“Now, beast!” I shouted.
My voice echoed back at me from every sharp angle, and the outburst startled a rug so entirely that it yanked itself from under my feet and furled away down the hall. I stumbled, barely catching myself on the cold wall to my left. The beast was either unmoved or amused. Either way, it made no appearance.
At last, I snatched up the parchment with the scribbled drawing of stairs. Perhaps this was a hunt. Perhaps it desired to watch its prey run. Perhaps it desired to eat the juicy meal of a heart wildly pumping.
And perhaps I would let it do so, but not before stabbing it in the eye with a cheese knife.
I retrieved just such an implement from the kitchens.
Then I made my way to the staircase.
It had been my first real ball. Not technically speaking, of course. I was seventeen, but since fourteen, I had been old enough to mingle in proper company instead of staying home to tend to my studies and music practice. But this was no merchant’s ball, no simple affair in the home of a neighbor. It was hosted by the lord baron himself to celebrate the official naming of his heir: Stephan Galliford.
Astra fanned herself as we watched the baron with his nephew on the dais. “I’ve never seen a man so handsome,” she whispered, even though she’d said the same of at least five young men of society within the last month.
All men of society seemed to me as stiff planks of wood, wrapped in ribbons to pretend at texture and embroidered with all the same rigid aspirations as every other plank—wealth, prestige, respect. Not Stephan. Stephan had hair the shade of autumn walnuts, with the same waves and ridges. While every other man was a post in a fence, Stephan was the laughing creek that danced around and between them as he pleased. I saw it at a glance.
Had I said as much, my sisters would have accused me of whimsy. It was my greatest crime, announced to me by every woman of town and more loudly by the ones who had been fortunate enough to know my mother, a most levelheaded lady. I had a head of clouds, filled with such things as eclogues and existential philosophy when it should have been filled with the grounding sand of etiquette, embroidery, and egoism.
“Youmusttry to catch his eye,” Callista encouraged Astra, her arm hooked through our eldest sister’s, her smile enough to light the room.
“I don’t know that I would suggest it,” I said, pitching my voice as hushed as theirs. I leaned close. “The baron may have no children of his own, but he is still a married man. The scandal would be supreme, and should you chase her husband, the baroness may hang you with her finest embroidery thread.”
Neither of my sisters smiled. In fact, Astra’s scowl was quite fierce. They ignored me, and once the music began and we all shifted to the edges of the dance floor, they held their huddled, blushing conversation several feet away in order to achieve privacy. Father was engaged in conversation of his own with another merchant, and Rob, ever courteous, had already asked a young lady to dance. My brother would save at least one dance for me before the night ended; he’d promised. Until then, I was on my own, the youngest of the Acton sisters and no interest to anyone.
Or so I thought.
He approached from the other side of the room, and for a moment, I thought he would stop at Astra. She did too, smiling over a perfect curtsy, already halfway through a “My lord.”
He passed without a glance.
Because his eyes were on mine.
I was too shocked to curtsy. He slipped his fingers around mine, bowed low to kiss my hand, and lingered.
“Your name, maiden?” When he looked up, a twist of walnut-curl fell across his forehead.
I could scarcely speak. “Beauty Acton, daughter of R—”
“Beauty,” he breathed. “How fitting.” There was a gleam in his eyes. He straightened up and offered his arm. “Dance with me, Beauty.”
It wasn’t a question, and there was no question of my answer.
As Stephan walked me to the dance floor, I saw Astra’s face, red with fury, and Callista fluttering to calm her, a moth to the flame and just as useful. And I smiled.
Chapter
2
It was not a hunt. Or if it was, it was a disturbing one with an unclear destination.
On the second floor, I found a door with my name carved in scrollwork and framed by roses, as if I had always lived here and the castle had been waiting for me to realize it. I stood staring for a while, then reached up and traced my finger across the delicate wooden rose petals.
At my touch, the door swung open, revealing a large bedroom with a four-poster bed on a dais, surrounded by yellow, gauzy curtains. A large window—complete with a cushioned window seat begging to host a studiously reading occupant—cast panes of golden morning light across the lavish carpets and pale birch wardrobe. The room as a whole was sunny and lifting; it may have been taken straight from my dreams.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered. But no one had an answer for me.
I stepped into the room. The door had no lock, but just as I registered the thought, one appeared—not to lock me in but for me to lock others out. I slid the bolt into place and had a moment of relief before I realized that if the door moved at a thought, the lock would do the same. Nothing enchanted could be trusted. Whether it moved with a mind of its own or the mind of a master, it was all the same.
