She nodded her head, in the direction of it.
“Because he’s coming toward you right now,” she said, and as soon as she did, the world seemed to slow down. It took forever for Mina to turn her head and take in the sight of him, walking up the steps toward her. And even longer than that to let everything about him sink in.
Because he wasn’t wearing a black suit, like the rest.
He wore a kind of long coat, as soft and gauzy as a cloud, yet somehow sharp at the same time. The collar of it went high on one side, and came to a point along the line of his jaw, fine enough that she could imagine it slitting his throat if he turned too clumsily.
Though, of course, she knew he never would.
On any ordinary day, he moved like water.
Here he practically floated.
He looked like something out of a fairy tale. All the ones she’d read as a child—the ones that were secondhand and cobbled together, but more true than anyone beyond walls like this knew. Creatures like himdidwear moonlight and dance in shadows. And if they ever held out a hand to you, you were supposed to refuse.
All the good girls in those stories made sure to.
She really didn’t know why she took his, the moment he offered. She only knew that it happened. Her fingers slipped between his, and his closed around hers, and that was that. He ledher into a room like the insides of a snowflake, glittering and glowing. And then he spun her over a floor made entirely of glass.
Incredible looking.
But even more so when she caught a glimpse of what was beyond it, as the room whirled. Not the foundations of the place, or something pretty, or even another floor. No, god, no—it was the Underneath. It was a whole other world, right beneath their feet. Somehow, they had made an enormous window to it, andgod, the things she could see through to. A second sky, like a skein of gray velvet, sewn through with stars like droplets of dew. Beings you barely see, beneath it, upside down on the other side of the glass.
She could see the soles of their feet.
Or at least, what passed for that on them.
Sometimes they didn’t seem to have bodies, in any way she understood. She could only make out a shape because of the clothes they wore—moonlight fine, like his. Glittery, like his.Magpies, some of the books called them. And it seemed there was some truth to that.
But it was a mean sort of truth.
They were so much more than any human words could make them. It was the reason she blurted out, “Oh god, so lovely,” in a far too gushing sort of voice to use, in company like his. But to her surprise, he agreed. “There isn’t a thing in existence that is lovelier,” he said, and she looked up to see his eyes on her face.
Sad, but completely sincere.
Because of course, of course.
“You miss it,” she said, and he hesitated. He held her gaze.
But in the end, he went ahead.
“Honestly, I can barely stand how much I do. It makes a fool of me.”
“There’s nothing foolish about longing for home. If thatwasyour home.”
“Nothing has ever been more so. I belonged where that loveliness was.”
He looked away then. But not before she saw the sudden sheen over his eyes. Tears, quite obviously. Though she tried not to let that knowledge sink in too deep. The last time she’d let herself feel sorry for him, he’d mocked her for it and pinned her to a stone table.
This dance was enough.
The dress was enough, too.
He had been right: Sympathy was a step too far.
“Perhaps if you stopped tormenting people for five seconds, you’d have time to find a way back. I read in something by some witch the other day—the boundaries and rule breaks are never as set as they seem,” she said, far more kindly than he deserved. Because somehow, the words just made him harden.
“Don’t talk like that.”
