24. 23
We fell into an easy set of steps, moving simply around the statue. I hadn’t danced in some time, but it was part of my teaching. I found the rhythm easily enough, and we drifted around the floor, my eyes focused on his chin and neck, rather than staring up into his eyes.
This nobleman had unsettled me already, and I was certain it was intentional. It was best to follow his advice from the taverna, and keep my cards much closer to my chest.
“You’re a tremendous dancer, doodle,” he said, as he moved us around the floor. “Who was your teacher?”
I met his eyes, out of discernment more than politeness. He smirked down at me, and I wasn’t sure if his question was knowing, or simply inquisitive. He was trying to discover my identity, my reason for being here, but he had not told me anything of his. “You wouldn’t know them.”
He glanced down at our feet, and then back to my face with a spreading grin. “A good dance teacher in Dytho? I am certain I know most of them.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You must know a lot of people.”
His eyes glinted, and a flash of heat came through. “Oh, I do.”
If he could prod into my life, it only served that I should prod back. Davian would certainly want to know who I had been speaking with, and if he didn’t go by Vasile here, I had nothing to go off. “You’re a nobleman, then?”
“By most standards, yes. But by blood, which is the only standard respected in this room, no.” He shook his head as he quickened the pace of our steps. “We are both outsiders.”
I kept up without struggle. “What makes you so sure?”
“You fit in well enough, of course. You look the part, your posture is fantastic. But you clung to the walls when you stepped in, and you stared at the decor.”
“Is that not done?”
He inclined his head towards me, as if spilling a secret. “Most people seem blind to the virtues of a pretty room. And most people come to a party to bribe a favour from someone,” he suggested. “Whereas you seem very keen to leave.”
I tried not to move back from him and suppressed the shiver running up my back. “Who are you here to bribe?”
He laughed. “Good question. Your dance teacher.” As the music hit its climax, he raised our joined hands and twisted, and I followed the steps, spinning out with my hand still in his. “Who was that again?”
I did not reply, spinning back into him and completing the move. The song was surely nearly over. Not much longer, and then I could claim a desire for air, or leave to find somewhere to powder my nose.
“How about another question?” Vasile asked, before dropping his voice to a whisper. “The Flight of Fancy. Who were you there for?”
I swallowed. “A friend, but they didn’t show up.”
I didn’t have to meet his gaze to know he didn’t believe me. It was written in his dry tone. “What a shame.”
The music finally came to an end, and Vasile released his hold on my waist. He did not, however, release his grip on my hand. I bowed my head to him and dipped into a curtsy. The customary exit from our dance. He lowered his head in response, but still, did not let go of my hand.
My heart pounded.
Vasile pursed his lips. “You and young Davian. Are you engaged? Betrothed?”
I stiffened, but then again, we had walked into the ballroom together. It wasn’t an unnatural assumption. Part of me wished I had kept the ring on, if it might have kept Vasile away. “No,” I said, hoping it didn’t come out like a bark. “We’re not.”
Vasile smiled wide, but it looked forced. “Then, can I introduce you to a friend of mine?”
I looked over my shoulder. There was still no sign of a rescuer. I couldn’t rip my hand from his in the middle of the dance floor. I gave him a queasy smile. “I’m not sure that’s a great idea.”
He laughed. “You’re a woman of unknown birth but clearly a noblewoman’s bearing. You are unattached. This friend is equally unattached, and a real catch.” Vasile tightened his grip on my hand, squeezing. “It’s just an introduction.”
“I don’t think—”
But he was already turning, and pointing. Over the heads of a couple of ladies chattering to a group of men stood in hushed conversation. He pointed out a head of curls. Blonde curls.
“Ah, here he is.”
My blood was cold before he called out. I kept the queasy smile painted on as Vasile looked back to me in encouragement, and pulled my wooden body a few steps forward and out of the circle.
“Robar!”
His face flicked to us in a heartbeat. “What?” Confusion, then recognition.
Not of me, of course, but of the man still holding my hand.
Then worry, and even—fear. He smothered the last two well enough, but I had stared at that face over weeks, and it made what little warmth I still held in my cheeks fade to white. This was wrong.
Robar walked over to me. Not me. To Vasile. He gave him a wary nod and a smile. “I didn’t realise you would be here tonight, Gr—”
Vasile cut him off, spinning me in a quick full turn. “This is Annie.” I held my balance despite the surprise, and turned back to face my betrothed. Vasile chuckled and finally let go of my hand. “It is still Annie, yes?”
As if it was an inside joke we were both a part of. Maybe it could have felt like one, but for all the alarms sounding in my head like one hundred bells or the cacophony of a Merriment festival. “Yes. I’m Annie.”
Robar looked bemused, at best. “Well met, Annie,” he said. He appraised my face, my hair. He narrowed his eyes. “Have we met?”
My hand clenched at my side, the side Vasile wasn’t on. Was this it? Was this the moment it came crashing back? Had Ekris’ influence faded, was his memory returning?
“I don’t think so,” I said, partly because Vasile was there. Yes, I tried to say with my eyes. You have met all of me, you have loved me. You wanted me, once.
Robar nodded, accepting this. “You do look familiar.” Then he shrugged. “Perhaps another event.”
The disappointment wasn’t as crushing as I thought it might be, but it hurt nonetheless.
I knew then that if he had any familiarity with me, it was in the glimpses since Ekris’ curse.
It was in the street the night we were supposed to wed; it was in the Fancy when he’d believed me to be a maid of the taverna. This wasn’t real recognition.
The hurt felt different this time. More like a loss.
To him, that time, the moments we spent together, were erased entirely.
There was no mutual remembrance, no pain that he attached to me.
No joy. Nothing. Losing a person was supposed to be shared.
I was the only one who held those private moments now, and if in his world they didn’t even happen, and I was the only other participant…
It didn’t feel real anymore. Even broken and gone, as it was now, that love, those heated moments, they were supposed to leave on their own marks on us.
They were supposed to linger in heavy looks and things unsaid, even when the moments were past and soured.
If I was their only keeper, did they even happen?
If I was the only one marked, then I was lonelier than ever.
Robar wasn’t my betrothed anymore. That man stopped existing the moment Ekris erased me from his life. Now, Robar was just a man who had courted my friend. My dead friend.
“Perhaps,” I said, monotonously.
Vasile looked between us with an encouraging smile that ignored my bland replies, and Robar’s barely interested conversation. He gestured towards me. “Dearest Annie hails from…”
He trailed off, waiting for me to fill in the gap. Fishing, again. I smiled. “Here.”
“Here,” he repeated, without missing a beat. “Annie from Here, this is Robar, son of Ion, the treasurer.”
I made a show of raising my eyebrows, and falling into another curtsy. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, my lord.”
Robar reached for my hand, and I let him have it.
I thought of anything else—the flowers in the brass vases, the candles, Davian, Ekris, Talia, Jusia—as he pressed a soft kiss to the back of my hand.
Anything but how familiar the action was.
Anything but imagining whose skin those lips had last touched. “The pleasure is mine.”
I kept my head high, and my face as blank as I could. Vasile watched Robar as he straightened out of the greeting, and then stared at me. He frowned. “Curious. I must have been mistaken.”
Robar opened his mouth to say something just as I heard boots landing heavily behind me. Approaching rapidly.
“It appears you’ve both stolen my date,” Davian said, the anger barely concealed.