Pallas sat sidesaddle on the kitchen counter, velvet ankle boots resting daintily in the deep porcelain sink. Pressing her nose against the dark kitchen window, she glared at the hulking cyclops creeping steadily toward Eris Gardens, its single working headlight illuminating the carriage house and steep gravel drive.

"No one's supposed to park back there," she said. "Can't they read?"

Maybe they're too tired." Xochi yawned. "I mean, who starts a party at midnight?"

"It's an afterparty." Pallas swirled a perfect cursive P in the steam her breath had made on the window. "Midnight counts as after."

"Midnight counts as bedtime." Xochi downed the rest of her coffee.

"Maybe for you."

Pallas had never had a bedtime herself, not even as a baby. Certainly not now that she was nearly thirteen.

She giggled. "You claim you're not governess material, but listen to you—so prim and disapproving."

Xochi rolled her eyes and reached over Pallas to pull back the lace curtain. Exhaust poured like fog from the old car's tailpipe. "Who drives a hearse?"

Pallas sighed. She had a pretty good idea of who the boxy eyesore belonged to. "Some people get one song on the radio or open for Lady Frieda a few times and suddenly they're above parking on the street like everyone else."

She held her breath as the rusty behemoth lurched past the collection of vintage motorcycles parked behind the kitchen and shuddered to a stop. Four doors opened and five girls emerged. Like a line of paper dolls cut from the same pattern, they were thin and pale, with long white muslin dresses and waist-length blonde hair. They came in single file without knocking and passed through the kitchen without a word. The last one spared a head movement toward Pallas that might have been a nod and followed the others into the hall.