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“Let me guess—a half-Fae?”
Fordham nodded, sticking his hand against the back of the wardrobe until they heard a click. The wood moved inward, revealing a darkened room. He split the dresses in half, stepped over her shoes, and into the room. Kerrigan followed, looking around the space that Fordham had just lit.
It was a madhouse. Papers were everywhere. Wynter had even scrawled illegibly on the walls. A pile of masquerade wear was huddled in a corner, and there was a full bookshelf of old, musty books. Kerrigan lifted one off of the shelf with the title in ancient Fae—Voure hest mas Besremay, Ravinia.
“What does this mean?” Kerrigan asked.
Fordham frowned, scanning the title. “History of the Original Mountain, Ravinia. Where did she get that?” He looked through all of the titles. “Where did she get all of this? A lot of it would have been burned thousands of years ago.”
“I don’t know.” Kerrigan replaced it back on the shelf with the others.
He passed her a stiff card he’d picked up. “Looks like we have our answer.”
Kerrigan scanned the page. “She’s throwing a masquerade?”
“Wynter’s Masq,” he said with a frown. “It’s coded to look like an exclusive party, but it’s something else. It’s something to explain all of this.” He gestured to the walls. “She’s been researching the wall and the mountain and trying to find a way to bring it down.”
“The Masq isn’t for a week.”
He sighed. “Of course it is.”
“Well, do you have a mask?” Kerrigan tucked the envelope into her corset. “Because we’re going to need one.”
11
The Masquerade
“Maybe I should have taken the potion,” Kerrigan said with a shudder.
Fordham shook his head, tugging the hood of her cloak closer around her face. Her red hair was such a dead giveaway that she’d actually taken care to braid it back off her face and tuck it up into a thick bun. The curls still jutted out at odd angles, but there was nothing that could be done for that, short of having Ben and Bay work their magic on her hair. She hadn’t been able to find them this evening even to ask, so, that had been off the table. The real problem was her magic. She’d hated the idea of taking a potion to dampen her magic, but it was sounding like a better idea every step they made deeper in the mountain.
“She’s not going to be able to distinguish your magic from everyone else’s once we’re in the crowd as long as you don’t use it,” Fordham said. “You said that it looked golden and got brighter when you reached for it?” She nodded, adjusting her own black mask that hid her freckles. “Then, don’t reach for it under any circumstances.”
“Okay,” she whispered, following him down the darkened halls. “What if she notices me anyway?”
He shot her a carefully guarded look. “Don’t let her.”
Right. Great.
Kerrigan picked up her pace to match the prince. The meeting wasn’t being held inside Ravinia Mountain, but one of the other smaller peaks, and it was a trek to get there. No wonder they’d had to wait two days for the ball. They didn’t look that far apart, but it was a slog through old cave systems, some as big as the dragons that had once inhabited the mountain and some they had to sidle sideways through. They’d had to backpedal once when Fordham discovered a cave-in that he didn’t remember.
She was breathless by the time they reached the corridor leading to their masquerade. They filtered into the crowd of people. Fordham’s hand reached back for her. Her hand tingled at the first touch as he drew her toward him.
“Don’t want to lose you in the crowd,” he whispered.
She met his gaze through the white mask that covered more than half of his beautiful face. Her cheeks heated, and she was glad that he couldn’t see. “There are so many people.”
He nodded grimly. More than they’d expected. There were at least a hundred people milling about. Each handing over an invitation that matched the one Kerrigan had taken from Wynter’s secret room.
They waited an agonizing fifteen minutes before Fordham gave up their own invitation, and they stepped inside. Kerrigan’s mouth dropped at the sight before her. The space was as large as the ballroom and nearly as full. There had to be more than a thousand people in attendance. No way could Wynter pick her out of all of this.
“Who are they all?”
Fordham also looked around in awe. “I don’t know. All social classes though. Look at the clothes.”
She saw what he meant. Some people were dressed as elegantly as she and Fordham, but the majority wore inexpensive spun cloth and practical shoes. She noticed a table along the wall had rows of cheap black masks, and much of the crowd was wearing them. Because Kerrigan had only seen the court and her attendants, she hadn’t considered that there was an entire city of people of all social classes living in the mountain. Just as trapped as everyone else.
