“You’re only human, right?” I give him a shaky smile, and he answers it with the ghost of a chuckle.
“We should get to bed. But Daisy, I hope this is a lesson for you. Don’t use your abilities, unless you have to protect yourself or someone you love. Our voice power is cheating, and cheating to get ahead never ends well.”
He shuffles down the hall, and I go to the sink to rinse my mug.
He’s right. Cheating doesn’t end well.
If you get caught.
20
The attendance at Gatsby’s party the next night isn’t so much a crowd as a flood. Everyone who is anyone—and a bunch of people who are absolutely no one—have descended on the place, filling up the hallways and the rooms and the garden paths and the pools. Jordan, Nick, McKee, Bek, and I arrive together, tumbling out of the car into a whirl of color. Jay said it was a carnival theme, and there are giant cutouts of animals everywhere, built of wood and lavishly painted. Every so often, glitter spurts from somewhere above—from the lampposts, the eaves of the house, the trees—wherever the staff could hide a confetti cannon. The ground is already speckled with it, the fountain is flecked with it, and it flutters through the air, settling on hair and noses and bare shoulders. The air smells of buttered popcorn, grilled hot dogs, and the sharp, bitter smoke that follows firecrackers. Music trickles from the outdoor speakers—a calliope’s shrill, hollow notes coiling together with organ music and percussion.
Jay and Cody said they would meet us in the private lounge adjoining the second-floor balcony. Since only Nick, Jordan, and I are invited, we make a vague excuse and slip away from Bek and McKee. Nick knows the way to the balcony, so we follow him up a half-hidden set of stairs, through an archway, and past an attendant into a parlor I’ve never seen. It’s dressed in artsy luxury—edgy furniture, dramatic paintings swirled over the walls, sculptures crafted of metal and wood.
One entire side of the parlor is French doors opening onto the broad balcony, and they’re all wide open. Their sheer, wind-tossed curtains remind me of the screened porch at the back of the house, but this room is richer, uplit with lamps that paint the walls in swaths of amber and gold.
Cody is draped on the balustrade, his languid frame half-hidden by the fluttering curtains, smoking a joint against the blue-black sky. Nick goes to him immediately and Cody breathes smoke into his mouth.
On the couches and lounge chairs there are people, all of them wearing bracelets like Jay’s. I recognize the girl Sloane, with the black hair and white skin, the one who assured me the unconscious girls wouldn’t be molested. And there’s the guy who offered me a cocktail and a walk in the hedge maze the other night. He waves nervously at me, with an anxious glance at Jay. I’m guessing he had his eye on me as a blood donor and didn’t realize Jay had a previous claim. Clearly this guy is no longer under my sway, so there’s a distance or time limit to my ability—maybe both.
Jordan sashays over to a young man with brown skin and a crown of thick dark hair sprinkled with blue glitter. He springs from the couch he was lying on and twirls her around. “Feels like I’ve been lying there since 2020, waiting for you,” he complains, and she gives him a playful shove.
“There you are,” says Jay from behind me. Where the hell did he come from? As far as I can see, the balcony and the stairs are the only exits from this room. Maybe there’s a hidden door.
Tonight Jay is wearing eyeliner again, and he’s dressed like a derelict ringmaster, in long ragged coattails and striped pants mottled with patches. He’s even got the hat, though its tattered brim and drooping feathers are more Mad Hatter than P. T. Barnum. His outfit pairs perfectly with the Gothic look I chose for tonight—fringy black lace and puffy sleeves and a ratty multilayered skirt of black lace over holey leggings. Very Helena Bonham Carter.
Jay pulls me forward, and his words magnetize all the eyes in the room, drawing them to me.
“Everyone,” he says. “I’d like you to meet Daisy Finnegan.”
“Is she the one who knew you as a kid, Gatsby?” asks a pink-haired girl. “Daisy, you have to tell us something about his past. He won’t talk about it at all, and it’s so annoying.”
Jay gives her a tight smile. “I’ll tell you everything. I was born up north, and my parents were oil tycoons, but they’re both dead now.”
“Relatives?” asks a mustached man.
“All dead. Gas explosion. Very sad.” Jay edges toward the balcony.
“See, he’s being cagey again. I don’t believe a word of it,” the pink-haired girl pouts.
Jay and I sweep through the curtains into the evening air. Confetti is raining down around us, and two aerialists are climbing up and down the side of the house, hanging from long shiny sashes, whirling and dancing perpendicular to the walls. Dazed, I watch their limbs twist and untwist, always secured by loops and coils of the sashes. They’re perfectly synchronized and heavily painted, with wide smiles fixed on their faces.
“Talented, aren’t they?” Jay tosses his hat onto a lounge chair and leans on the balustrade with a nod to the aerialists. “Since circuses fell out of favor, a lot of these people have trouble finding work. But I’m paying them well.”
“Those people in there, your vampire friends… Why don’t you tell them your real story?” I ask him.
“I don’t owe them the truth.”
“I suppose not.”
“I have to retain a bit of mystery. Helps me keep a grip on all this.”
He’s right, of course. Most charismatic leaders and celebrities maintain an aura of unknowability, of distance, from all but their closest friends. The people in that parlor are already more privileged than the mass of guests swirling below. They know who Gatsby is, and they have his favor. But I get to be the one who knows him best.
“How’s our gluttonous friend?”
“I checked on him this morning and gave him some blood. He’s looking good. Out of your sway, apparently, but he keeps asking for you.”
“You let him sink his fangs into a human, without knowing whether or not he can be trusted?”
“Of course not! I let him drink from me.”
“You can do that?”
“It’s risky, but yes, vampires can drink from each other. I’ll top off later tonight.”
I don’t ask who he’s planning to drink from. Does he expect me to offer? Maybe I should…
“Mr. Gatsby.” It’s Henry, Jay’s house manager. “There’s a young man downstairs, very agitated, yelling about vampires.”
“What the hell?” Jay mutters, and strides back through the parlor and down the stairs so fast I can barely follow him.
Halfway down the steps, Jay cants his head, listening. “You might want to stay upstairs, Daisy.”
“Why?”
“The guy who’s shouting about vampires? It’s your ex.”
