Chapter 32
thirty-two
She was right behind me, barely two feet away, and God knows how long she had been there while I’d stared at that portrait, but I hadn’t heard a single thing. Not a footstep, not a single sound from her dress decorated with crystals, a dark red that looked like blood.
Her mask was on, too, the same red, the same crystals—and even her eyes seemed red from the reflection of the small lights floating above.
But what caught their reflection the most was the curved tip of the knife in her hand, the one she held tightly in her fist. The one she had aimed toward me.
The whole world could have stopped existing outside of this tunnel. Every muscle in my body locked down tightly, even though the fire in my chest was slowly intensifying, fueled by the fear.
This woman had that knife ready to attack me, it was easy to see. And I was terrified that by the time I reacted, she would have already stabbed me in the heart with that thing .
Too late, a voice in my head whispered, as the fire spread under my skin—and then came the cold. The ice that froze the boiling blood in my veins so suddenly, squeezing what little air was left out of my lungs.
The woman didn’t move.
A second ticked by.
Her wide dark eyes moved from the torn painting of that queen behind me, then locked on mine, unblinking. She was completely frozen, too.
She wasn’t attacking me, even though her knife was still in her fist.
My muscles suddenly unlocked at the thought. My lips moved and I tried to speak, to ask her who she was and why she was standing here with that knife at the ready, but no voice came out of me. The fucking magic in the room took it away.
Then the woman turned back toward the entrance of this part of the gallery where they’d hung the portraits of the cursed royalty. She turned as if she’d heard someone, though nobody was there that I could see.
And when she faced me again, I thought to whisper, “ Who are you?”
My whisper did come out of me, and she heard. The room was so silent, it was impossible to miss it.
But the woman didn’t answer me. She moved so fast I hardly saw it, only felt the cold handle of the knife in my hand that she grabbed and raised, then locked my fingers around it. A second, that’s all she needed.
A second to leave that knife in my hand, turn around, and run back to the Gallery of Time.
Wait! I screamed with all my strength, and no voice left me, and my knees were shaking, my body refusing to obey me as it fought against the heat and the cold that were slowly draining the fucking life out of me.
I reminded myself to breathe. I reminded myself to close my eyes, to move back, lean against the wall, focus on surviving whatever was going on inside me.
It was brutal . It lasted a while, and it was worse because I didn’t understand it. All I knew was that there was something inside me that was fighting against itself, against me, and until I forced it to calm down all the way, I couldn’t even let myself open my eyes.
When I did, the room hadn’t changed. It was just as dark, and the portraits surrounded me, silently hanging on their walls, and the woman with half her portrait torn off was just by my side, its frame touching my shoulder.
A silent scream and I jumped back forward, the knife in my hand raised, even if I was confused as fuck still.
She still looked almost identical to me, the queen, and the blue of her eyes matched my own, like her hair, her forehead, the curve of her chin.
That word replayed in my mind— impossible —yet she was there, and she was looking at me, clutching a handle of something made of silver crystals that could have been a knife just like the one I was holding.
I looked at it, dumbfounded, my hand shaking as I brought it close to see it better.
A thin handle made of milky-colored marble, with a figure of a broken crown engraved on one side, the other empty.
The blade was as thick as my middle finger, just slightly longer and curved at the tip, deadly in the hands of someone who knew what to do with it.
Someone like that woman who could be back in here any second .
I don’t know how I moved, grabbed the mask that had fallen on the floor, dusted off the cobwebs and put it on my face again—to hide it.
To make sure nobody saw that I looked like half that painting.
I briefly considered ruining it completely, just like someone had torn the half of it, but I didn’t dare get close to that face.
I didn’t dare destroy it for fear I’d destroy my own self.
With the knife in hand and my mask on my face, I ran.
Too many masks.
Too many colors and too many whispers, and far too much magic around me.
Not enough air to breathe.
I somehow made it all the way out of the Gallery of Time and into the Whispering Ball again, except now it felt like everyone was watching me, everyone knew exactly who I was underneath the mask, and everyone knew exactly who the woman in the half-torn portrait was, too.
The image of her was in front of my mind’s eye no matter how hard I tried to shove it back.
Fuck, I was sweating, and the knife made me so uncomfortable under the sleeve of my dress where I’d hidden it, and I couldn’t see the exit doors of this place for the life of me.
Then a whisper came in my ear from a man.
“ Ice fae women are cold to look at, but their insides are made of fire—or so I’m told.”
And he moved on.
I didn’t even get to see his mask because he only whispered the words in my ear and moved on.
I’m not a fucking fae! I wanted to scream at him at the top of my lungs, but I already knew that my voice wouldn’t work here, and I also wanted to save energy to run away.
Just run until I found the doors and then got out of here, out of the palace, just go somewhere outside.
And I made it. All the way to the other side of the room, I made it, elbowing my way through the crowd, through the dancers that swung in their partners’ arms with the melody.
I felt eyes on me from everywhere, but I convinced myself that it wasn’t real, that feeling.
My mask was on and nobody knew me, never mind that that woman wearing red had known enough to come after me, to follow me into that room.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, I screamed at myself in my mind. My fucking curiosity was going to be the death of me—quite literally, it seemed—and then I slammed onto a chest that could have been a piece of wall.
Lyall’s wide eyes under his golden mask locked on mine, his hands on my shoulders, his body far too close to mine for my liking.
The words wanted to rip themselves right out of my throat— I was followed, and I saw a ruined portrait, and a woman was going to kill me but then gave me her knife instead and fled!
In that moment, I was glad that this room didn’t allow the sound of anybody’s voice to exist in it.
Then Lyall leaned down and kissed me.
Shocked is a small word.
I was still as a statue, trying to determine whether any of this was even real, whether Lyall, the Prince of the Seelie Court, was really trying to kiss me on the lips—and he was.
I got the feeling it would have been much worse if it wasn’t for the masks we wore that merely allowed his lips to touch mine—but he was kissing me .
The realization hit me like a fist to the face.
I stepped back, breathed, blinked, tried to make sense of this absurd night, but it was impossible. How dare you, were the words on my tongue, along with don’t touch me, don’t kiss me, don’t come near me at all!
Lyall smiled. Closed his eyes. Nodded his head deeply.
I moved farther back, shaking mine, trying but failing to get my shit together—and then there was Rune.
He stood with a glass in his hands very close to the entrance doors, one of which was open, and through it went the floating trays, some full, some empty.
I saw him through the corner of my eye first, but it was enough to recognize him, so I had no doubt it was Rune even before my eyes locked on his.
Before I saw madness in them, the darkness, the rage he felt, even though he could’ve been fifteen feet away.
And he’d seen us, too.
Fire and ice under my skin all over again, and Lyall turned to look at him as well. Lyall, who was still smiling like this was the moment of his fucking life, and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know whether to scream or cry or laugh or run—I didn’t know, so I chose the latter.
A hand on my arm—Lyall trying to stop me as I walked around him and toward the doors. I jerked it off with all my strength and I kept going, now desperate to be alone behind closed doors so I could breathe, and I could think.
Rune was right there, and his eyes were on me, and the closer to him I went the worse he looked—like he was thinking about murdering someone for real. Maybe even setting this whole place on fire, too.
Not gonna lie, I wished he would.
I didn’t stop to even ask him where the hell he had been, and why he hadn’t come to find me. I didn’ t ask him why he’d stayed away from me all night—I didn’t whisper a single word.
I just ran out the door with the skirt of my dress in my fists, and I didn’t stop until I was behind the closed doors of the bedroom on the sixth floor all by myself.