Page 104 of A Dance of Lies

“I . . .” He lets out a weary sigh. “Seeing you two, it was unexpected. And it just looked like—souls, I don’t know. He looked like he wanted to carry you off. Or devour you.”

Like you look at Esmée,I want to say. But once again, I suppress the anger building inside me. “He is a Crown. He may look at me however he wants.” Another truth. “I’d have thought you’d be relieved.”

It’s my turn to deprive him of words, it seems. He threads a hand through his mussed locks—that all-too-familiar gesture. Paint slathers across his bare chest, though it’s beginning to crack. Just like me.

Our stalemate lasts for several seconds until, finally, he curses. “I didn’t expect any of this, all right? I was an overseer. A soloist. But then you came and changed everything. And when you’re around . . . I don’t know. I become someone else when I’m with you. But trouble seems to follow you wherever you go. You’re like a cyclone. Reckless, dangerous. Dragging me in. And Esmée—” He grimaces, cutting himself off.

“She’s safe, and whole,” I finish for him. I press my hands to my stomach, feeling my nausea swell. It’s everything I can do to keep from vomiting on my feet.

“That’s . . . not true, exactly,” Copelan says, grappling with himself. “I didn’t expect to see her again, and then she came back, and I can’t just . . . I can’t turn off the way I feel. For you, for her . . .”

If you think he’s the only one who can make you feel, you are so very wrong.

All of this . . . it’s so irrevocably foolish. I don’t have to stand here. I don’t have to hear this. And in the grand scheme of things, it matters so, so little.

My conflict isn’t with Copelan. It’s with Illian, and my father. I had forgotten that tonight, in the rush of emotions. They are the ones who took everything from me. My title, my passion. Years ofmy life I’ll never get back. Years that punished my body in ways I can’t undo. My friends. Laurent, Copelan, and whoever I look at next, they will be taken, too.

And Anton . . . I flex my fingers.

I will never have anything for myself, not until I am cut free from Illian’s noose. And after what I witnessed in his room—the girl, the way he had her dressed like me—I am coming to realize something else, too.

Illian will not keep his promise to me. He is not going to let me go.

Not unless I do something about it.

Copelan stares at me, awaiting a response.

I slip around him and push through the trees, disappearing into the night beyond.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The tunnels feel different.

Or maybe it’s me. I find my way through the darkness, de termination threading through my veins. Illian will not grant me my freedom; of this, I am certain. But I now know who might help me cut his strings.

My memory serves me well, and I find the mosaic leading to Anton’s antechamber. I rap against the pane and he opens it on the third knock, shoving a heap of fabric into my hands.

“Put this on,” he mutters. “Quickly.”

I examine the fabric, rolling it out. It’s a long black cloak, finer than the one I wear now. “Your Majesty—”

“You dropped this,” Anton says, bending to hand me a length of red velvet. I take it, frowning as I examine it. It seems to be a dress—but barely. My head snaps up. “Is this a joke?”

“Not at all,” he says. “Be quick about it.”

“You want me to wear this?Where?”

“Did you notice your king was nowhere to be seen tonight?” he asks, and I remember he’s right. “My men tracked him to Philam; I just received reports of his whereabouts.”

I push the fabric back into his hands, flushing. I came to help somehow, butthis. . . “I’m not your doll.”

“Miss Moran, I’m very good at reading people; let’s call it one of my many special talents. You know as well as I do that he will not stop with the girl he festooned in your clothes and bedded like something from a nightmare. So either you do nothing—let him keep you as his souls-damned marionette and be complicit to whatever vile plans he unfolds—or you can help me thwart him and be free of him once and for all.”

Free, once and for all.

Once again, my anger rises to the surface, a beast ready to attack—but not him, because he is right. And hadn’t I already made my decision?

And yet . . . “I am but a lowly dancer. I have no power against him.”