He blinked a few times, then saw my other suitcase and gripped its handle.

I paused for a moment, listening. Maxwell was definitely awake, his snores shattered into little pieces, just like my door. I could hear him twisting on his bed, snuffling with confusion.

Downstairs in my parents’ room, the floor was creaking with footsteps.

“Come on,” I hissed.

We didn’t bother sneaking. The stairs complained, but it felt so good not to be worrying over every squeak of the cranky old steps. We were past my parents’ room, almost at the front door, when Daddy flicked on the lights above us.

“Minerva?” he called softly. “Max?”

I pulled open the front door. The outside smells rushed in: the garbage mountains, the rotting leaves of fall, Zombie’s little friends skittering in the dark.

“Bye, Daddy,” I called up, trying to sound a little sad at leaving. “Don’t worry, please. I’ll call you soon.”

“What are you doing? Who is that?”

Moz looked very embarrassed to be stared at. But it was Daddy in his pajamas who looked silly.

“Tell Max and Mommy goodbye and that I’ll see you all on my birthday, okay?”

“Minerva! You can’t just leave… You’re not well! Where are you—?”

“I said I’d call you!” Daddy never listens. I stomped out the door.

“How are we going to get anywhere?” Moz sputtered, running after me. “Won’t they call the cops? I sent my cab away, and we can’t take the subway! There’s this thing down—”

“It’s okay, Moz. Look, there he is!”

Astor Michaels was half a block away, standing next to his limo, looking surprised to see Mozzy. His driver hovered close to him, scanning the piles of garbage nervously, one hand in his pocket like he was getting ready to shoot some of Zombie’s little friends.

We ran up, and I handed Astor Michaels my suitcase. “Take this; Zombie has his claws in my dress.”

“You’re bringing your cat,” he said flatly, staring at Moz.

“And Mozzy too!” I said.

“Yes, I see that.” Astor Michaels sighed tiredly. “Hello, Moz.”

“What’s going on here?” Moz said, sounding all manly and jealous, which made me giggle.

But then Daddy yelled something, and we all got in the limo, dragging the suitcases in behind us instead of opening the trunk. The driver put the car into gear and whisked us away.

I waved to Daddy out the back window.

“We’re going to our new place, Moz,” I explained. “You should come stay there with me.”

“Um…” Astor Michaels said.

“I can’t go home,” Mozzy said, staring out at midnight Brooklyn rushing past. “I saw this thing down in the subway, and the angels caught me. They almost took me away, like Luz always says.”

“Angels?” I asked. For the first time, I noticed how shaky Moz was. He was pale with shock, twitching and sweating like he’d seen something much worse than my door exploding.

“It’s real, Min,” he said softly. “The struggle’s real.”

I wrapped my arms around him. “Don’t worry, Mozzy. We’ll take you someplace safe.”

“By all means,” Astor Michaels said. “Must keep the talent happy.”

22. CROWDED HOUSE

— PEARL-

The morning after the Morgan’s Army gig, my phone rang—Astor Michaels calling.

“You gave me a hangover,” I answered, still feeling all the glasses of champagne he’d brought me. Mom gave me a stern look across the breakfast table, but I ignored her. Stupid champagne genes.

Astor Michaels laughed at me from the other end. “Well, at least we have something to celebrate. They’re finally ready.”

I squinted in the sunlight streaming into the dining room. “The contracts?”

“In my hand.”

“Your lawyer works on Saturday morning?”

“They were ready yesterday.”

Mom was pretending not to listen, but I tried not to swear too loud. Everyone had been nine kinds of bugging me to get the negotiations over with, like the delay was all my fault. “And you didn’t mention this last night why?”

“I had a very busy evening in front of me.”

“Oh. Your mysterious errand.” He’d left me and Alana Ray at the club before the gig had ended, smiling like he had a dirty secret.

“And after that, things got even busier.” Astor Michaels sighed tiredly. “If you meet me downtown in two hours, I’ll explain everything.”

“Explain whatever you want,” I said. “Just bring the contracts.”

“Contracts?” my mother said the moment I hung up. “Does this mean you’re really going through with all this?”

I looked down at my hands, which were quivering a little—half hangover, half excitement. “Yeah, I really am.”

She looked out the window. “Why we wasted all that money on school, I don’t know, if you were just going to do something like this.”

“Juilliard wasn’t a waste, Mom. Not hardly. But it’s… over.”

She looked at me, trying to muster up a look of disbelief, but she knew I was right. Fewer students showed up for classes every day, and those that were still around were all planning some kind of escape from the city. Ellen Bromowitz had called it exactly right: one week ago, the senior orchestra had been officially put on hold for the rest of the year. The infrastructure was already failing.

“Plus,” I said, “this is my lifelong dream and everything.”

“Lifelong? You’re only seventeen, darling.”

I looked up at her, about to reply with some snark, but her eyes had turned shiny in the sunlight. Suddenly I saw something I’d never even imagined before: my indestructible mother looking fragile, as if she really was worried about the future.

I wondered if her friends were all doing the same as mine—heading to Switzerland, leaving the city behind. What if no one bothered anymore to raise money for museums and dance companies and orchestras? What if all the parties she lived for had no more reason to exist and simply stopped happening, leaving all her diamonds and black cocktail dresses useless?

Mom needed her infrastructure too, I suddenly realized, and she was watching it crumble away.

So all I said was, “Seventeen years is a long time, Mom. I just hope this isn’t too late.”

I called Moz’s house right away to tell him to come along. The two of us had started the band, after all. This was our moment of success.

His mother hadn’t seen him that morning. She wasn’t sure if he’d come home the night before and didn’t sound very happy about it. Maybe sometimes in the past Moz hadn’t made it home on Friday nights, she kept saying, but the way things were these days, he really should know better…

I hung up a little worried, hoping Moz wasn’t going to go all lateral on me. Except for Alana Ray and almost-eighteen Min, all our parents had to countersign the Red Rat contracts. With our first gig only six days away, now was not the time to pick a fight.

I called Zahler’s house next, but there was no answer, and my brain started to spin with every imaginable reason the two of them might have gone missing. The police were investigating a lot of disappearances lately, especially underground; there was talk of shutting the trains down altogether. But Moz and Zahler wouldn’t be stupid enough to go down into the subway, would they?

Not now, when we were this close…

Astor Michaels had given me the address of a huge block of apartments on Thirteenth Street. I got there right on time and found him waiting in the lobby, an alligator-skin briefcase clutched under one arm.

“Shall we go on up?” he said.

“You live here?” I frowned. The lobby carpet was a bit threadbare in spots, and two security guards sat in reclining chairs behind the doorman, eyeing us carefully, shotguns across their laps.

“Heavens, no. Red Rat owns a few apartments here. I thought you might want to see one.”