Roshaan
This time it opens. She stands face-to-face with Avi Galev.
Her stomach turns to water.
You two picked the wrong marks to extort . . . you have no idea what you’ve gotten into.
He steps back and gestures her inside.
In silence, she pushes her cart across the threshold and enters the jewel of the Black Orchid’s suites. The atmosphere in the room is thick enough to slice. The air hums with tension—as though a bomb has gone off, the shock wave still rippling invisibly through the room.
Poppy sits stony faced near the window. Usually so ruddy complexioned, she looks pale and hollow. Lillith sits across from her, stern and tight lipped. Her eye patch casts a sinister shadow across her face. Her hand grips her cane so hard her knuckles have gone white.
Avi slides like a silent shadow behind Roshaan, blocking her exit.
She’s stepped into the lion’s lair—or, given Lillith’s single eye, Cyclops’s cave. There can be no turning back now. This is the endgame.
Her glance flicks to Avi. He gives a barely perceptible nod.
Roshaan lifts her trays from her trolley and sets them on the table between Lillith and Poppy.
“For the soiree,” she says, voice thin. She clears her throat. “Each guest must select one and be wearing it when the show starts. Sorin the Magnificent will attempt to unmask the guests and reveal the secrets they hide behind their chosen Greek personas.”
Lillith silently chooses the golden mask of Circe—the enchantress.
A symbol of feminine power, danger, transformation, and knowledge.
The mask’s slight smile shifts between seduction and mockery.
Copper-sheened lips evoke both blood and wine.
Circe’s eyes are elongated and feline and rimmed with delicate feathered lines.
Roshaan says nothing. She turns to Poppy.
“I won’t be attending,” Poppy says in a strange, flat tone.
Roshaan swallows and glances from Avi to Lillith.
“Yes, you will,” Lillith says.
“No. I—”
“You will be there,” Lillith repeats. Her voice is soft, but iron firm. She smiles—a thin, tight line—and menace ripples through the room.
Poppy meets her employer’s gaze for several tense beats, as though weighing her chances. She casts a hot glance toward Avi before turning to the trays.
No one speaks as Poppy studies the faces staring up at her.
Her hand hovers briefly over the mask of Lachesis—the Fate who determines the span of a mortal’s life—but she chooses the Harpy instead.
A wind spirit. Silver face, sharp cheekbones, windswept lines that sweep from the eyes, and a hollowed, hungry maw of a mouth.
She sets the Harpy mask on the table beside her.
Roshaan stares at it. Harpies are not unlike Furies. They’re also avengers, agents of punishment. Part woman, part bird. Grotesque, grasping creatures, known for snatching souls and befouling everything they touch.
She swallows, meets Poppy’s eyes.
What she sees in them scares her.