Chapter 9 Public Shame

• I had never been to an event like this.
• The Kane mansion had been bustling since morning—men in suits moving crates, women in black dresses carrying trays of champagne, and Clara tugging me from one fitting to another as seamstresses pinned gowns I hadn’t asked to wear.
• By evening, the house glittered. Gold lights bathed the ballroom in warm light, the air thick with expensive perfume and cigar smoke. Laughter echoed against the walls, but it was sharp and predatory, like the laughter of wolves.