Page 23 of The Scarlet Ball

I turned to my place, or I started to, and my ankle struck what felt like an iron bar. There was a moment where I might have kept my balance, but my legs were shaking too much, nerves and hunger and exhaustion combined, and I toppled, going to my knee hard enough that the pain screamed up my thigh and down my shin. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the averted face of the girl standing next to me, the one who had tripped me, the bitch fucking tripped me, I was going to climb up her damn dress, I was going to fuck up her face, and then the demon lords stooped over me with a glad, victorious cry.

I was screaming because there were teeth and there were hands, longer and sharper than they should be, and they weren’t after a beating or a rape, they were after a meal, and I flailed at them, determined not to go down without a fight even as I was put on my back, claws like the sharpest, cruelest knives slicing up my skirts, skidding against the bones of my corset, winning no purchase, none yet, but it was only a matter of time before they were through the distraction of silk and steel and got what they really wanted, what they wanted all along—

At first I thought the crash was in my own head, some vital support that had kept me going and kept me laughing all the way from the cold stone rooms in Honfleur finally giving way not with a snap or a crack but a thundering boom. A blazing light flooded the place, putting the poor captive light above to shame, and my ears, hell, every empty place inside me echoed with that sound and was dazzled with that light. I might have been dying, I might have been dead, and I thought I was before the light dimmed enough for me to see again.

Then I realized that the lords had drawn back from me in surprise, and I was alone on the floor as every head snapped up to see what had come.

The latecomer twisted left and right, something dark and fanged and going on perhaps four legs and perhaps two as it pawed the stone floor as if it might tear it right up. There was a moment where it was as hard to look at as the lightning flash had been, and then it resolved somewhat into the shape of a man, or almost like a man, anyway. There was still something uncanny in the set of its shoulders and its hips as if it had only the vaguest idea what joints were for. When it turned its face toward me, I saw the suggestion of eyes and nose, but most important was the gape of a mouth underneath, the long underslung jaw, the rough, sharp teeth. It was less human than Mr. Howard was, without his long years of well-fed manners, and when it snapped those teeth at me, I knew at once that it was starved. It had been starving all its life, and before this moment, it had never suspected there was something that might satiate it.

“Fuck,” I muttered, scrambling up to a sitting position, because I genuinely could not see how swearing was going to make anything worse, and then I realized I was wrong because the new lord charged.

He struck the knot of lords gathered around me with the force of a cannonball, and they in turn gave no ground. They rose against him in unison, a terrible deafening shout going up, and I swallowed a cry as one clawed foot struck my thigh, pushing off what felt like the very bone to join the fight. The entire room shifted, dizzying enough I almost puked, and I forced myself to totter back away. I weighed a thousand pounds, my head swam, and eventually, my seeking hands found someone else’s and I clung as hard as I could.

The hand I found was small and soft with rings on the middle finger and the smallest one, and when I tripped and might have fallen, it held on with grim determination, keeping me on my feet. We were making our way hand in hand through the darkness again, away from whatever war had started behind us. In that suffocating space, all we could do was breathe and walk, so we did.

It might have been hours later when we came to a gradation in the blackness, a little more air, and a little more light, and the hand I’d been holding let go of mine hurriedly, as if its owner was embarrassed to be seen doing anything so silly as helping.

We emerged into the dimness of the de Langes’ gallery, where our guardians had arrived ahead of us. Mrs. Howard met me without a word, coming to stand by my side with her arm around my waist as if I truly was her kin. I straightened when I was tempted to lean against her. I knew better what she was now. I would not embrace a viper simply because I was so lonely and tired.

Around us, there were other reunions, some dignified, some tearful, and as we departed, I saw a few sets of parents waiting still, quiet as statues or staring hopefully into the dark corners as if their girl might be hiding from them.

Mrs. de Lange was at the door with a maid holding a basket by her side. Each departing girl got a perfumed kiss to either cheek and a black velvet box from the basket. I took the box with a kind of numb bemusement, and Mrs. de Lange’s eyes shifted from me to Mrs. Howard. Something passed between them, chagrin from Mrs. de Lange, something too civilized to be victory from Mrs. Howard. Then they kissed as well, murmurs of some charity event or another over the weekend, and we were out of that place, and not a moment too soon—otherwise I might have started screaming.

I only realized that I had lost a shoe when I stepped outside. The storm had died down, nothing more than a soft whistle between the great houses, but it had left a soft layer of frozen slush on the pavement. It soaked into my ripped stocking, numbing cold against my skin, and I balanced on the other to get away from the chill. In that discomfort, I remembered I was alive, and I drew in great lungfuls of air until I heard a sharp whistle. I looked up to see Mr. Howard leaning out of a rented carriage, waving his hat to get our attention. He helped us in and offered me a braided wool rug for my lap as Mrs. Howard looked me over with a discerning eye.

“Well?” she asked.

“Well, I think you and every woman who is a part of this nightmare ought to be burned for some kind of witch or other.”

“They almost did so to Carnegie’s grandmother,” she said with a peculiar sort of mildness. “It remains incredible even to me what money can buy you out of, if only you have enough of it. Tell me what happened precisely. We do not see so clearly where you go during the White Ball.”

I did, letting the words fall out of my mouth like teeth. They hurt coming out, but I told myself I didn’t care, and I let myself float away a little, a treat I thought I deserved. I wasn’t safe with the Howards, not when he kept lifting his head to scent the air as if there was something in the carriage he wanted to eat, and not when she looked at me like a kitchen girl after a plucked chicken carcass. I wrapped the wool rug over my shoulders like a cape and told them all of it from the beginning, from the arrival of the lords to my fall to the thing that had struck the world like a comet. I talked the entire carriage ride back to the house, and I followed the Howards in, one foot in front of the other because that was as far ahead as I could think. When the doors were closed behind us, Mrs. Howard finally nodded.

“You know, of course, that it could have been worse.”

My laugh echoed through that empty place.

“I surely do.”

“Don’t lose your nerve now. When you see this through to the end, there will be a house and an annuity waiting for you. Who knows but it might already be over. It is weeks yet until the Rose Ball. By then—”

“By then you might have dragged that girl back to make a meal for the monsters, yes.”

I gasped when she seized me by the arm. I was only vaguely aware that I had cracked my elbow on the stone floor when I’d fallen. The pain radiated up and down my arm, and she gave me a fierce look.

“Your pity is an insult. Remember, you are doing this for a house. She is doing this for a lifetime of power in the halls of this city.”

I bit down on the retort that she was not doing it all, but whatever expression I was wearing on my borrowed face at that moment must have soothed Mrs. Howard because she turned in a swirl of skirts, stalking up to her own rooms with a crisp nod to her husband. He fell into line, biddable enough, but as he went he gave me a speculative look that made me shudder.

My shudder turned into a yelp when Mielle touched my shoulder. I wheeled around and I would have struck her for all I was so tired, but she caught my fist and turned it away easily. I do believe I might have cried if she was at all kind to me. Being Mielle, she only looked at me with her usual impassivity.

“Come on. You need a wash.” Her face never moved, but if her voice could have wrinkled its nose, she would have.

I followed her up the stairs, and she removed the jewelry first, the enormous gorgeous diamonds that went back into their boxes like living things into coffins. I was lighter without them even as I pined after what they would buy if only I could pawn them. When Mielle drew off the wool rug I had wrapped around myself, however, we both stared.

The dress was in shreds. Half of the pearls had been torn off, most of the tassels had been ripped away. I imagined myself leaving a trail of pearls on the streets not just from the de Langes’ house but from that dark place where I had danced. I imagined something following me back from there, and I pressed my hands over my mouth until I could breathe again.

The damage hadn’t ended with the dress, as destroyed as that was. I had struck the ground harder than I thought. The skin over my knee had split open and bled a red eye through the white fabric, and I knew there’d be no shifting that out with salt or spit. There were long rents in the satin from thighs to the hem, and altogether the effect was one of a dreadfully wounded animal, still walking, holding its guts in without knowing it was already dead.