Nerves crawled up my spine to the back of my neck, and Julian’s eyes bounced from Fable to me. My mouth went dry. His eyes turned to slits.
“Excuse me,” Julian gritted through a clenched jaw, then blinked once more before turning and walking away, carrying a server tray filled with drinks. I watched as he dropped the tray over a table. Guests threw up their hands, tossing insulting words as the drinks spilled to the ground before he disappeared into the crowd.
I took a step to go after him when Fable caught my wrist. “Don’t.” My gaze steered to her, and tears burned in my eyes when her grasp on me tightened. “If you love him, let him go.”
My eyes narrowed. “I can’t,” I whispered, and Fable released her grip.
Her eyes flicked to the other side of the room, and I followed her gaze to where Phoenix was watching her from behind the bar, his tortured gaze in a golden blaze.
She turned her eyes back to me. “Then you’re a stupid girl for falling in love with a Heathen, and now you will spend the rest of your days knowing what it’s like to be hollow.” My eyes dragged between Fable and Phoenix, and Fable closed her eyes. “Sorry, I need a second,” she whispered and took off across the room.
“Fable, wait!” I called out, going after her, but she’d already disappeared.
I looked back over to where Phoenix was, and he was gripping the edge of the bar, seeming as if he was holding himself back from jumping over it and running to her. He dragged in a breath and looked back to me with caution in his eyes—a warning.
And in one sweep, he gathered himself, reining himself back and pretending as if nothing happened. It all had happened so fast, and I darted my gaze around the room, no one noticing. Why hadn’t I noticed it before?
The alcohol slipped down my throat easily in one gulp, and I placed the chalice over a tray being carried by another server walking past. I grabbed another chalice off the same tray and stepped foot out of the ballroom to find air.
I needed air. I needed to find Julian. He looked so upset that I was here, and I thought this was what he wanted. My brain was turning fuzzy, trying to think back.
Before I could step foot into the hallway, Adora appeared and hooked her arm in mine just as the music changed. “I love this song,” she sang. “Girls, let’s dance!”
Monday and Ivy surrounded me and dragged me back to the center of the ballroom, where the instrumental music playing picked up to a much faster pace. The girls pulled me into a dizzying crowd of dancing ladies, and my world spun on its axis as we danced and danced and danced. Then my eyes fell upon him.
Julian was there, standing in the corner of the crowded ballroom with his hands clasped in front of him. With every turn, my eyes met his rigid frame. His expression neither faltered nor shifted, his gaze locked on me as if it could touch and hold me.
My heart, it grew tattered black wings, longing to make the flight to him. And I was breathing hard and dancing, and in his eyes, he was dancing along with me. Adora grabbed my hand and spun me again. But all I saw in a room full of people was him, as he was seeing me. The starry sky, the sea, and every wonder the moon touched after the sun died could not measure up to the look in his eyes.
“If I’m not mistaken, I think a certain Heathen has his eyes on you,” Adora sang in my ear.
“You see that too?” Monday asked. The girls giggled, and I looked around the room, nervous.
Adora spun me again. “Oh, I think all of creation has witnessed that look.”
“Be careful, Fallon. They may be on the prowl for a white-haired virgin sacrifice,” Ivy joined in.
With brazen smiles, the three girls glanced back at Julian, and he cocked his head to the side, gripped the back of his neck.
“Yeah,” Ivy laughed, “because that’s not any more obvious.”
I didn’t know how many songs had passed. With every drink, the thirst in my throat and the dryness in my mouth only craved more, needing the thick amber liquid to soothe it, yet after each filled chalice, the quench was only temporary. Every so often, my eyes found Julian to stabilize me. To calm the panic rising in my chest, knowing something wasn’t all okay.
The moment I found an opening to leave the dance floor, the music stopped, and the room went silent. Adora clutched my hand, and all masked faces turned to a gentleman who stood in the corner of the room who wore a white Bauta mask with gold swirls around the trim. It became clear to me it was Mr. Pruitt who was speaking, thanking everyone for attending.
At his table, three men stood and walked toward us, and the people standing in the open ballroom parted down the middle.
“The Samhain brings new beginnings and awakenings, so drink and drink and spin and sing. The night is calm, the cups run clean. Soak the folly into thee, and rise to carnal madness …”Mr. Pruitt’s words trailed off when a suitor took my hand. My head was spinning, and I couldn’t lock my gaze onto any solid form.
The man was in a cat mask, the colors in gold and black and crimson. The other two wore masks with hooked noses. One nose was longer than the other. All three wore black tuxedos, and for a moment, it all seemed like a hazy dream.
Ivy and Adora branched off with the other two, and my head swirled around the room to see pairings dancing and drinking and bodies pressing closer together. The music changed too, the sound of an old music box at first. Then it faded into a symphony of violins and keys of a piano.
“It’s okay. Dance, Fallon,” the suitor whispered into the air around me. He grabbed me at the elbows and pulled me forward into his broad chest.
The panic only thickened in my lungs, and I couldn’t breathe. I turned to find Julian, unsure of what was happening to me. The room spun, I became dizzy. In my hand, another drink appeared. The suitor’s fingers were stroking my arm.
“Drink and dance,” he continued to chant in my ear as music and laughing stacked inside the room.
