Chapter 7
Aoife
Class today was brutal. Not academically—no one expects Calculus to save lives here—but physically. Knife training again. Something I’m starting to hate. I blame my family for not giving me some sort of training before sending me here.
My fingers are blistered, my hand is in pain. The blade doesn’t feel like part of me. It feels like an accusation, a reminder of everything I’m supposed to be but never will.
Still not sure why I have to learn to fight, once I'm married I’ll be locked in the big ugly castle anyway, where no one can touch me.
The instructor keeps correcting my grip, keeps shaking his head. It makes me want to scream, or cry or stab something just to prove I can. Maybe just to shut him up. He knows I’m a loose cannon, that this training is wasted on me.
The worst part, Marco and Milo were in the back of the room, lounging like royalty. Matteo wasn’t there.
I didn’t look for him, but I felt his absence, like a threat missing from the room. My body kept bracing for a voice, a look, a smirk. Nothing came, and that felt worse.
My cousin Conor was there too, keeping an eye on me so he could report back to the family if I stepped out of line.
He stood in front of me, blocking Marco and Milo’s stare.
They didn’t look at me the way Matteo did, but they still watched.
Part of me felt safer with them there. The other part was scared, and I didn’t know why.
Now, hours later, Nora and I stand in our room, preparing for the Masquerade Ball. The school has been buzzing with excitement for tonight, me too. Students have been talking about what they will be wearing and there isn’t one person who won’t be attending.
Nora zips up her gown, a deep green that sets off her dark curls. “There’s been a buzz all day,” she says. “Even the professors are dressing up.”
“Of course they are,” I reply. “Nothing screams education like a mask and a hundred secrets.” I laugh as I finish getting myself together.
She grins and nods toward me. “Fuck, Aoife. Vengeance in a fairytale.”
I turn toward the mirror. My gown is deep red, fitted bodice with sheer embroidered sleeves, flaring out into dramatic folds at the hips, with a split which is higher than I would have liked it, but it hugs my body in ways I’m not used to.
I look like someone I don’t recognize. Someone powerful. Someone beautiful.
My mask is ivory and gold, detailed with pearls and soft pink embroidery. Feminine. Dangerous in its softness, because I know I’m not anywhere close to some of the female students and the danger they bring. Hell, I’ve seen some of them fight and there is no way I’m even half of what they are.
I stare at myself a little longer. Maybe tonight, I can be someone else. Maybe I can pretend I’m not the girl with a cursed ring and a bloody surname.
“Come on,” Nora says. “Let’s make them stare.”
The staircase leading down to the ballroom is glowing with candlelight.
Massive chandeliers hang heavy with gold and melted wax.
They hang like cages for angels, casting flickering shadows onto marble floors polished so fine you could see your sins in them.
The walls are covered in blood-red velvet and black mask, draped around gold-framed portraits of ancestors who ruled and killed long before us.
It feels like I’ve stepped into a movie, and they’ve cast the wrong person for the role.
Every gaze pins me as I descend the steps, and for once, I don’t shrink.
Students swirl like phantoms, masked and veiled.
The gowns are midnight blue, emerald flame, blood crimson.
Sequins like shattered glass. Velvet. Silk.
Corsets laced tighter than secrets. The suits are tailored in deep grays and blacks with silver buttons and embroidered sigils of old families.
Everywhere, masks. Some gleam with gold leaf.
Some cover full faces with grins carved into them. Some glitter, others bleed.
The ballroom stretches endlessly in every direction, a palace built beneath a gothic dream.
Blackstone might be brutal beneath its stone belly, but tonight it wears elegance like a dagger in a velvet sheath.
There’s a raised platform at the far end of the room where a live quartet plays something sharp and haunting. Violin strings weep like ghosts, cello bows drawn like knives. The music doesn’t ask you to dance, it commands it, and I love it.
The air smells of wine, wax, and something feral, danger wearing perfume.
It’s a battlefield dressed in beauty.
And I’m walking straight into the middle of it.
We move through the crowd slowly. I smile, just a little. I could enjoy this.
Then I feel it. A hand on my lower back. Warm. Commanding.
A breath at my ear. “You look beautiful, little lamb.”
I spin around, but there’s no one there. He moved so quickly, no one would have seen him near me.
Just a swirl of laughter. Another song starting. Nora calling my name softly.
I turn, and Conor is there, too close, too possessive.
“I’m watching you,” he says.
“Then stop,” I snap.
“You need to remember—”
“I said stop.” My voice is sharper than I expect. “Just for one night, Conor. One night where I don’t have to pretend, I’m nothing but a pawn for my family.”
He frowns at my words, but I don’t wait for a response, I slip away with Nora and move toward the drinks table.
I need a minute.
A breath.
Then I see him.
Matteo.
His mask is black and fierce, carved like dragon wings and crowned with curled horns. His suit is dark silk, the vest is blood red, patterns etched like secrets across the fabric. His posture is lazy, but his eyes burn through the crowd and they land on me.
And in the moment the room tilts.
He doesn’t move.
Neither do I.
But I feel it all.
The pull. The fire.
The ballroom is so alive tonight, not just with music or light, but with something older.
A pull. A rhythm beneath the waltz that hums like blood in a vein.
I feel it through the soles of my heels, in the flutter of my lashes, the catch of my breath.
I don’t know if it’s the wine. The music. Or him.
I walk the edge of the dance floor with Nora, smiling softly at the passing masked faces. I nod to familiar ones, other Irish students, allies I barely know.
Smoke coils from the candles. The quartet has moved into a slower waltz now, something that wraps around your spine and makes your body sway without permission. The chandelier above us scatters flickers of crystal stars across the floor.
I lift a glass of champagne to my lips, but I don’t drink. Not yet, because I see him again, standing at the far side of the room, back to a marble pillar like he owns it. Watching.
Every glance. Every tremble. Every beat of the string section.
I try not to look; I try not to let him see me seeing him. But I fail, fuck I fail so bad.
I laugh at something Nora says, and then I see Conor stand in front of me, with his hand out. “Dance?” he asks, and I look at his hand then to him. “You want to have fun tonight, so let’s dance.”
I place my hand in his and smile as he leads me to the middle of the dance floor. The whole time I feel Matteo’s stare. He knows who Conor is. He knows Conor isn’t the one I’m meant to marry.
I thought maybe dancing would help me not feel Matteo’s eyes on me, but it doesn’t. I glance over to him, something I shouldn't have done, but I can’t stop myself and then, like the ballroom itself breathes for him, he moves.
A slow, old waltz fills the space. Couples are joining now, masks turning toward each other in silent invitation. A sea of shadows and silk, spinning to music older than all the sins which the building holds.
I give Conor a smile and then step back and excuse myself. I step toward the far end of the room, away from everyone, so no one can see me as I try to find air in the darkness I’m hiding in.
And then I feel a pull, I spin and I’m face to face with him.
He doesn’t speak.
Neither do I.
Our masks hide everything but the eyes. And his, his are dark fire.
He doesn’t ask. He just extends his hand. I hesitate, looking around to make sure there are no eyes on us.
I go to place my hand in his, but then I feel the thunder beneath the marble. A warning. We can’t. Not here. Not in front of all of them. Not with our families in every shadow.
We’re enemies.
And a dance would be a declaration.
So, I don’t take his hand. Instead, I step closer. Close enough to feel the heat of him. Close enough for my breath to catch against his mask.
He leans in, a whisper against my ear. “I’ll take what I want. I’ll take what I’m craving.”
And then he’s gone. Swallowed by silk and smoke and strings. My chest heaves, but I stay still. If I move, I’ll follow.