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Seeme.
The real me.
The deadly me.
Sweat slicks my palms as I skirt around the back of the auditorium and exit out a side door. Thankfully, the promise of sanctuary beckons on the other side in the form of the women’s powder room. I charge straight for it, curling my fingers into fists in an attempt to smother my flames. But as soon as the powder room door closes behind me, red fire envelops my hands, burning away my gloves. I stifle a yelp as I frantically beat my hands against my dress, realizing my folly too late. A line of lace ignites at once. My shock manages to calm my anger from a roar to a simmer, allowing me to get control of the fire surging from my palms.
With a far more level head, I race to the sink and douse my hands in water. The effect is immediate, extinguishing my flames and sending steam rising into the air. Now for my skirt…
“Oh my!” A woman emerges from one of the toilet stalls, pulling up short when she sees me. A second follows from the stall beside her. Both stare at me and my burning dress with horror.
“Your skirt,” says the second woman. “It…it’s on fire!”
With my now-wet hands, I beat the line of burning lace. “It’s nothing,” I say in a rush, forcing a smile to my lips. As I continue to try and smother my flames, grinning as if I’m simply dealing with an inconvenient stain, I realize I don’t come across as reassuring at all. I seem positively manic.
The two women exchange a glance, then frown down at my efforts with distaste. One opens her mouth to speak but can’t seem to find her words.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Totally fine.”
That’s all the permission they need to bolt from the powder room with haste. My disquiet cools tenfold now that I no longer have an audience. Even more so when I note my burning lace isn’t spreading to any other part of my dress. In fact, burning isn’t quite the word for what’s happening to the lace.
My brows knit together as I bend forward and take a closer look. The flames are contained to the lace, and they don’t consume it like my red fire did to my gloves. Instead, the blaze is a pale shade of gold that dances over the lace in gentle, flickering waves. The heat the fire generates isn’t searing either. Instead, it’s a soft warmth.
I brush my hand over the lace, and the flames disappear, leaving not a hint of charred fabric to be seen.
“What in the world…” I mutter under my breath, puzzling over such a strange phenomenon. “Why wouldn’t it burn?”
The answer comes to me at once: dragon silk lace.
Foxglove said silk dragons weave their nests from the silk and utilize it to keep their hatchlings warm. He also said their habitat is in the northern forests of the Spring Court. It stands to reason that the dragon silk evolved to withstand high temperatures and keep a flame burning for long periods of time. Not only that, but to do so without catching on the surrounding flora and fauna.
I’m so fascinated, I almost forget where I am. What I ran from.
Then the powder room door swings open, and all my prior emotions return.
Dante pauses in the doorway, eyes sweeping over me and landing on the tattered remnants of my gloves—nothing more than a band of charred silk circling my upper arms. Then his gaze moves to my skirt, and his eyes go wide. He starts forward, my name flying from his lips, pitched with panic.
I glance down at my skirt, noticing a piece of flaming lace I hadn’t extinguished. Before Dante can reach me, I sweep my hand over the golden fire, dusting it away.
Then I turn a glare on him. “What are you doing in here?”
He halts at my sharp tone, his body going tense. One hand opens and closes at his side while the other grips the head of his cane. When he speaks, his voice is controlled. Strained. “You shouldn’t have run, Amelie. We could have salvaged—”
“Don’t you dare tell me what I shouldn’t have done!”
“I promise you, I’m going to fix this.”
“Fix this?” I bark a humorless laugh. “You’veruinedthis. You made a fool of me with that…that actress. Worse, you lied about it. You lied to me, claiming you had some important mission that made you cancel our date. I hate that I believed you. That I was so foolish as to worry—”
I swallow my words before I can admit I was ever concerned over his safety or well-being.
The sound of the door opening again has my pulse hammering. If Dante followed me, a reporter could have too. But no, the woman in the doorway is but a guest. She halts, face paling as she sees Dante standing before me.
Keeping his eyes locked on mine, Dante extends his arm and points his cane at the interloper. “Out.”
The woman scurries out faster than she came.
Once the door closes, he steps closer. “It’s not what you think.”
