I stayed there on the edge of the rock, watching the place they’d vanished, the rain dousing me in cold. When I finally turned, my drenched skirts felt twice as heavy, my bare feet now wooden as I dragged them back to the flagstones under the archway. The guards were where I left them, two statues under the curtain wall.
“I release you,” I said as I passed them, searching for the bench under which I’d stashed my shoes.
A shadow sat on it in the dark.
Not a shadow. Madam Freisa.
Odd. She stood as I approached, but I opened my mouth, filling my lungs with air to sing for the second time that night. I’d sung to her before. Not as often as Selena had, but once or twice when I needed to get myself out of a tight spot in Thaan’s offices. I watched the side of her face, the small wrinkles just beginning to pull at the lobe of her ears. The strict, thin knot that held her hair, streaked with gray, not a strand escaping its pins. The black collar pressed flat across her shoulders.
I waited for her to turn to me, pupils dilated.
But she didn’t. She didn’t move.
Something was wrong. I’d never seen her in the palace gardens before, let alone out in the dark with a royal ball thrumming away so loudly nearby. Rain splattered around her, but she seemed dry.
Shewasdry.
Theia above, she was dry, and I’d just noticed. I’d curved toward her, but my steps faltered as I realized her dress was devoid of any rain under a pouring sky.
She raised her head, and her eyes shone even in the night, icy blue.
I turned to run. And the rest of them emerged from the corners of the night.
34
Selena
Ispied Pheolix before he saw me.
He entered the ballroom from the eastern doors, his steps as smooth and liquid as a dark flame, dressed head to toe in midnight black. His clothes weren’t very different from what he wore every day. His pants sat snug over his hips, his shirt unbuttoned to the crease of his chest, black thread embroidered throughout the fabric, patterned in leaves and twigs. He’d rolled his sleeves, veins shooting up his arms and under his shirt, his collar tall against his neck.
His hood was thrown back over his shoulders, and he’d tied his rusty hair in a half-bun, the strands already working themselves loose. Though the attire was simple compared to most in the ballroom, it might have been passable among the palace guests if not for his mask.
Not even a mask—he’d tied a thick strip of black lace straight across his eyes, knotting it at the back of his head.
He coasted the edges of the grand room, slipping behind one noble, sweeping past another. Gliding along the crowd, the musicians, the dance floor. I thought he was coming for me when he turned to stalk in my direction, but he bypassed me at the last moment, weaving around the drink-laden table to lean against the wall.
His gaze seared into the back of my head.
Annoyance prickled at my edges. My finger circled the rim of my glass, cool and smooth. Sparklingvolarehad left a film over my tongue. Eitherthat or it had numbed my mouth, though the taste of sweet spice lingered after every sip.
I’d begun to feel weightless, I think. Or maybe thevolaresimply took that weighted, sinking feeling from me. I’d stopped falling. I was floating instead, hovering above the gleaming floor, my toes barely brushing the varnished planks with each step.
Across the ballroom, dressed in his signature royal blue, the King stole a small glance at me. I should have spent the last half hour inventing a way to converse with him. Should have been strategizing, scheming, devising. But I hadn’t yet drunk enough to forget the last time I’d been sent to dance with him at a party. The harsh way he’d tugged me into spinning circles of dancers, the bite of his fingertips into my lower back when he pressed me into an alcove, his breath streaming down the side of my neck.
I swallowed my glass in a single gulp.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
I half-turned, throwing Pheolix a glare too unsteady to be convincing. “Excuse me? This is only my second.”
“It’s your ninth.”
Was it? It couldn’t have been. Admittedly, I’d lost count around my fifth, but I was certain I hadn’t had four more since then.
Besides, Pheolix had only just arrived.
I cocked my head in defiance, thrusting my arm horizontally for the servant to refill my glass. Pheolix watched, and though his features lacked in depth or expression, something in his eyes darkened through the black lace. He shoved off the wall with his shoulder, coming to the opposite side of the table, and leaned in over the poured glasses.
