“You ready?” she asks.
I swallow. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
She hands me the mask—white porcelain with spiderlike filigree wrought in black steel. When I press it to my face, everything sharpens. My vision narrows. The tapping of nails, the echo of boots, the breath of fear in the nearest crowd. I swallow the nausea that tries to rise and follow her down.
The staircase into the ballroom is carved obsidian lined with gold veins. Every step echoes like it might carry a curse. The air grows hotter, thicker, with each breath. At the bottom, a massivearched door yawns open, spilling out music that pulses low and heavy, like the heartbeat of something ancient and waiting.
Inside, the ballroom swallows me whole.
It's not light and crystal like human courts—it’s all shadow and fire. The vaulted ceiling is lost in smoke and shimmer. Braziers hang from heavy chains like glowing fruit, their flames green-blue and low, casting the room in hues of decay and desire. Obsidian columns snake up toward the ceiling, wrapped in ivy that drips silver dew and whispers. Carvings of monsters leer from every surface—their mouths open in silent, laughing horror.
The guests float through the dark like predators pretending to be saints. Velvet and scale, silk and bone. Their masks are elaborate and cruel—beasts and gods, things with antlers, tongues, veiled faces and jeweled fangs. Perfume curls through the air—jasmine, sulfur, musk. Underneath it, faint but present, the copper tang of blood.
I move like one of them. Almost. My steps are measured, my mask unreadable, my heartbeat a drum drowned in the noise. A noble glides toward me—tall, serpentine, his mask carved like a viper's maw. He bows low, then offers his hand.
“May I have this dance, my lady?”
His voice is smooth, but the edges are barbed. I place my hand in his, fingers stiff with the memory of other hands that didn’t ask. He spins me into the crowd, where the music devours sense and time.
“You’re dangerously lovely,” he murmurs, his mouth near my ear. “Who owns you?”
I tighten my smile. “No one owns me.”
He laughs softly. “Then they’re fools.”
I let the dance carry me for a few more measures before slipping away, offering a smirk over my shoulder. I disappearinto a throng of silk and smoke. I need to move. Watch. Find Skeela.
She’s near the far edge of the ballroom, positioned by a jagged archway that leads to a collapsed terrace overgrown with ivy and guarded by shadows. Her mask is sleek, her stance soldier-still. I join her without a word. She lifts the crate from beneath her cloak—blackwood and steel-bound, weight humming with dangerous promises.
Our hands touch briefly over it. Hers cold and sure. Mine clammy, trembling. She doesn’t acknowledge it, only nods once. “This changes everything,” she says.
“I know.”
I peel away before anyone can notice us lingering. Another noble intercepts me—a woman this time, mask like a moth's wings dripping pearls. She smells like night-blooming orchids and ambition.
“You’re new,” she purrs.
“Maybe,” I say. “Maybe I’m old and hiding.”
She laughs, dark and rich, then twirls away in a trail of embroidered moons.
The music thickens, dragging bodies closer. I slip past servers offering dark wine and trays of honeyed meat. I don’t trust any of it. The nobles talk in code, in poetry layered with venom, and I have to keep pace, smiling when I want to scream.
Then I see him.
Laertiez.
He stands near a raised dais, flanked by twin guards in silver armor shaped like skeletons. His robes are layered, deep obsidian with the sheen of beetle wings. His mask is simple, but his eyes—dark and unblinking—roam the ballroom like arrows. He is old power dressed as elegance. Slim. Sharp. Unmoving.
I freeze. Just for a breath. If he looks at me, sees me—if he recognizes me?—
But he doesn’t. His gaze cuts past, disinterested. He’s hunting someone else.
I turn, retreating into the crush of bodies. My lungs feel too tight. My heart’s hammering in my throat. Skeela finds me near the wine table, her eyes sharp through her mask.
“It’s done,” she says.
“Then we leave.”
