At eleven o’clock, Graff handed Rhea the master keys.
Tonight, though, he didn’t go home straight away.
Instead, he took a folded sheet of paper from inside his jacket and laid it on the desk in front of her.
“The shift schedule for the Sylvester Ball,” he said.
Every member of staff was on it, from the doormen to the kitchen.
Beside the night desk, Graff had written her name, with her hours underneath.
She was to start as soon as the first guests arrived and stay until he relieved her in the morning.
“It is the busiest night of the year, Miss Ellis,” Graff said.
“Four hundred guests, and every one of them will be needing something from this desk by midnight.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I shall be in the ballroom myself all night, so I will call the desk every hour.” He tapped her name with one finger.
“The ballroom is my concern. The desk is yours. Understood?”
Rhea kept her face polite, though the ballroom was exactly where she had been hoping to be on New Year’s Eve.
“And if a guest in the ballroom needs something from me, sir?”
“Then the guest comes to you. You do not go to the guest.” He looked straight at her.
“You are not to set foot in the ballroom, Miss Ellis.”
He said it more firmly than anything he had said to her since her interview.
“Not for a minute,” he added.
“And not for any reason.”
“Yes, Mr. Graff.”
He watched her fold the shift schedule and put it under the logbook.
Then he buttoned his coat and went home.
By the revolving door, Samson had heard every word.
“It’s a long night, the ball,” he said.
“Every one of those guests comes in through my door, so I’ll try to keep the worst of them away from your desk.”
Rhea thanked him.
After Graff’s speech, it was nice to hear something kind.
From where she stood, she could see the doors of the Winter Garden, and beyond them the ballroom, where the staff had been putting up decorations all week.
New Year’s Eve would be twelve years to the night since her mother disappeared, and now she was going to spend it at the same desk where her mother used to work, while the whole hotel celebrated a few doors away.
The irony of it, she thought.
Then again, when she was a girl, she had spent more than one New Year’s Eve behind this desk, listening to the music from the ballroom.
She had known, of course, that the date would come around eventually, though seeing her name written on that schedule still felt strange.
Then there was the comb.
Coco was wearing it to that ball, so it would be only a short walk from the desk all night, yet Rhea wasn’t allowed anywhere near it.
Mimi leaned out of the office behind the desk.
“Is that the schedule for the ball?”
Rhea held it up so she could see.
Mimi found her own name under the night calls and sighed.
“Three years I’ve worked that night,” she said, “and all I’ve ever seen of the gowns is the hems going past the office door.”
“Maybe you’ll see more this year.”
“Only if somebody spills something on one and brings it to the desk.” Mimi leaned against the doorframe.
“Have you ever been to one? A real ball, I mean.”
“No.”
“Me neither. If I ever go, I’m going as a countess.”
“Why a countess?”
“Countesses never have to answer the phone.” Mimi glanced toward the door Graff had left by.
“He’s always like that about the ballroom, by the way. Every year. So don’t take it personally.”
She went back into the office, still sighing about the gowns.
After that, the night was quiet.
Samson held the door for a few late guests, while Rhea worked through the logbook and answered the occasional call.
At seven minutes past three, her phone lit up beside the logbook, and for a fraction of a second she thought it was the GLASSHOUSE button on the desk phone, since that was usually when Matthew called.
But no, Coco had posted something.
For some reason, the GLASSHOUSE button stayed dark tonight, perhaps because he had finally run out of impossible things to ask for, she thought.
The more she thought about it, though, the clearer it became that she had been waiting for his call, which annoyed her.
He only ever called to ask for something entirely ridiculous, so she had no reason at all to miss it.
She turned back to her phone.
Coco had posted a photo of herself at her mirror, with her hair pinned up and the comb tucked into it.
Underneath, she had written: *wearing this amazing sapphire comb to the Voss Sylvester Ball!!*
Rhea enlarged the photo until the comb filled the screen.
It was silver, set with little blue stones, and the light from Coco’s mirror had caught a star in every one of them.
She had only had Coco’s description to go on until then, but now she could see for herself that it was the same comb as the one in the photograph she had in her room.
Coco had no idea she was about to wear the comb back into the very hotel it had been stolen from, twelve years to the night.
Rhea wondered whether Victor Voss would recognize it when he saw it at his own ball.
Below the photo, the comments were already piling up.
Most of Coco’s followers wanted to know where she had bought her dress.
Rupert had already left a row of flame emojis with the words *uncle emeric would be so proud!!* Someone then asked whether she wasn’t afraid the Nightjar would steal it.
*Let them try,* Coco had answered.
*I’m not taking it off all night.*
Okay.
That meant the comb was going to stay in Coco’s hair from the moment she arrived until the ball was over.
If she was to finally get it back, she would have to take it from her in the middle of the ball, with four hundred guests all around.
She also wasn’t the only one who wanted it.
Coco had just told the whole city where the comb would be on New Year’s Eve, and that included, of course, the Gentleman.
He had shown interest in Vidal’s cellar as well, so he must be after the comb too.
If he saw this post, he would definitely be at the ball, Rhea was sure of it.
And she had no intention of letting him get to it first.
She put the phone down and looked at the shift schedule again.
Getting into the ballroom wasn’t the problem.
The Sylvester Ball had always been a masked ball, and with four hundred masks in there, nobody would look twice at one more, as long as she wore a gown like every other guest.
The problem was the desk.
She could hardly ask Graff for the night off, not after how firmly he had made things clear to her.
Calling in sick wasn’t an option either.
Missing the busiest night of the year, only a few weeks after she had started, could easily cost her the job, and she needed it to keep searching the Voss.
Slipping away for a few minutes wouldn’t work either, since he would be calling every hour, not to mention that getting the comb out of Coco’s hair would take a lot longer than that.
Mimi had watched the desk for her on the night of the reindeer, but even if she did it again, Graff would only have to hear Mimi’s voice on the phone to know that Rhea wasn’t there.
For a moment, she pictured Lola sitting at the desk in her uniform, cracking seeds at the guests.
Nope.
She quickly put that idea aside as well.
So Graff expected her at this desk all night, while the comb would be just a few doors away.
Somehow she would have to be in both places at once, and she had no idea yet how to manage that.
With New Year’s Eve a little over two weeks away, she didn’t have much time to figure it out either.
She picked up her phone again and texted Lola.
*I need to be in two places at once on New Year’s Eve.
Help.*
Lola answered within a minute.
*Which two?*
*The night desk and the ball.
It’s about the comb.*
*Babe.
Can you even do that?*
*You’re not helping.*
*Babe, I drive a taxi.
I’m not a magician.
Give me a day.*