“She sentyouto stop me?” Faron’s eyebrows lifted. “Do you actually think you can?”
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I think I can distract you, at least.”
“For that, I’d have to be interested in anything you have to say.”
It wasn’t lost on Faron that they were both now standing as faraway from the Langlish delegation as was possible without leaving the banquet hall. But, right, he’d come overjustto distract her. She tugged at her bevor again. Gods, it was sohotin here.
Reeve tilted his head toward a Joyan woman in a night-blue ball gown. “That’s Rey Christóbal’s favorite cousin, Pilar Montserrat. I heard she was in consideration for the Joyan throne until she set a potential suitor’s hairpiece on fire during dinner.”
Faron was surprised into laughing. “You’re lying.”
“It was in all their papers.”
“Why were you reading papers from Joya del Mar?”
“I like to know things,” Reeve said simply. “Now, that man over there—that’s the tournesol from Étolia, Guienne Lumiére, surrounded by his musketeers. He’s only sixteen years old, but he’s already notorious for that thing with the wolf.…”
And so it went. Reeve was full of funny anecdotes about the dignitaries, stories that reduced them from carnivorous monsters eager for their slice of San Irie to flawed humans with public shadows they couldn’t even hide from their own people. Against her will, Faron found herself smiling, though her skin continued to prickle from the invasive sense that she was being watched. Even that was less grating with Reeve at her side. It was equally likely that everyone was staring athim.
After all, he was wanted for treason in the Langlish Empire, and his own parents had signed the warrant for his arrest. That had madeinternationalnews.
The crowd shifted, giving Faron a clear view of a familiar figure across the room. Her mirth curled up and died. “Do you know any trivia about your dear father? You know, while you’re still pretending that you’re not working for him.”
Reeve’s smile, already as narrow as a waning moon, fractured into nothing. He stared across the banquet hall so intensely that Faron nearly wanted to take the words back. Then, as always, he decided that silence was his best defense against her.
He grabbed a tumbler of white rum off the tray of a passing servant and cut a path back to Elara’s side. She saw the pinch between Elara’s eyebrows when she noticed the glass but turned away before her sister could wield those disappointed doe eyes against her.
She ignored her flash of guilt. Whether Faron wanted to admit it, this was the second time that Reeve had stopped her from spiraling in public since they’d landed in Port Sol. But whetherhewanted to admit it, she had more to lose by trusting him than she did by keeping her distance—especially with his father on the island. She was being careful, not cruel.
Wasn’t she?
“Um. Um, hi,” said a new voice. “Empyrean?”
Faron’s nerves were strung so tightly that it took her an entire minute to realize the voice had not been in her head. She turned to see a servant staring at her with reverence.
“Hello,” Faron said, drawing on the reservoir of politeness instilled by her parents. She didn’t draw on it often, but it was always there, waiting for her to dive in. “How can I help you?”
“The queen would like to see you, Empyrean. When you’re ready.”
Faron held in a sigh. “Thank you.”
The servant scurried away. For a moment, Faron longed to be her, to have nothing more to do for the night than hide among the rest of the staff. Then she sent a quick prayer to Irie for patience and went to find Aveline.
The second she stumbled into the crowd, Faron was accosted by hands to shake and names to forget. She locked her nerves in a box at the back of her mind as she made small talk and volleyed compliments and smiled until her cheeks snidely advised her to stop. Gossip followed Faron’s every step, snatches of sentences piercing her forced calm.
“Did you see the Childe Empyrean with the Warwick boy?” an Étolian woman whispered as she passed. “I didn’t even know he was still alive. In Étolia, he would have been put to the noose.”
“All this power, all these resources, a direct line to their supposed gods,” her companion whispered back, “and it’s wasted on the Iryans. They barely knew how to—”
The crowd swallowed the pair before she could hear what else they had to say. Thank Irie. Rage bubbled under Faron’s skin at how brazenly they spoke of the very kingdom that had welcomed them here. She thought of the protesters and their signs, of Commander Warwick and his sneering words, and she had to fight the urge to scream.
When Faron finally caught sight of Aveline, the queen was in a crescent of cleared floor space, flanked outside this polite distance by several dignitaries. Behind her were six members of the Queenshield, their scalestone swords visible and glittering at their sides. This time, Aveline’s dress was emerald green with golden suns embroidered at the cinched waist and on the puffed sleeves. Her hair was twisted up into knots that looked like a crown, even without considering the bronze diadem that bisected her high forehead.
“Ah, Empyrean,” said Aveline, her black eyes glinting like a blade in the dark as Faron took her place beside her. “We were just speaking of you. This is Commander Warwick.”
“It’s nice to see you again, Empyrean.”
Commander Gavriel Warwick’s bland tone made it impossible for an outsider to tell that they had spoken just yesterday. She hadn’t even noticed him standing there, though thatdidexplain the queen’s poisonous smile. Unsure what game he was playing, she gave him a polite half smile and nothing more. The Iryans called him a monster, but he was dangerously human to her.
