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“I will trust him after I have spoken to him.”
She swept through the ballroom, her head held high, in search of her long-lost brother.
But she was oblivious of the advancing danger.
Assassins crept through the ballroom, their gray cloaks not quite disguising the unmistakable glimmer of chainmail. They had invincible armor next to my ball gown. When an assassin’s cloak rippled, it bared his scimitar and the knives strapped to his belt.
“Why do they want to kill Wendel?” Wolfram sounded more like a boy than a man.
I dragged him through the crowd. “They won’t kill him.”
Unless Wendel fought to the death.
An assassin strode past me, so close that his cloak brushed my arm. Fear gripped my throat, but my gown disguised me. I zigzagged through the crowd to Juliana. When the orchestralaunched into another Strauss melody, I dodged dancers as they began to waltz.
“Juliana!” Wolfram called.
Sneering, the princess glared at us. “Wendel isn’t here. If you’re lying?—”
A fantastic crash deafened us. I whirled in time to see Wendel shove a second crystal decanter off the buffet table. It shattered into a thousand shards. Liquor sprayed onto the ladies and gentlemen nearby.
He had given away his position to the assassins.
“What the hell is he doing?” I muttered.
Juliana teetered on her heels. She stared at him like he had returned from the dead.
To them, he had.
Wendel hefted a candelabra and hurled it over the table. The candelabra wheeled through the air, rolled into the spilled liquor, and torched the alcohol. Fire rushed along the parquet floor. Screams punctuated the music.
The waltz turned into a stampede.
In the churning panic, the assassins held their ground. Ladies fled from flames licking at their skirts. Gentlemen forgot chivalry and elbowed through the crowd toward the exits of the Sofiensaal.
Still holding Wolfram’s hand, I grabbed Juliana’s wrist and hauled her forward.
We struggled against the jostling crush of people, then burst through the doors into the street. Juliana wrenched free and slapped me across the face.
“Don’t you dare touch me,” she snapped.
I clenched my jaw and resisted the urge to hit her back.
“Juliana!” Wolfram shouted. “She was trying to help.”
“Who is she? Why is she here with Wendel?”
“I don’t know.” Wolfram caught her arm. “You can’t go back in there.”
She glared at him, her earrings quivering with barely restrained anger. “But Wendel.”
Smoke billowed from the burning ballroom as people stumbled out. I sprinted toward the chaos, even though every instinct screamed for me to run away.
The flames had spread fast. They crawled along curtains and devoured gilded chairs.
“Wendel?” I shouted.
“Get out of here!”
