“I need to go,” he said, looking over her shoulder. Was he looking for someone? He almost looked nervous. Wary.
Of who?
“You’re leaving?” she asked, eyebrows coming together.
“Don’t worry, Hearteater,” he said. “I’ll be back before midnight.” His gaze shifted to the corner of the room where Sunlings had gathered, Oro at their center like a sun they all revolved around. “In the meantime ... perhaps you should dance with the king,” he said.
Oro?Isla frowned. Grim had just run his hands down her body. He had gifted her a necklace. Why would he suggest she dance with someone else? Especially his enemy.
It didn’t make any sense. Before she could ask anything, he was gone.
Isla turned around, back to the party, slightly dazed. She trailed a finger across the chain of her necklace, invisible to everyone else. It felt like another secret.
One she actually enjoyed keeping.
“There you are.” Celeste casually slipped to her side, pretending to study the table of desserts nearby. “Half an hour until midnight. What will it be? Fight or hide?”
The rules required they attend each Lightlark event. But nowhere was it specified they had to stay the entire time. She and Celeste could leave, barricade themselves somewhere safe. Her friend had suggested portaling to Star Isle and staying there awhile.
But their alliance would be compromised. And though their plan had gone to shambles, secrets were still sacred during the Centennial. Letting their friendship be known could endanger them both.
“Fight,” Isla said, surprising herself by the conviction in her voice. At the beginning of the Centennial, she would have saidhidewithout any hesitation. But though she didn’t have power, Isla refused to be a coward. She would face Cleo’s rage head-on.Thatwas how she would survive. Not by hiding.
“Are you—”
Before Celeste could say another word, the floor lurched. And Isla was suddenly careening through the air.
She landed on her side, temple banging against the marble.
Air shattered with high-pitched snaps of metal chains as the fiery chandeliers fell, taking most of the ceiling with them. The floor split into fractures, strikes of lightning across the marble. Cracks of collapsing stone and hissing fire filled the world—everything solid turned out to be delicate, crumbling like cake, breaking as easily as glass.
As the castle collapsed, nothing and no one was safe.
Isla only had time to reach an arm up in front of her eyes as a ring of fire fell, right at her face—but before it broke her skull, Celeste was suddenly there. The Starling raised her own arms, and it stopped midair.
Screams echoed against the stone walls, the metallic scent of both power and blood filling the room. There was a roaring, a ringing, as the world stumbled, then straightened, only to fall again.
The woman to her left, a Skyling in a cornflower-blue dress, was swallowed up by the floor. A Moonling man stood still in shock—he took a step, but it was too late. A chunk of the ceiling crushed him, no water around for him to wield in defense.
She turned to where Celeste had been. But her friend was gone. Isla’s heart pinched. She raced to her feet. Dust clouds bloomed, and she squinted through them, searching desperately for the glimmer of her silver dress, fearing the worst—
But Celeste was nearby, lifting debris off a group of Starlings.
Isla backed toward the wall, her mouth opening and closing, her lungs frozen in her chest, her hands outstretched, but doing nothing.
It wasn’t even midnight yet. What was this?
Azul was at the other side of the room, his arms working in wild strokes, creating a shield of air under which dozens of guests hid. Cleo was healing a group of Moonling nobles who had been badly burned by the fallen flames.
Oro.
She found him on his knees, at the back of the room. His face was twisted with pain, and his fingers had gone through the marble floor.
That was when she realized what was happening.
Lightlark was falling. It was just as the king had described. People dying, structures collapsing. For hundreds of years, the rulers had failed to break the curses. It was finally taking its toll on the island.
But why now? Why at the ball?
