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Even lying to her in my head makes me ill. Instead of reacting, she leans abruptly forward to embrace me as though she’s overcome with emotion, burying her face in my hair.
Confusion tugs at my brow until I spot Einar in the crowd. The hulking, extremely-difficult-to-miss Jokithan King who she has gone out of her way to avoid.
She hasn’t used a tonic to change her appearance, so she looks like herself tonight—violet spiral curls just a shade lighter than her eyes, contrasting starkly with her rich brown skin.
Of course, she doesn’t want Einar to recognize her.
And yet…she followed me into this room, risking everything.
“Congratulations, my daughter,” she says, for the benefit of the gathering crowd, tightening her arms around me.
As always, longing and terror overcome me in equal parts, dancing along my spine like the edge of a knife. I’m not sure which is worse…how very afraid I am of her, or how much I still feel like that nine-year-old orphan who is desperate for a home and a mother.
“I must go rest now, darling, but I’m sure you’ll catch me up tomorrow.” She stresses the last word, a clear threat.
A promise.
“The shoes.” My words are barely a whisper, and still, they feel too loud, obtrusive.
But I need to remind her that her most recent gift is adhered to my feet, splitting open my skin with each cautious step I take and destroying any chance I have at claiming that all my actions were my own.
She presses down on me, driving the shards of glass deeper into my heels. My muscles twitch and spasm, the intensity of the pain cutting through the tonic Zaina gave me.
I can only hope my too-long, heavy skirts will sweep up the blood pooling beneath my feet. Or at least that between the black marble floors and the dim lighting, no one will notice.
“You’ll need fresh ashes of hemlock,” Mother mutters, slowly pulling out of our false embrace. “That should be easy enough. I do know how you love to set things on fire.”
Any last unreasonable hope that she didn’t believe I was the vigilante goes up in flames as surely as her favorite crew of slavers did. With that final threat, she effectively vanishes into the crowd, leaving me standing on shaking legs that barely have the strength left to hold me up.
Then Remy is there, catching my arm, and I have a whole new cause to worry.
How much of that interaction did he observe?
“Well, I knew you’d be excited, my love, but you don’t have to faint over me.” He is performing for the crowd as much as Mother was.
He’s doing it well, too, his features giving nothing of the truth away even without his mask to hide behind. At least, without his physical mask. He always wears a mask.
Something we have in common.
I force an answering smile to my lips, remembering that my role is important here, too.
Maybe there is some truth to his jibe. Or maybe it’s the blood I’ve lost or the looming promise of Mother’s wrath that has nearly brought me to my knees.
Either way, I don’t resist the arm he wraps around me to hold me up as he tugs me toward the altar.
After all, marriage could hardly be worse than a hanging.
What Madame has planned for me is another story entirely.
CHAPTERTWO
AIKA
Remy’s hold on me is almost as tight as mine is on him. I can’t imagine his reasons are quite the same, however, since he is in leather shoes and not heels made of broken glass.
Still, I’m grateful for the pressure of his hands, something to center me as my mind spirals with a sea of endless, raging thoughts about how I will answer to Madame for this.
My eyes flit around the surrounding crowd in an effort to distract myself until a familiar, comforting hand briefly grasps my fingers. Raven hair and smooth brown skin peek around the edges of a cat mask I recognize from earlier this evening.
