Chapter 11
The sound of music wiped my mind clean of questions and thoughts. I was moving before I realized it, a strange need growing in my chest to go to it, to see where it was coming from, what was making it so flawless, so smooth, every note slipping to the next like silk.
Instruments.
Instruments were playing the beautiful melody—only instruments.
On their own, without anybody holding them up.
A cello, three violins, and a grand piano, every inch of them clean and glossy.
They stood alone on a stage in the middle of the room, surrounded by tables covered in silky cloths, full of dishes and food.
Surrounded by tall wooden partitions placed everywhere around the wide space.
Surrounded by the people.
So many people were already in the party, dressed impeccably, men and women alike—the same colors, the same style of dresses and suits as ours. It was like whoever had made our clothes had made theirs in the same breath. They were all dancing, moving so gracefully.
They were all wearing the same masks, too.
Something moved behind me and I turned with a gasp, completely disoriented, to find that the black doors had closed. I’d somehow come all the way into the ballroom, and the doors had closed. The red drapes that had been to their sides fell forward without anybody even touching them.
When they settled, it was like the doors weren’t there at all.
Every other wall I could see from here was covered in those same red drapes made of rich velvet, and the chandeliers over our heads were made of tear-shaped crystals that reflected light so beautifully.
The ceiling was made of glass, too, and I could just see the new stars twinkling in the night outside.
Outside.
There was a world outside. I wasn’t lost here, wherever they’d brought me. It was a party, indeed, one full of people.
I wondered if they were the same guests from the cocktail party. I wondered if they had come here to dance with us, too. I wondered if the queens were among them. It would certainly make me feel better if they were.
Because this whole thing was madness. To be asked to pay with memories—what madness! And I had paid, hadn’t I? I’d paid with memories. I’d given them what they asked for, and…
I stopped. Closed my eyes. Thought hard.
Which memories had I paid with?
Time’s Teeth, I couldn’t remember. I didn’t have the slightest clue which memories I’d given, but that man said that they would stay with me, didn’t he?
The threads.
He’d meant the threads he’d put on my mask!
My hand shook as I reached up, hoping to touch the glowing threads around the eyeholes. The heat emanating from them stopped me when my fingertips were only inches away. They’d certainly burn my skin if I tried to touch them. That’s why that man had handled them with a hook instead of his fingers.
My memories were indeed with me, except whether they were inside my head anymore or not, I had no idea. How could I remember what I’d forgotten if I didn’t remember it?
Then the rhythm of the music picked up speed.
Enough, I told myself and opened my eyes. I was here now, and all would make sense when I started playing the game. I was at a party, and I wasn’t alone, and soon I’d find the others, too. We’d figure this out in seconds.
Then we could get out of this place, and everything would go back to normal.
So, I raised my chin and I walked toward the dancing crowd, focusing on their faces now, on their clothes, so I could quickly find the other Hands—if they were already here.
But the more I saw the more I realized that all the people here were really dressed the same as us. A woman was even wearing a dress that was a copy of mine, down to the silver ribbon made of clear stones!
I stopped again, right by a table, the food eaten, the glasses stained with lipstick here and there. Some women had dark hair, some light, all of them tied in low buns, just like ours. All their faces covered.
The men were the same. They wore suits and tuxedos, some white and some red, some tall and some short, their hair combed back, their masks bigger than ours but just as efficient in covering their whole faces. Shielding their identities.
My mouth opened to call out a name—March?!
My voice didn’t come out.
Panic, hot and red, came over me all at once. I tried to speak again, tried to say another name, another word, but I couldn’t. My voice wasn’t working at all.
Words popped into my head all of a sudden—both in Johnny’s voice, and the dull one of that Heart man: voices are considered an offer already given.
Holy Hour, this was what they’d meant. I wasn’t going to be able to use my voice here at all.
It took me a little longer than I’d like to admit to get my thoughts under control, but when I did, my resolve was strong. I really needed to come to terms with the fact that this was a game, and it would have rules, and I had to play by them and win anyway. Just a game.
So, I started to analyze my surroundings.
First, I found a small bottle of water, unopened, and I drank half of it in one swig. I felt better right away.
Then, I noticed that the music kept on speeding up, and the people dancing followed the rhythm perfectly.
I also noticed that none of them—not a single one—looked my way.
Slowly, I began to circle the room to see more. Partitions everywhere. Not a single chair was taken—everybody was on the dance floor, dancing with one another, but you couldn’t hear a single sound other than the music.
The instruments weren’t playing themselves the way I’d first thought.
I hadn’t been close enough to see the metal hands attached to each one of them, coming from somewhere underneath the stage.
It was those pieces of metal that moved the violins and the cello.
They went up into the body of the piano, too, possibly playing it from the inside so that the keys looked like they were pressing themselves.
I was so caught up on the way they moved, though, that I completely missed the man who’d stopped behind me—until a hand closed around my own, and I was spun around and fell against a solid chest.
Screaming was out of the question—couldn’t if I tried.
All of a sudden I was dancing, my hand on a shoulder, my other between the fingers of a man wearing a white tuxedo, with a blood-red shirt underneath.
He was a good head taller than me, and he had his hand firmly around my waist, just like Silas when we danced together that night.
Which made me wonder…Silas?
My lips moved but my voice never came.
It didn’t really matter. I realized this guy was definitely not him—too wide-shouldered, and Silas was taller, too.
So, who was he?
I tried to see, tried to analyze the shape of his jaw, his neck, his fingers, thinking maybe it was one of the others or one of the guests from the cocktail party, but it was impossible.
We moved too fast and the light that those chandeliers reflected kept shining in my eyes—or maybe it was the glowing threads around my eyeholes?
The mask itself took half my view of the world away, too, and the man kept spinning me around and around, yet we somehow never bumped into another dancing couple.
Until he let go of my waist, brought his hand to my face, and touched my mask. Just touched it with his fingertips—there, over my eyehole.
The man stopped. Sucked in a deep breath. Froze completely—I could tell because I had slammed onto his chest again when he stopped so abruptly.
Not going to lie, I was terrified, but it didn’t last long. The next beat, the man shook his head a little, put his hand back around my waist, and continued to dance.
What in the Everstill…
I was stunned for a moment, could do nothing but look around, try to find an answer to what was happening here.
That’s when I realized that almost every single person was touching the mask of their dance partner at one point—exactly like this guy had touched mine.
I didn’t hesitate. As he spun me around once more, I raised my hand from his shoulder and touched his mask right over his eyehole without a second thought.
The ballroom disappeared completely the same second. I was picked up and sucked back through time and space and who knew what—and then I was standing still again.
No—I was walking.
Down a narrow street washed with gold, I was walking.
Sunlight spilled evenly over stone walls and shuttered windows in a place I’d never seen before. Two-story buildings on both sides, most made of stone, and the sky was so perfectly blue, and the sun so perfectly round.
I wanted to look at it, as disoriented as I was, but couldn’t. My eyes didn’t respond to my commands.
Or maybe the eyes of whoever I was in right now didn’t respond to my commands.
Because I was in a different body—I could just see my feet. They were big and they were wide, and the shoes on them were ones I’d never seen before, definitely male.
Whatever was happening, I was not me in those moments. I was someone else, and someplace else, and…
Somewhere ahead, people laughed but the sound only reached me as an echo.
Every step I took forward was steady. Even though I thought I should be panicking, I wasn’t.
My breathing was calm. My eyes were ahead, sometimes on the sky, sometimes on the smooth stone of the walls, sometimes on the cobbled street ahead of me, a street that never seemed to end.
All the buildings were…identical. The way the sun fell and the breeze blew…everything just fit.
A little too well.
Beautiful—too beautiful. Too calm, and my chest was still so empty.
Nothing in me reacted to anything I saw or heard.
No warmth underneath my skin—and this had to be a memory, I thought.
It was the only explanation that made a little sense because those men had taken my memories and had attached them to my mask, and maybe they’d done the same to my dance partner, too.