head it’s going to be burned like the libraries at Alexandria. And then Christopher will fire me. And Sutton will spank me. And my mom probably won’t even do the experimental treatment even if I can get the hospital to let her in after this.”
“There will be other libraries,” she says gently.
I swallow down the acid that threatens to come up, ruining the pretty lace bedspread. “You’re right. The treatment is the most important thing.”
This reminder could not be more important. The treatment is more important than making Christopher Bardot jealous. More important than seeing if Sutton Mayfair can be the man who might actually replace him in my heart. More important than the library and painting and anything else in the world. That’s the kind of focus that gets things done.
It’s the kind of focus that’s kept me alive in the cold years since the will reading. Having some goal set for me, however impossible it seemed. Making a living for Mom while going to college. Finding some peace despite the mockery the media made of us.
The butterfly garden was a natural extension of everything that came before. Useful and elaborate and slightly over the top.
There will be other libraries. “Is this how men feel when they sell their morals?”
“It’s how I felt,” she says, and I know she’s thinking of her time at the Den.
“I’m sorry. I wish you’d have come to me then.” She’s able to laugh about it now, mostly because that’s how she found Gabriel Miller. It was terrible at the time.
“And I wish you would fly to the Emerald right now instead of going there tomorrow. We can eat popcorn and watch Mean Girls and talk about how boys suck. And then you can tell me about Sutton spanking you, which I did not overlook by the way.”
“There was possibly a thing with a dusty old book.”
“Oh my God.”
“And a library counter.”
“So you guys are officially… you know. Doing it.”
“We’ve done some things,” I say, as breezy as if