Chapter Twenty-Four - Leigh
The gown reminds me of a costume from a gothic opera, with bloodred silk that evokes the image of spilled gore. It has a plunging neckline and the corset that cinches my waist so small I should be in organ failure. When I looked in the mirror, I saw Death’s favorite concubine staring back at me.
“Why won’t you speak to me?” I’ve been trying to get Henrietta to talk since she forced me into a bath that felt like snowmelt.
She’d scrubbed my skin until it turned pink before wrestling me into a corset.
Each shallow breath is a battle, but she nodded in approval at my suffering, as if pleased with her antiquated form of female torture.
I can’t determine if she follows Kosac’s rules out of respect or necessity.
She styled my hair with cold fingers that sent shivers down my spine, pinning it in intricate twists while leaving long tendrils to frame my face.
I look beautiful in a haunting way; it’s nothing like the warm, happy glow I’d imagined for my wedding day.
Instead of getting ready to marry the man I love, I’m being dressed up like a sacrifice.
But if playing dress-up gets Kosac to tell me what he wants in exchange for Fynn, I’ll be his doll.
Then I can get back to Wilder, and the first day of the rest of the life we deserve.
I’m willing to negotiate if it means getting what I want.
I still haven’t been able to reach Wilder, and I’m clinging to hope that he’s home with our families and the Blades. That Kosac’s disappearance earlier had nothing to do with him.
“Did Kosac tell you where Fynn is?” I ask Henrietta as she escorts me to the party. If she’s willing to defy Kosac’s orders, maybe she’ll help me. “You can tell me. Maybe I can help you. Are you a prisoner here?”
If she is, I’ll figure out a way to free her.
“Tell me,” I urge with a grip of Henrietta’s shoulder. Her soft features harden into a death mask. “I’m sorry,” I add, releasing her. “I just need to know if Fynn is safe before I go in there. What am I walking into?” Worry makes my hands tremble.
Henrietta scowls. “You shouldn’t have come here.”
Aha, so she can speak, but she’s choosing not to. “I had no choice.”
“Nothing good comes from you being here.” Is that a warning or a threat?
“If saving a little boy is a crime, then lock me up and throw away the key.”
“He will. You should leave while you still can.”
My stomach tightens. “Why do you work in the castle if you don’t like him?”
Henrietta curls inward. “I made—”
“That’s enough, Henrietta.” Kosac’s voice resembles a venomous hiss.
Henrietta cowers as Kosac approaches, seemingly out of nowhere. He has replaced his midnight robes with ones that have faded gold embroidery. The hood still cloaks his face in shadow. Every step he takes makes the air grow colder. I plant my feet to resist the urge to run.
“My realm suits you,” he says.
I don’t smile. I don’t belong here or in this dress.
“Is this party really necessary?” I place a hand on my hip.
Kosac slips his skeletal arm around the flesh of mine, bones clicking as he pulls me along. I stumble in my stupid satin slippers.
Henrietta stays behind.
“I’ve heard stories about you, Leigh,” Kosac says. “No one described you as rude. So why disrespect me when I’ve gone out of my way to be hospitable to you?”
My attention snaps to his. Who told him about me? “Have you been speaking with Aradia? Please, tell me where she is.”
We stop before the ballroom’s massive double doors. Otherworldly music bleeds through the cracks. It sounds like a funeral dirge.
“Here we are. Now, do enjoy yourself. Remember, everyone’s been dying to meet you.” He chuckles at his joke.
“I did what you wanted; I came to your party—now release Fynn.”
“Getting here was the easy part. Now it’s time to have some fun,” Kosac replies.
“Please. I can’t stay here …”
“This is where I leave you.”
“You aren’t going inside?” This party was his idea. If he doesn’t join me, should we agree on a proper time for him to hand over Fynn? Is an hour of mingling enough?
“I will soon.”
“I’m begging you, just bring me Fynn, and I will go home. No one will bother you or your ghosts again.”
Kosac steps back, his form seeming to blur at the edges.
“Kosac!”
He dissolves into shadow, leaving me alone in the hallway. I go to inhale a long breath, but the corset immediately punishes me for it. Kosac is a pain in my royal ass. He begs me to go to this party, then vanishes the moment I arrive. Why?
Whatever the reason, I won’t find answers standing out here.
Inside the ballroom, a masquerade is in full swing.
I sigh. I’m at the wrong party, wrong place, and wrong time.
Hundreds of floating candles cast twisting shadows along the walls, and the crowd pulses with unearthly life.
Couples dressed in elaborate period costumes twirl across the dance floor, their feet hardly touching the floor.
So, this is where all the ghosts in this level of Mictlan hang out?
Do they live here? Do they work here? I wonder if Kosac forced them to attend this party, just as he forced Henrietta to dress me and avoid speaking to me.
The instruments play themselves, as if by cosmic magic—a haunted waltz I recognize from my grandmother’s collection.
“So, it’s true, the mortal queen has indeed honored us with her presence.” A man in a moth-eaten wool suit appears before me, extending a hand that looks too pale, too perfect to be real. “Would you do me the extraordinary honor of a dance, my lady?”
“I—” I have no excuse. Kosac holds the answers in his hands.
Until he arrives, I might as well question the guests.
Henrietta made it seem as though she were a prisoner.
Are all these guests here against their will?
If that’s the case, maybe they’ll tell me where to find Fynn, and in return, I will work on finding a way to free them.
Taking my hand in his cold one, the ghost smiles. His teeth gleam like polished ivory.
The ghost leads as we waltz. Forward, side, close; back, side, close. Growing up, my mother insisted that I take ballroom dance lessons. At least I am not making a fool of myself.
Everyone except me is wearing a mask, and they all stare at me unblinkingly.
Not the delicate lace ones like at Little Death.
These masks cover most of their faces, are white, and have large noses and strong jawlines, as if Kosac wants to hide their identities.
Some wear colorful clown-like masks, while the women wear black velvet ones.
“Can I ask you a question?” I ask the ghost guiding me around the dance floor.
“Your countenance is so very like hers,” the ghost tells me.
“Who?”
“Hecate.”
My great-grandmother’s name was Hecate. “You knew Hecate Graves?”
The ghost grins again. “Hecate was my queen, but she was also my childhood playmate.”
Ah, I see. “And when you got older, did you stay in touch?”
“Indeed. Until she took my closest friend as her husband.”
My brows cinch. “That didn’t make you closer?”
“Not when I had formed such an unfortunate attachment to my dearest companion.”
Oh.
“I never possessed the courage to speak my heart,” the ghost continues. “It remains my most profound regret. Though I was quite certain my affections would not be reciprocated, I departed your earthly realm without ever having confessed the true nature of my sentiments. Too worried I’d upset him.”
Guilt pricks behind my eyes. That’s terrible. “Is that why you are here?”
I instantly regret my words as soon as I speak. Can you ask a ghost about unfinished business, or is that too personal a question?
“I waited until it was too late to pursue what I most desired in my life,” the ghost says before another masked dancer taps his shoulder to cut in.
The person I was dancing with releases me and bows before slinking off into the crowd.
“Your Majesty, dare I say I couldn’t believe it when I heard the news?” my new dance partner says in an eloquent tone. He is much larger in build than my previous partner and wears a crooked grin beneath his checkered mask.
I yelp as he tugs me closer until our bodies almost touch. He whisks me around the room in a spirited polka. We move so fast that the party becomes a blur of reds, blacks, and whites.
“What news?” I finally ask during a brief pause between musical phrases.
“That you would come to us. Please, tell me of home. Is it truly so that we prevailed in the war?”
“Do you mean the First War?”
A nod.
Goodness, this ghost is as old as Aradia; only after years of lingering in my world has Aradia adapted to more modern speech. My heart races along with the beat. “Do you know Aradia? Is she here?”
“As a member of the Council, naturally I was acquainted with her. And no, I regret to say she is not.”
I almost miss a step. Is he talking about the First Council?
All those witches were killed, bombed by the Nebula over a hundred and fifty years ago.
These spirits aren’t just any ghosts; they are the very souls who shaped our history.
Most of them have been here for centuries.
But if that’s true, shouldn’t they have moved to the other levels of Mictlan?
Is there a lottery system I didn’t know about?
“I suspect I know your thoughts,” the ghost says. “If we are ghosts indeed, why are we not mourning in the wilderness or seeking oblivion in the river’s flow?”
“River?” My voice trembles. Does he mean the Acheron? “Is that the portal to the next level of despair? Did you make a deal with Kosac not to go into it?”
“Kosac proves most gracious in his divine nature, should you possess the courage to strike a bargain with him.”
“What sort of bargain?”
The ghost grips my hand tighter. The pressure feels like dry ice on my skin. “Servitude.”
I drop my hands, refusing to move as the rest of the dancers continue to circle us in a whirlwind of masks and silks. Some inch closer, but I keep my focus on my companion.