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As they barrel in my direction, I scramble inside the carriage. Mobs are like weather: part chemistry and part chance, a concoction of sticky emotions shaken with a furious hand. Anyone who gets in their way once they set their hearts on something may as well be mincemeat.
Poking my head out the window, I see a girl in what’s probably her best gown tackle Cyrus to the ground half a street away. The swarm grabs him by the shirt—well, by the everything. A dozen hands claw for the flower, tearing it to pink shreds.
But the hysteria doesn’t end. There’s a scrabble for the petals, then for the prince’s limbs, all akimbo and no longer in his control. The first of his guards has just descended, but they can’t make any headway as the chaos swells and pulls in gaping onlookers. One girl with a shoe-shaped mark on her forehead tunnels out of the wall of skirts lugging him by the legs.
“Let’s becivilized—” Cyrus gasps above the crowd, pretty cheeks bulging red.
Gods, he’s about to be drawn and quartered.
The bottom half of his shirt’s buttons burst apart and someone clinging on his hem trips backward, taking down an entire stack of people like bowling pins. Cyrus tears free, shirt open, every newly toned muscle in view.
Shrieks escalating, the chase resumes.
I press back into the plush of the carriage bench away from the window, hand over my mouth, stomach aching with laughter. He doesn’t know I saw the whole thing.
The carriage rattles and the door yanks open. “Sorry, I have to—”
Cyrus stares inside. I stare back at him and his half-covered torso, both desperately in need of sanctuary. In that second, I swear I can hear the Fates laughing.
No, the Fates aren’t laughing; it’s just the hysteria behind him. Cyrus snaps out of it and tries to climb in. I’m on my feet in a blink, blocking his way with my whole body.
“Let me in!”
“Absolutelynot!” I nearly yank the door closed onto his fingers, but he wedges it open.
“You’re always right, I’m always wrong, now and forever—”
It’s the panic, not his words, that convinces me. Because the longer we stay here, the more likely I’m going to be trampled in that mob too, and wasn’t I supposed to get him to trust me or something? It’s hard to think as the shrieks hit a frequency that could shatter glass.“Fine.”I step back. “But that won’t always work—”
Cyrus catapults himself inside. He shouts at the driver, “Go, go, go!What are you waiting for?”
The carriage jerks into motion and my head hits the ceiling. The door slams shut and I tumble into Cyrus in a mess of elbows, nearly toppling both of us onto the floor. He catches me around the waist before we do.
“A little warning would be nice!” My vision steadies and I’m dimly aware of the sweat dampening my side and the fact that I’m crushed into his bare chest. “Camilla’s back there—”
“She can take another carriage! Do you see what’s chasing me?” he says, groaning. “It’s the damn glamour. I put on too much.”
I squint at him. His perfect face doesn’t seem any different, but what do I know? Clearly everyone’s seeing something I can’t. “Well, congratulations, Princey, you can’t even control your own admirers!”
Cyrus glares at me and I offer him only a tiny, bitter smile back.
“You can let go now, by the way.”
It takes a second for him to register that I am in his lap and that his arm is pinned around my middle. He was red from running, but his flush deepens into a scarlet just before he drops me on the carriage floor.
It’s a bumpy ride.
Cyrus buttons up what’s left of his shirt. I slump onto the opposite bench, arms crossed. The carriage slows down as it enters the narrow streets of the Arts District. Sledges transporting marble and lumber hold up traffic ahead. I can’t hear his horde of admirers anymore, but if they’re determined, they can’t be far behind, and the royal carriage sticks out like snow in summer. It’s only a matter of time before we get caught.
A few signs outside flash Yuenen characters. Soon, we’ll enter the Moon District, and the pedestrian traffic might bring us to a full stop. I know these streets still. I could probably guide Cyrus through it, out to a place where he can escape back to the palace unseen.
I could also shove him out of the carriage.
I know I need to swallow my pride and learn to play nicely with him. I don’t need Dante and the king and everyone else reminding me that Cyrus will ascend soon. If the prince lives long enough to take the throne, I might have to bite my tongue until it bleeds to get through it.
I had to earn my place in Auveny. My mother was exiled from the Kingdom of Yue, according to the orphanage that took me in. Some whip-scarred concubine who stabbed an official through the throat, then hid on a ship bound for the Sun Continent a thousand miles away. She ended up in the Moon District like most working-class Yuenen overseas, but she didn’t last long; when she withered to sickness, she had nothing to leave me, not even a name. I made up my own after dreaming of a field of flowers in a color I’d never seen in such abundance. Like twilight painted across the earth.
Violets,an herbalist told me when I pointed to a dried batch of the same flowers at her stall. Weedy, stubbornviolets.
