When Grey was finished her hair was a luscious red color, with golden red highlights. She fondled the locks for a moment, touching the vibrant color.

“Why red?” she asked.

“It goes with your complexion.” A mirror suddenly appeared before Viève and she was shocked to see herself looking so different. Even her brows had been colored to match. Wraith hair did not take color using human coloring methods. It was gray or white and there was no changing it. She had always wished she could have another color, just to see what it was like for a little while.

But a little while was enough.

“Change it back,” she said firmly.

“But don’t you like it?” Grey asked.

“It’s very pretty. And I appreciate the effort. But I won’t go before her disguised as anything other than what I am. She may look upon that as a deceit on our part and that will not help our cause.”

“Hmm.” Grey seemed to think on it. “Perhaps you are right,” he said. He looked to Kamen. “Your little Wraith is really quite clever.”

“I know she is. But she is not mine.”

Kamen’s words hit Viève like a slap. Of course it was silly. She wasn’t his. He was just speaking the truth. But hearing him deny her just stung for some reason.

“Are you certain of that?” Grey asked him.

“She belongs to herself and no one else, and that is as it should be,” Kamen said.

The distinction helped ease the sting of his words a little, but still she felt hurt. It was ridiculous of course. She’d only known him twenty-four hours, if that. There was no reason for her to believe he would have developed any kind of possessive feelings where she was concerned.

“Oh, but look,” Grey said, touching her chin and turning her face toward Kamen. “You have hurt her with your words.”

“No!” Viève denied quickly. “He hasn’t. He’s right. I am my own.”

“Are you certain?” Grey asked dubiously. “I could have sworn differently.”

“Can we just get back to what we were doing,” she said uncomfortably.

Grey seemed to shake himself to attention. “Yes. Of course.” He filtered his hand back into her hair and she watched in the mirror as it changed back to its original, flat, uninteresting gray.

She sighed as Grey’s hand left her hair. She reached out for Kamen’s hand and took it between both of hers.

“Take us to her,” she said, moving closer to Kamen. She felt as though she needed the comfort of his nearness, even if it was an illusion solely for her own benefit.

Grey nodded and then led the way out of the room. The area outside the door immediately opened up into a huge atrium with soaring windows. They were apparently on the second floor; there was a banister right before them that curved along the balcony and led to a grand, sweeping staircase in the center of the atrium. Grey guided them to the stairs and began to lead them up. With each level the stairs seemed to curve in all kinds of serpentine directions, sometimes moving to the right side of the atrium, sometimes to the left, and sometimes completely around the circumference. By the time they reached the fifth floor, looking down the full distance of the atrium left one feeling a little dizzy.

Grey led them all the way down a wide hall toward a rear window at the end of the long corridor. The house itself seemed huge. They walked for what felt like half a football field’s length. Then, at the last door on the right side, he turned the knob and entered the room. The room was enormous, like the rest of the house seemed to be, and looked like a well-appointed sitting room in the style of Marie Antoinette’s royal rooms in France. Everything was trimmed in gold.

And there, sitting on a chaise lounge reading a book, was a woman of delicate structure, her hair swept high from her face only to fall in a riot of ringlets bouncing down over her shoulders and back. She was as petite as Viève and looked very fragile in her gossamer white gown with its lace bodice and full-length skirt. With her porcelain pale skin, she reminded Kamen very much of Viève.

She looked up when they entered and smiled at Grey.

“Grey, my angel, what have you brought me to relieve my boredom?” she said in a voice with a thick French accent.

“Ma petite, this is Kamen and Geneviève.”

Viève was surprised. She had never told him her name.

“You may call me Viève,” she said to the Empress shyly.

“Do you speak French, Geneviève, to go with your French name?” she asked Viève in that language.

Viève answer in kind. “Yes, I do.”

The Empress clapped her hands together in delight. “It always pleases me when someone speaks my native tongue.”

““Then…you are not offended by my presence?” Viève asked.

“No! Why would I be?”

“Because I am a Wraith.”

The Empress paled. She jumped up and backed away from Viève. “Grey! How could you? How could you bring one of those vile creatures into my presence!” she cried out in French.

“Please, I mean no offense, and I mean you no harm,” Viève said quickly, refusing to hide behind Grey or Kamen. She held out a placating hand. “I am not one of the ones who kept you captive. I would never do something like that.”

“As if you would tell us so! Grey, she is not to be trusted. Leave my sight! Leave my sight at once!” Her voice grew shriller as she spoke.

“We will not go until you have heard us out,” Kamen spoke up firmly. “You can come to no harm with Grey standing right here. After all, that is why you stay here and do not return home, isn’t it? So Grey can protect you? We all know he is the most powerful Djynn in the United States. We wouldn’t stand a chance against him.”

This seemed to give her a moment’s pause, but it was clear to see she was trembling, her hands shaking.

“Do you know what those monsters did to me?” she asked, tears in her voice.

“I only wish I knew why,” Viève said with regret. “It makes no sense that they would capture you and treat you in such a manner.”

“Did they need a reason?” she asked sharply. “They did it for sport. They knew I had to do whatever they asked or risk being put to death with just a touch of their hands.”

“It was cruel of them, but one bad cell does not make all of us the same.”