Against every instinct, Lux indeed left it open, slipping after Riselda through the dark corridor until a low-burning fire greeted them, flickering from the grate of the kitchen. It was empty, most of the servants having left come nightfall to spend a few minutes at the festival before crawling into their beds. The remaining few were probably huddled in their allotted quarters too frightened to leave.
A sudden shuffle from the gloom of the opened doorway sent a shiver across Lux’s skin.
“Wonderful. They’ve found it. This way.” Riselda discovered the narrow steps leading upward with ease. When they branched off, she chose the center route. “To the ballroom,” she answered Lux’s unasked question.
The subsequent door didn’t latch, swinging back and forth with the lightest pressure. Riselda swayed through, holding it wide for her to follow. “Ah, here we are. He’s allowed in more than I expected.”
Lux stood beside her within the inconspicuous alcove, regarding the richly dressed bodies currently sobbing and whispering and gesturing in anger. Many were drinking cider and wine beneath the dimmed lamplight, escalating emotions while simultaneously dulling the senses.
Half the ballroom had become filled with them—those from the Light. Lux scanned every face. Shaw wasn’t among them.
The mayor swallowed the remains of his goblet with shaking fingers. The maroon of his jacket hid the drops spilled. He hovered amongst his favorites, pretending all was as it should be. “The Shield will protect us,” he said.
The entirety of the Shield lined the room, several posted before each window and many stationed behind the towering front doors. Lux surveyed the pile of furniture stacked against it. No wonder it hadn’t budged a fraction.
A creak on the steps echoed up from far below. Lux twitched. “Riselda—”
“Good evening, Mayor.” Riselda stepped from the darkness.
The goblet landed with a ringing clatter and rolled away. “Riselda. How did you find me?” The mayor backed behind a wide man who’d gone pale.
“I will always find you.” She cackled and the large man fainted, exposing the mayor in his entirety.
“Stay away from me, witch! You should have never returned; Malgorm has tainted you. I don’t know what you’ve done, but with all these people as my witness, you’ll die for it!” With the spittle having settled, and a snap of his fingers, the Shield moved in.
“Die? We will see who dies tonight.” Scraping escaped the alcove at their backs. “We. Will. See.” A woman with a cone of badly dyed hair shrieked first, though the others followed soon after. “Goodness,” Riselda said. “How did they get in?”
Dirt and rags gave way to smiling faces and bared teeth. The poor of Ghadra, revived and thirsty, stepped into the ballroom after having followed the trail laid out for them. One after another, they lined the length. Riselda looped her arm through Lux’s, pulling her close.
“Those of the Dark, behold your illustrious mayor in all his finery.” Riselda gestured wide. “The entire lot of them have taken from you your right to prosper, leaving you crumbs instead.” She clicked her tongue. “Despicable.”
Lux wasn’t paying attention to Riselda’s anger-stoking speech. Instead, she searched for Shaw’s father amongst the revived. She didn’t find him.
When the gaunt woman Lux recognized as the Dark Market’s purveyor of bat wings swung the fire iron she’d claimed from below stairs, the mayor blubbered. “Don’t do this. What do you want, Riselda? What do youwant?”
“Freedom—”
“You have it!”
“—and revenge.”
The color abandoned his face, his red eyes meeting hers. “I’ve apologized.”
“You apologized to a girl, long ago. Do you recognize her in me? Because I do not.”
The mayor bolted.
And giant windows splintered, glass raining in. Dark and Light alike crouched against the onslaught, screams and cries reverberating against the high walls. Though, it wasn’t until black branches wound through the gaping remains that true madness ensued.
“Riselda! What is this?” Lux staggered back from the snaking darkness slithering across the ceiling.
But Riselda had gone grey. “I don’t know.”
The whisper chilled Lux’s blood until it trickled, slow as ice, in her veins. Never, in all her time of knowing Riselda, had she heard her soundafraid.
“Help!” The large man had woken from his fear-induced slumber only to have been caught up by a twisting branch gripping him about his middle. There wasn’t anything invisible about the trees’ embrace this time as the black limb squeezed harder, setting his eyes to bulging. “Help…me…”
His wheezing breaths were the last anyone heard before he was dragged from the wounded wall.
