I looked back at the mirror, but the reflection was gone. And I was lying on the ground, on a sheet, extremely rumpled, partly underneath my equally rumpled bodyguard. The maid’s eyes traveled over the two of us. “Hullo, Javier,” she said. “Miss.” There is a level of blush beyond which human capillaries simply won’t hold any more blood. I lay under my bodyguard and wished for a vasoconstrictor. Javier closed his eyes. “Hello, Eloise.”

