Chapter 38
Elysia stood in her living room with her feet leaden and heart in tangles. The wicked delight that normally enthralled and disgusted her in equal measure at the thought of loosening her grip on her magic until she nearly lost her head was nowhere to be found this year. She hated working for her father, but she had deep down loved the chance to break free of the constraints that normally chained her. The Raven Ball was a time for debauchery. No one ever batted an eye at strange behavior, it was practically expected, which meant it was the one night she had felt free.
This year the enchanting veneer of freedom was cracked and worn with the dinge of Kava’s plight and her own slick fear.
She knew she needed to hurry. Yet she stood silent in her flat, her body weighted and unwilling to move. A sense of foreboding came over her like a dark cloud, but she shooed it away. It was only natural that she felt dread. This could very well be the last time she saw her friends and family. No matter how horrible things had been, leaving her family behind without a word of explanation still felt like a betrayal.
She thought back to last year’s ball and wondered at how different her life had become in such a short time. She no longer sought the perfect secret to please her father, or believed she might one day earn his love. She no longer yearned to crack open the ribs of her mother, so she could peer into her chest and see the shallow depths of her cold, unfeeling love.
The sense of possibility—a frivolous lie that felt like hope and wide-open paths—had left her for good. She had watched all of her possibilities shrivel up and turn to dust.
No longer was she burdened with false dreams of safety and love. The life she had imagined with a crown and her family finally embracing her had dried up and blown away. She now knew that these were merely delusions that had carried her for years. They were a child’s dream, and sometimes those were the hardest to kill.
Now that little girl stood calm and ready, her dark eyes serious and a dagger in her hand. She was the girl who had been found in a pool of blood inside a vendor’s cart. Trained and loved as if she were his own by Kava’s Shadow. She was the girl who had disappeared into nothing while her father carved her feet. She was the girl who threw herself at a man who did not love her to secure a better future. But now, she took all of it, and walked toward a future that was her own.
She told no one about her plan. She’d listened to all the whispers and hidden in the darkness of the House for two weeks, and while she didn’t learn anything to strike a better deal with death, she had learned something very, very interesting.
Tonight would be a night for the books—the most memorable Raven Ball that Kava had ever seen. She only hoped she lived long enough to see her mother’s face when it happened.
Elysia pulled out the garment bag from her armoire and grabbed her cloak, readying herself for the walk to the castle. Once at the ball, she would be demurely alert. She would swish and glide amongst the guests as expected. She would pretend to be a beautiful woman wearing a beautiful gown who hoped for nothing more than a man to bend his knee.
Her nerves jumped at the thought of the prince. All she could do was pray to the undead gods that the man didn’t do something insane like try to kidnap her now that he knew she could reach the realm of the dead. If he did, she would be ready.
Bending low to scratch beneath Larkspur’s chin, she murmured softly to him. “If anything happens, Jessa has a key. She’s far more responsible than Beatriz and will take good care of you.”
She stared into his purple eyes for another moment, her heart breaking. Throat thick, she ran her hand over his sleek black fur one more time before standing and walking out the door before she could change her mind.
Elysia had only just arrived at her room within the castle when there was a shout outside the door.
“Let us in, Elysia!” There was a shuffling and clicking of high heels followed by more muttering. “Fucking freezing in these halls. You’d think they could afford a fire or two.”
Smiling, Elysia opened the door and found the friendly faces of Daphne and Remy popping into the doorframe like meerkats. Unlike her, the two women did not smile.
“Oh my undead gods.” Daphne looked traumatized. She looked at Remy for support, now gesturing frantically at Elysia while making aghast faces of disbelief.
Remy strolled in, sliding off her gloves and calling back over her shoulder. “Procrastinate much? We barely have twenty minutes and you’re a mess.”
Elysia followed her in. “You should have seen me before the bath. And I might have sent my mother’s servants away. I couldn’t deal with their fussing.”
Remy looked down at the pile of muddy clothes on the floor. “You went to the forest, didn’t you?”
“Felt necessary.” She hadn’t planned on it. But the forest wasn’t only his, it was hers too. She’d needed a longer walk than just from her flat to the castle, and had found herself ankle deep in muck, soot, and mud before long.
Remy wrapped a strand of Elysia’s wet hair around her finger. “You’re nervous.”
Daphne bustled in, shutting the door and flying around the room to gather supplies. “Of course she’s nervous. Only the entire city knows the prince is supposed to propose this evening.”
She held up two different pairs of heels, her face deep in thought. “What color is your dress? The rumor mill kept saying you got your dirty claws on a Pleur.”
That made Elysia grin. She walked over to the garment bag and made quick work of the ties. She stood next to the dress, face alight with anticipation. “Well, what do you think?”
Remy looked thoughtful. Daphne had a hand on her throat and looked dismayed.
“It’s black .”
“I know, I love it.”
“I just—I just, isn’t it a little dark?” The words came out in a rush and Daphne hurried on, “I mean I know it’s the Raven Ball, but you’re getting engaged, for the gods’ sake. Engagements are happy, Elysia, and happy is not black.” She sniffed and prodded at the gown as if it might magically reveal itself to be the pink of a blushing bride.
Remy continued to study it for a moment with one hand drifting to her hips. “Art tends to have a message, doesn’t it?”
Elysia held the fabric of the dress between her fingers, her voice equally musing. “Yes, yes it does.”
Soon the gin was flowing and the girls were cackling. If she allowed herself to, then Elysia could have easily forgotten what was coming, but the events that were to come were a steady, ever-increasing drum beat in her mind. Every sip and laugh felt surreal, as if it were someone else being buffed and coiffed into someone who might wear a crown.
She kept waiting for someone to grab her and tell her not to do it, for someone to beg her one last time to leave. But she’d expertly avoided Jessa, Beatriz, and Gage this last week. No one had been able to catch her in spite of them stalking her front door and badgering the residents of the House.
She tapped a no longer muddied nail upon a deep wine-red lip stain, the shade so dark it might as well have been blackened and dried blood. “It’s perfect.”
Face painted and body gleaming, she stood in front of the Pleur. “It’s time.”
The sound of string instruments carried up the stairs to where Elysia stood, waiting to descend onto the dance floor filled with all of Kava’s finest. Her silver satin slippers tip-tapped while the guests in front of her were announced one by one. Finally, she glided up beside the man who was booming out their names as if anyone truly cared who was about to walk down the Crown-red-carpeted stairs.
But yet, as she stepped into the light, she felt a pause sweep through the crowds below. The air stilled and breaths were held. The elder gentleman calling the names gestured for her to begin, and as she did, he cried her name.
“Lady Elysia Parker, daughter of the Crown.”
Her gown might as well have been the most eloquent fuck you she had ever offered. What her mother had not seen with the dress limp in its garment bag was that the fabric was alive. The threads became vines and leaves that cascaded up her throat. The blackened greenery acted as nature’s hands as it strangled and wrapped around her neck. The same decaying vines and leaves caressed her shoulders, running down her arms to end with a leaf like a teardrop upon her hands. Dark tulle roses fell down her body to the floor, leaving a trail behind her that marked her steps.
No mundane hands could have ever cut such cloth. It was obvious there was magic infused into every stitch and bit of its production.
King Garrison’s gaze met Elysia’s like a blast of the coldest night, and she smiled warm enough to dazzle the entire city in this room.
A hand touched her elbow as she at last reached the bottom of the stairs, and she knew whose eyes she’d find behind it.
“I hope you know what you’re doing.” His words were low, reverberating amongst the nerves that fluttered in her gut.
She turned on an inhale, eyes wide with innocence. “As you mentioned, Prince, I believe in—how did you put it?” Her head tilted and voice gained an edge. “Steamrolling my opponents.”
Elysia slipped into a curtsy, aware of the many eyes she doubted would leave their sides tonight. As she lifted back up, one brow went up as well, and she held out a hand.
“Will we be pretending one last time? Or are you going to do something stupid and rash?”
Annoyance slipped through his fixed face. “I don’t think I’m the one who needs a reminder not to do something stupid.”
“Then dance with me.”
His large calloused palm swallowed hers, and then they were sailing chest to chest across the black-and-white patterned floor. While the prince may have preferred the rhythms of the streams and trees, he was more than capable of leading her through every dip, whirl, and leap.
Breathless and cheeks growing pink, she laughed and laughed as they moved. At the sound of her true laugh, Topp Blatz couldn’t help but smile, eyes crinkled and freckles barely there, and it was a beautiful, heartbreaking thing to behold. She looked up at him with glassy eyes and a full heart. This was the memory she would hold on to, the feel of him warm against her and looking at her like she was someone to be loved or even adored.
Her mother had reached deep into the essence of every Raven Ball of the glorious past and pulled out radiant shades of charcoal that she cast out like a glamour across the ballroom. Smoky grays and plumes of night tricked the eye into believing they walked through a beautiful rolling fog. Dim candlelight flickered, creating the faintest warmth to soften the dark.
She had recreated the soot that fell upon every inch of their home and made it look like something beautiful instead of dead. Casting her gaze around, Elysia wondered at the effect her mother had managed to create.
It was a night for secrets, for trysts, and the strange magic that happens when one believes no one is looking.
The song slowed, and she brushed the back of her fingers against the stubble on the prince’s face. Voice near breaking, she spoke. “I may have wanted to hide behind your crown—but I was always glad it was yours , and not someone else’s. I never pretended. I may have omitted, but I never pretended about my heart.”
They came to a halt, dresses and dark polished shoes still dancing around them. His gaze turned penetrating as he caught her fingers and pressed them to his mouth.
“Tell me your plan, Elysia.”
She nudged him into motion once more, part of her loath to let the moment end. But she didn’t answer him. The music carried them a little longer until the prince couldn’t stand it anymore.
His exhale was ragged, but he kept his face clean of the desperation she knew he must be feeling.
“Please, tell me. I swear I won't interfere. I just want to know how to reach the god of the dead—I need to know. You have to understand that.” His grip on her hand and waist tightened uncomfortably.
She opened her mouth to respond, when Rollie stepped out from behind a fast moving couple and shoved himself in between the prince and Elysia, causing Topp to stumble down to one knee on the hard tile floor.
Rollie, true to himself, did not cast a spare blink in the prince’s direction. His pale hands grasped Elysia’s forearms indelicately. “You need to leave.”
Her heart clapped into motion at his words. Adrenaline made her focus crystal clear, though, and a certain calm spread through her chest. It was time.
But aloud, she feigned confusion. “What are you talking about?”
He shook his head, his eyes darting around nervously. “No time. Let’s go, we can take the tunnels.”
Elysia nodded, taking hold of Rollie’s hand and allowing him to drag her across the floor and out of the ballroom's thrall. They moved with as much haste as one dared without drawing eyes.
“Rollie, no matter what happens, thank you. You’re a good person and a good friend.”
His pale fingers tightened on her wrist, still pulling her along. Eyes still forward, he threw tense words over his shoulder. “Just keep moving, Parker.”
Elysia could only imagine the expression on Rollie’s face based on how the throngs of people were parting for them now. She smiled easily, laughing and offering gentle pardons as he tore ahead. Soon they were in the halls, heading for the stairs. Velvet curtains blocked off the staircase to the tunnels, and Elysia finally yanked back, causing Rollie to stop and stare at her as if she were mad.
“Rollie, you need to go.”
Frustrated, he gripped the velvet and turned to her, gesturing at the stairs. “That’s what I’m trying to do. He’s coming for you, Elysia. I don’t know what changed, but your time is up. Jessa sent Gage to the tunnels to help you escape.”
Elysia swore and moved him away from the stairs. She was hissing now, not caring if people noticed. “Why did you all have to meddle? Gage is probably down there planning ten different ways to infiltrate this ball and murder everyone. Never mind, just go . You need to get far away from me, Rollickus. There’s no reason for you to go down, too.”
His face creased, hesitation sticking his feet to the floor. “You’re up to something, right? You’re not just giving up?”
Her voice softened. “Run. I mean it.”
Rollie vanished without another word, effortlessly melting back into the crowds and aiming for the castle’s main entrance. The man had been the castle’s underground ghost for years. If anyone could slip away, it was Rollickus Timmons.
Salvation had never been in the cards for a girl marked by death, though.
This is really going to hurt.
And with that thought in mind she plunged behind the curtain.