I smiled again. “Billow, if I ask Haze that question, what will his answer be?”
Her expression didn’t change. “It will beyes.”
Haze jumped, and his eyes widened. Tendrils of black vapor squeezed out of his fists, and I remembered his legacy was smoke. “That’s not true!”
Billow’s mouth twisted, and I knew I had my answer. Sinister wasn’t plotting against me.
Yet.
“Would you like to ask me another question?” I offered.
Billow’s stare was so malignant that for a moment I recoiled from her.
“What do you want from us,dauphine?”
I considered my answer. I wasn’t under the power of either poison—I could say whatever I wanted. But if I wanted them to believe that I wasn’t planning on executing them, then I needed to say something else they would believe to be true.
“I want your loyalty. Whether I have to beg, borrow, or steal it.”
I waited to see unease bloom on both their faces before I plucked two tiny diamonds glittering from the ombré hem of my gown. I pressed one into each of their hands.
“Enjoy the party.” I kept my voice low. “I mean you no harm. And whether or not I win these Ordeals, know that I offer you my favor.”
I turned on my heel and strode away, uncertainty burning my throat like bile.
I found Gavin near a pergola draped in foliage beneath a prism-fretted chandelier. The area was open to the sky, and a cinnamon sun chased with burnt-black clouds smeared rubies and shadow across a gleaming marble floor. A few of Oleander’s gauzy veils drifted like specters between strands of ambric lights.
Do you mind if I invite Gavin?I’d asked Oleander, the Nocturne before the party.
Her expression didn’t change.Why?
I hadn’t told anyone about my soul-deep certainty—Gavin had cheated. It somehow felt wrong to say it out loud when I had no proof. But I also knew I couldn’t ask Oleander to invite the man who’d seduced and abandoned her into her home without good reason.
He cheated in the first Ordeal, I said.I want to know how, and I want to know why.
Slowly, she’d nodded.As long as I don’t have to look at his preening face.
Gavin wasn’t alone. He was talking animatedly to a young man about his height and build, with his head tilted close in interest. Something about the stranger’s stance smoldered with familiarity. He wore an outlandish scarlet frock coat with a braided hem, and his throat and wrists sprayed ruffled lace. An extravagant hat with looping feathers sat jaunty atop his curls.
I froze. A sick blossom of desperate hope ignited in my chest.Could it be—?I took a few halting steps forward.
But then I realized—it wasLuca.
I stopped in my tracks and loosed a breath, sour with shattered expectation and bitter disappointment.
“Who did you think he was?” asked a soft, impenetrable voice by the ice gate.
I whirled. It was Lullaby, nursing a wineglass on a bench. She was gowned in blue and aquamarine, embroidered in dristic thread and studded with turquoise. Her pale blue skin had been painted all over with teal pigment and flakes of metal, so that she shimmered in the light like she had fish scales. She was a creature caught between sea and sky, and I could almost imagine the tears glittering in her eyes were just another affectation.
“Is he wearing Thibo’s clothes?” I asked quietly.
“Yes.”
“Where did he get them?”
“I gave them to him.”
“Why?”
