Page 60 of The Dragon and the Dove

She was breathing so fast she could hardly speak.

‘They’re all villagers, Bastian,’ she said. ‘I recognize a couple from Castellan, where Mama and I used to live. It’s a town in the north-west. Near the border.’

The floor began to tremble.

She scraped her hair back, fighting for control. ‘They were basket weavers, along with their two sons. They’re here too. And the baker. The baker and his wife.’

Sera turned on her heel. ‘They’re all from Castellan?’

‘Puppets,’ said Ransom.

Each one had been dragged here and trussed up by the Silver-tongue. Tonight was nothing more than an elaborate performance.

His magic hissed at him. Fool.

Sera’s eyes widened behind her mask. ‘It’s a trap.’

They had swanned right into it.

Chapter 13 Valerie

Val loved music and music loved her. She looked good in a dress, could balance in the steepest stilettos and swing her hips better than half the night-dancers in the Hollows.

An orphan raised in House Armand, she used to dream of places like this: a grand ballroom where music soared all the way to the ceiling, laughter echoed like wind chimes and satin skirts whispered across polished floors.

Admittedly, she never fantasized about the attempted assassination part. Or the swinging corpses. Or the pyres of burning books. Or the cold clod of dread currently sitting in the pit of her stomach…

Anouk must have been feeling it too because she gripped her hand so tightly her fingerbones clicked. ‘Something’s wrong.’

‘Well, no shit,’ said Val.

The whole damn ball was wrong. The library at the Appoline, one of the most revered landmarks in Valterre, and home to a thousand years of the kingdom’s best and brightest scholars, had been stripped bare. Remade as the prince’s playground, complete with a sea of Urnican elite. All of them trussed up like woodland animals and twirling themselves dizzy.

‘Just keep smiling,’ she added.

They were supposed to be taking turns dancing with each other, but Theo was keeping his distance, orbiting her like a sparkly dressed planet.

Another wrongness squirmed inside Val.

This one was closer.

Personal.

Theo’s nearness was dizzying in a different way. She thought she’d imagined it the other night after he and Paola had staggered home drunk. Had hoped by the time they were alone together again, she wouldn’t feel the same sickening sensation. But the carriage ride had been a struggle. She could barely breathe from the rioting inside her.

Her gut twisted and twisted, her magic hissing at her to pay attention.

To look closer.

To be careful.

Something in Theo was different.

And he was desperately trying to hide it from her.

From all of them.

But right now, someone else was hiding too.