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He brings my hand that he’s holding to his waist and releases it so he can brush his fingers over my cheek, tracing the line of my mask. “We’re incredibly lucky you found your way to us, Kindness.”
My pulse flutters all over again. I have the sudden impulse to bob up on my toes and kiss him, which only makes my face flare with embarrassed heat.
He wouldn’t want— It’d only remind him of the woman hereallywanted and lost—
My lips part while my mind scrambles for some dry remark to break the intensity of the moment.
And the chandelier over our heads explodes in a hail of crystal shards.
Twenty
At the first burst of sound, it’s hard to say who reacts first. Casimir and I yank each other toward the floor in tandem.
Chips of crystal pelt our hair and backs. The courtesan sucks in a startled breath, his arms wrapping tighter around me. “What under the—”
His exclamation is lost in the cracking sound of at least a dozen more chandeliers bursting apart. Cries and shouts reverberate through the vast room, mostly in confusion, but a few laced with what sounds like pain.
My nerves jitter beneath my skin with the sense of something unearthly whipping past us. More than one something.
“The daimon,” I murmur. “They’re lashing out again.”
And they’re not finished with us.
I dare to raise my head, just in time to see one of the larger shards that fell to the polished floorboards leap from the ground on a supernatural current. It whips straight at my face.
I jerk down again, swallowing a yelp as its sharp edge slices across my hairline at my temple. The cries around us are taking on a panicked tone.
The daimon aren’t satisfied with just frightening us tonight. They’re aiming to hurt.
“Ivy?” Casimir says, and flicks his hand down his front in a hasty gesture to the divinities. “Keep your head low. We—we should try to find some kind of shelter.”
He sounds so worried aboutme, as if he isn’t in just as much danger as I am. Self-defense lessons for nobles could hardly have prepared him for an assault like this.
A choking sensation rises up from my chest. I can’t let the raging spirit-creatures harm him—not the man who’s been so fucking kind from the moment I stepped into this place.
So kind he even sees kindness in me.
Esmae is out there in the room somewhere too—and Alek and Benedikt, and gods smite me, I’d even care if Stavros was lanced through with a chunk of crystal.
If anyone’s getting to stab him, I’ve got first dibs.
I can’t speak for the rest of the arrogant pricks in this place, but there are at least a few who don’t deserve this punishment. A few who are trying to fix what the daimon are seething about.
A punch of energy smacks against my ribs from the inside, pounding to get free alongside the thud of my pulse. My magic almost escapes me in my next ragged breath.
My entire body tenses against it instinctively. A shudder ripples through my muscles, my jaw aching as I clamp it against the urge.
Oh, gods, setting my power loose would only make things worse.
There are other things I can do. Idohave experience with being under attack in unruly and unpredictable ways.
Even as my eyes water with the strain of suppressing my power, my mind darts through my memory of the room.
Casimir had the right idea when he mentioned shelter. There were tables and chairs set up along the sides of the room, places for nobles who no longer felt like dancing to lounge about and grab refreshments.
Something else in the room crashes. A whimper reaches my ears through the thunder of frantic footsteps.
Soon we’ll be as likely to get trampled as stabbed.
