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“You come from a coastal province, don’t you?” he asked with a hushed intensity. “How well can you swim?”

She raised a brow, her expression scathing. “You’re suggesting I swim to safety?”

“No.” Goren reached for a green grape on her plate. He popped it into his mouth, crunched it between his teeth, and watched her eyes flick—for just a second—to the column of his throat as he swallowed. Then he smirked and said, with a hint of dark challenge, “I’m suggesting you drown.”

25

Keil’s bicep twitched under my fingers as we walked arm in arm through the arched door of the gambling den called Draker House.

Wearing shimmering eye masks to represent the soldiers who’d infiltrated Saxon’s guard unit, we’d spent the first part of tonight’s jolly ensnared in multiple court-wide dances, twirling into the arms of a new partner with every flare of music.

Though the masks made it difficult to discern one partner from the next, I’d easily located Keil’s gaze from the farthest corner of the treasure hall. Then began our silent, feverish countdown. We held eye contact through every dance partner, drawing gradually closer to one another, each growing more breathless as the music gained speed.

We were one partner-switch away, our elbows brushing on the dance floor, when Finbar swept me into his arms instead, depriving us of our dance.

A hot frustration still seemed to simmer in us both as we abandoned the twentieth dance and joined the tide of courtiers heading toward Draker House. A sparkling monument among the flat-roofed buildings, the gambling den had only two known openings. The first was a hexagonal window at its rear; the second was this main entrance.

Now the cool night breeze blew in with us, tinkling the strings of coins draped across the ceiling, before it dissipated into the liquor-soaked atmosphere.

I glanced up to see Keil cutting a powerful, streamlined silhouette in a black waistcoat and blazer. He met my eyes through his black-filigree mask, and my pulse stuttered.

His gaze had been heavy with heat from the moment he’d seen me in this outfit—a slinky golden dress that clung to my every curve, making it appear as though I’d been dipped in caramel. But I looked away from that heat now, my own gilded mask adding another layer of warmth to my already-burning cheeks.

Tonight provided our last shot of getting into Holden’s private office and finding the location of the Unbreakable Blade. On top of that, although the security breach had sounded like the work of a smuggler, we couldn’t disregard the possibility that Mara was on the island.

Which meant we needed to remain alert.

“Welcome,” said the woman in the richly decorated foyer, smiling so blandly that I knew she hadn’t recognized us. Beyond her reception desk, the grand, tiered space teemed with courtiers and staff members who were also embracing tonight’s masquerade.

I exhaled in quiet relief. I’d already slipped off the lace glove signifying my engagement to Erik, and among this masked, drunken crowd, we would blend in seamlessly.

But my relief curdled as the woman set two wooden, black-striped vials upon the counter.

“If you would,” she said, smiling. As though she hadn’t just offered us dullroot.

I looked at Keil, alarmed, but he was already brandishing a handful of coins.

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” he said.

The woman shook her head. “I’m afraid everyone must drink at Draker House.”

Because they couldn’t possibly identify every Wielder here, I realized. And specters would give gamblers an advantage.

Keil drew me out of the woman’s earshot. “Perhaps I should go in alone.”

“You’re not doing this without me,” I whispered, newly rattled.

“But this may be our only window of opportunity.” Keil punctuated the word window with a little squeeze of my elbow, and I understood what needed to be done.

So, gritting my teeth, I watched Keil take the dullroot vial and down the liquid. He shuddered, paling under the mask.

I didn’t know how he’d managed it. I couldn’t.

After a parting glance, I clicked out toward the den’s back-alley, my face angled away from the guards surrounding the neighboring building. The night air seeped through my silk as I craned my neck toward the small hexagonal window leading into Draker House. Grateful that I hadn’t worn a mass of tulle, I climbed onto the steel bin below the window.

Then, with a tendril as narrow as I could summon—about the width of my forearm—I eased out the loosely packed bricks as footholds.

The climb was inelegant, making me infinitely glad that nobody was around to witness me stuffing myself arms-first through the window like a worm emerging from soil.