Page 191 of The Dark Lord’s Guide to Honeymooning (and Other Acts of Tyranny)

“You’ll stay in the dungeons,” I said flatly. “But I’ll have books brought to you.”

“Acceptable.” They settled back onto their cot.

I turned and left before I could do something we’d all regret. Arabella followed, her silence damning.

We climbed the stairs without speaking, the only sound our footsteps and the distant echo of a few remaining prisoners making their protests known. It wasn’t until we reached the main level that she finally spoke.

“You’re keeping something from me.”

I stopped walking. “Arabella—”

She held up a hand. “I know you have secrets. I know there are things about your past, about your magic, that you haven’t told me. And that’s fine. We all have darkness we’d rather keep hidden.”

“Then what—”

“Just promise me something.” She turned to face me fully, and the vulnerability in her eyes nearly broke my resolve. “When you’re ready—if you’re ever ready—you’ll tell me yourself. Not because you have to, not because someone forces your hand, but because you choose to trust me.”

The Shadow King laughed in my mind, cruel and knowing.

“I promise,” I said, and meant it.

She studied my face for a moment, then nodded. “Good. Now come on. Lord Torok is threatening to duel Lady Marenti’s eight-year-old son, and I need backup.”

I raised an eyebrow. “The heroes are trying to duel children?”

“Apparently, the boy called his ancestor a ‘pompous windbag.’ ”

I followed, muttering, “And I thought we were the villains.”

55 Dance Without Music

(Because Your Villain Is Secretly Sentimental)

Arabella

I slammed another tome onto the growing pile, earning a withering look from Magister Vellum.

“Lady Blackrose.” His voice scraped like parchment being torn. “The books are not your enemies.”

“They’re not being particularly helpful, either.” I glared at the stack of texts on ritual magic, blood ceremonies, and theoretical ley line manipulation. Two days of research, and I was no closer to understanding how to convince seventy-eight people to willingly bleed for us.

Vellum’s enormous spectacles caught the library’s orblight as he turned away. “Perhaps if you specified your exact needs—”

“I need a miracle.” I rubbed my temples, feeling a headache building behind my eyes. “Or at least a compelling argument for why our houseguests should trust us with their blood when half of them are still demanding to know why they woke up in our guest quarters.”

That was Kazimir’s fault. His brilliant plan to enchant half of Valmont into unconsciousness had worked perfectly—right up until they’d woken up separated from their families and extremely pissed off. Janos Torok had tried to challenge three different people to duels in the last hour alone.

“The section on persuasive magics is in aisle seventeen,” Vellum offered, already gliding away between the shelves.

I gathered more relevant texts—carefully, because Vellum was still watching—and made my way toward the lightning bridge. On the other side, the corridors were chaos. Children raced past, chasing one of Nyx’s shed scales that an unnatural wind was blowing around the room. Lady Delacroix’s son had discovered the echo in the west hall and was testing its limits with increasingly creative profanity. And somewhere in the distance, I could hear Griffin explaining to someone why they absolutely could not borrow the explosive devices from his laboratory.

“Lady Blackrose!” A harried-looking woman intercepted me—Lady Clearwater, I thought, though keeping track of everyone was becoming impossible. “My sister is allergic to the sheets in our quarters, and that dragon of yours ate Ferdinand!”

“Ferdinand?”

“Our rooster!”

Right. The demon rooster from Meridian Isle. Oh no… How terrible of Nyx. I’d need to give her an extra treat tonight before bed. “I’ll look into it.”