“Who’s that?” Annabelle, still clutching her ragged teddy, pointed at one of the paintings in the study. I glanced up at the portrait of a woman wearing an attractive black hat and the family monocle. A jeweled mechanical spider was perched upon the woman’s delicate looking wrist like a pet. Her visible brown eye peered down at us from beneath thick lashes. They had a look of knowing, as if she were aware of us gawking up at her.

“That would be Madam Volonté.” I answered the child with a grimace, not completely determined to hide my displeasure of the extremely beautiful woman.