The doors opened, and Police Chief Adebayo walked in wearing dress uniform, followed by the district attorney, two federal agents, and a line of officers.

Every conversation in the pavilion died at once.

Seraphina smiled again, mistaking the arrival of authority for rescue.

It was the last mistake of her good night, and it was a revealing one.

Seraphina saw a police chief enter a room where she had just accused a woman of theft, and her instinct — automatic, unquestioned — was that the authority had come for her enemy and not for her.

That is how the powerful think.