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My darting eyes land on a fidgety girl at the bottom of the entryway steps who looks young enough to intimidate. I clear my throat and lean toward her. “What are people waiting for?”
“O-oh! Sighted Mistress!” The girl drops into a curtsy. Her dress is plain, though well made, and I don’t recognize her as any daughter of nobility. If the guards are allowing in commoners, there must be an open audience. “The prince is making an announcement about the ball.”
“Thewhat?”
“The ball. Did you see the flyers? They’re all over the city.”
She flashes a piece of paper and I snatch it. It bears the briefest of details:
ALL ARE INVITED TO THE
Masked Menagerie
On the eleventh of Annesol,
doors will open at the palace at 7 o’clock
to reveal a spectacle within.
Young ladies encouraged to attend.
Dress your best and impress. Mask mandatory.
Our prince will be present.
So this is what came out of Cyrus’s talk with his father last night: an emergency ball.
“Thank you.” Trying not to grin too widely, I hand the flyer back to the girl. That’s one problem taken care of, at least.
I still have to get inside the palace, so I jostle my way through. I regret my decision to bring breakfast as I lose one of the buns in my sleeve to the floor and the other is squashed into a custard pancake. Around me, heads swivel and feet shuffle, and people part to make a path when they see who I am.
The audience room is packed closer than mortared bricks and itchingly hot, a sweaty thicket of feathered hats and the pastel ruffles of this season’s fashion. Everyone’s overdressed to impress. Some even brought their fairies, who aren’t taking the heat well, all passed out on hat brims, their golden glows dim.
Fairies used to only bless kind, luckless paupers and were seldom seen outside of the Fairywood borders. Magical creatures are all hoarders of some sort, and these tiny, squeaking creatures are hoarders of the best humans, although phrasing it like that gets you dirty looks. Now fairies follow anyone born with a spoon of ambrosia in their mouth. Ambrosia is preciously distilled from the golden nectar of Fairywood fayflowers and is the only currency fairies take, because it’s the only thing that gets them shit-faced drunk.
When King Emilius saw the demand in glamours, he encouraged Auvenese farmers to learn how to cultivate it, despite the plant’s Fairywood origins. Its trade has sincebecome our biggest industry. You can’t walk through any of the upper districts of the Sun Capital without seeing fairies zipping overhead.
You can have a heart as toxic as a rotting pumpkin, but trade a few drops of ambrosia and a fairy will gladly enchant your hairs to stay put, your laughter to sound like music, and your dress to be so grand that you won’t be able to fit through the ballroom doors. Only the wealthiest can afford to have one on daily retainer; I can tell which attendees have glamoured skin: their makeup isn’t melting off their face.
Who needs kindness? That’s for ugly, poor people.
King Emilius is seated at the edge of the stage, hands resting on his cane, looking healthier than I’ve seen him in weeks. Relief sags my shoulders when he inclines his head and smiles at me; he hasn’t been waiting. I mirror the same motion and nearly knock into someone’s voluminous flared sleeves.
Princess Camilla is at the front of the room as well, surrounded by her handmaidens. She’s impossible to miss; as Cyrus’s twin, she has the same arresting looks, with the added radiance of pale gold–dyed tresses. Taller than her brother by a thimble, she would be called a graceful beauty if not for the muscle she gained through sword-fighting and hunting.
She grins when she sees me escape the throngs. Taking my gloved hand, she crosses my arm with hers, so that we’re close enough to have something of a private conversation. “A bride search for my baby brother. He truly is all grown-up.” She’s half an hour older. “Time goes by so fast.”
I scan the room for the one other friendly face I mightfind. “Dante’s not here?” He should be even easier to spot than Camilla—there are few Balicans in court—but I don’t see his gawky figure nor his mess of black curls.
“Thought he’d arrive with you.”
Ithought he’d be glued to Cyrus’s side. With Cyrus’s return, Dante will go back to being his friend instead of mine; yet another reason the prince should have been devoured by a dragon instead of coming back. Dante is the only person I might tell about what happened last night.
The crowd hushes. My attention turns back to the stage.
Cyrus has stepped up to the dais, dressed in a sleek purple coat with a sunburst print along the lapel. He doesn’t even look like he’s sweating. “Welcome,” he says as he slips a charming smile on like it’s mirror-nature.
All those young ladies gripping flyers surge forward, pressing against the velvet ropes that corral them, and the air in the room sucks in for a collective enamored sigh.
