#1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Charlaine Harris returns with the sixth and final installment in the critically acclaimed Gunnie Rose series as sisters Lizbeth Rose and Felicia must face their fates at the last Wizards’ Ball. Lizbeth Rose’s sister Felicia attends the Grand Wizards’ Ball, and as one of the most powerful—and beautiful—death wizards in a generation, she is highly sought after as one of the belles of the ball. However, war and violence are on the rise in Europe as German and Japanese wizards are also courting Felicia…and some are refusing to take no for an answer. As the façade of genteel wizard society turns deadly, Lizbeth must learn to not only protect her sister, but also navigate the arcane world that is pulling her sister and husband into a dangerous dance with death that could change the world as they know it. #1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Charlaine Harris has crafted a murderous and magical family drama in this sixth and final installment to the beloved and bestselling Gunnie Rose series. Charlaine Harris is a New York Times bestselling author who has been writing for over forty years. She was born and raised in the Mississippi River Delta area. She has written six series, and two stand-alone novels, in addition to numerous short stories, novellas, and graphic novels (cowritten with Christopher Golden). Her Sookie Stackhouse books have appeared in thirty-five different languages and on many bestseller lists. They’re also the basis of the HBO series True Blood. Harris now lives in Texas, and when she is not writing her own books, she reads omnivorously. Her house is full of rescue dogs. Chapter One CHAPTER ONE The first event of the triennial Wizards’ Ball was being held in San Diego’s Balboa Park, in the Japanese Friendship Garden. You can do that in January in San Diego. The late morning sky was clear and blue, the garden was beautiful—especially to someone who’d grown up in Texoma, which never had enough water. This event was what my husband, Eli, called a “look and walk.” Though I was very anxious, I reminded myself that I was in a beautiful place with Eli and my sister, Felicia, both people I loved. My low heels didn’t hurt much, and the outfit my mother-in-law had loaned me fit okay. Those were the good things about today. Everything else made me scowl. I didn’t know this until my husband looked back at me and gave me a huge bright smile, a hint that I did not look pleasant. I made my lips turn up. I felt so strange and wrong: so far from home, in clothes so different from my usual jeans and shirt, my Colt .45 stuffed away in my borrowed handbag. One gun. Backed up by a knife hidden in the inner pocket of my coat and one strapped to my thigh. That one chafed under the dress. Since I was wearing a light red coat and a plaid dress, I’d also had to pull on stockings, garters to hold them up, a bra, a stupid hat, and the heels. And the handbag to have a means to bring one of my guns, illegal in San Diego. I’d rather be fined for carrying an illegal gun than see my sister killed before my eyes. I’d looped the black leather straps of the handbag over my elbow to leave my hands free. The bag banged against my side, weighted with the fully loaded Colt. If you need to draw a gun, time is really important. I’d worked on the bag’s clasp to loosen it. Felicia turned to smile at me. It became easier to smile back. Felicia and I had different mothers, but we’d dropped the “half” some months ago. We were sisters. Felicia looked lovely in the dark green version of my outfit. Unlike me, Felicia was absolutely at ease in her finery, though she’d grown up even poorer than I had. I’d been raised in a small town in Texoma, the poorest of the countries that had formed when the old United States broke apart. It was a plain place, as the name gave away. Texas plus Oklahoma. Felicia had—well, she’d never been “raised,” exactly. She’d lived in the poorest part of Ciudad Juárez, in Mexico, with her father and uncle. Then Eli and I had found her. Now Felicia attended the San Diego school founded in Rasputin’s name. She was the school’s star pupil. The people we were here to be seen by? They were all practitioners of some kind of magic. Today’s outing was the preliminary warm-up to the week of the Wizards’ Ball. Every three years this was held in a different city around the world. People of all magical persuasions were able to party, make deals, swap spells, and contract engagements and marriages. On one of my trips as a gunnie, I’d found a book by Georgette Heyer at a secondhand store, so I’d learned about the London Season. The Wizards’ Ball Week was the supernatural equivalent; it was the marriage market for the magically gifted. Weeks before, all those wanting to be considered for marriage were required to submit their biographies and photographs, which were required to place candidates on the List. Our Listed candidate w