A woman in an elegant black mask pauses near one of them, head tilted, studying the line of a young man’s shoulders the way you’d admire a sculpture. Her companion, also in a black mask, murmurs something. She nods. The attendant in his blue mask marks a note in his booklet.
The code’s silent language is increasingly clear. Staff members wear blue, while items for sale are red. The buyers are clad in black.
My father’s mask is white. The thought is a splinter of ice in my mind.What does white mean?
I force air into my lungs. The night smells like lilies and candle wax and something under it—nerves, maybe. Fear has a scent, too.
Another platform. A girl with dark hair lifts her chin at nothing. Her mask is the same startling crimson, her hands loose at her sides. The placard reads Lot 5B. She sways almost imperceptibly, catching herself, and an attendant in his blue mask steps half a step closer. Guarding. Guiding. Owning.
I move faster. The pavilions multiply, each with its little stage. A man taps the brass bell at one; the chime is delicate and final. An attendant appears with a velvet folder. Numbers are written. Hands shake. Champagne glitters in flutes that remain perfectly level.
My hands are cold. I can’t feel my fingers.
This isn’t a charity sale. It’s a market.
I swallow against a rising tide in my throat. The mask is suddenly too tight across my cheekbones. As I reach up to adjust the ribbon, I catch sight of a mirror propped against a column. For a heartbeat I don’t recognize myself—a silver shape with a painted mouth and empty eyes. An object. A thing.
“Darla.” My father’s voice finds me from behind. It threads through noise and lodges between my ribs.
I turn. He looks the same as he always does—composed, precise, his mask an afterthought on a face that needs no disguise.
“You wandered,” he says mildly.
“I was looking for air.” I tilt my head toward the fountain. “It’s warm.”
He studies my face. He can always tell when I’m lying, but he likes it when I pretend to be good at it. It keeps the game neat.
“Come,” he says, offering his arm like a gentleman. “There’s someone you should speak with before the… formalities.”
The word lands like a stone dropping into black water.
He leads me down a narrower path lined with hedges clipped into perfect rectangles. The lanterns are closer together here, the light bright enough to erase shadows. Two men wait at the end—the steward with the plain mask, and Trent Moreland.
He leans in, breath cool against my ear. “You left me no choice after that spectacle at the country club. Trent will fix what you broke, Darla. He’ll make sure you can’t say no.”
Trent’s mask is obsidian and horned at the temples. Of course it is. He smiles when he sees us. It touches nothing that matters.
“Mayor Graves. Miss Graves.” He inclines his head to each of us separately, his gaze dropping to the line of my collarbone as if checking stock. “You look… exquisite.”
My father’s fingers flex where they rest atop my arm. “We appreciate your hospitality, Trent.”
“Always a pleasure to accommodate friends.” Trent’s eyes slide to the steward. “Shall we?”
The steward gestures toward an unmarked door set into the hedge. It opens into a small salon—low ceiling, carpet that hushes footsteps, walls lined with framed contracts rendered as art. The table in the center is inlaid with mother-of-pearl. On it sits a leather folio. And beside it, a velvet ring box.
My skin tries to crawl off my bones.
“Given the circumstances,” Trent says pleasantly, “I think we can dispense with some of the usual ceremony. Efficiency is… kinder.” My stomach lurches. Kindness, in his mouth, tastes like chloroform.
“Quite,” my father agrees. “We’re aligned on terms.”
The steward opens the folio, revealing papers arranged in manic order. His finger taps—here, here, here. He’s done this a hundred times. Maybe a thousand.
I force my vocal cords to work. “What is this?”
My father doesn’t look at me. “A settlement.”
“For what?” I ask. The question scrapes out of my throat that’s gone raw.
