The Boar threw himself back into the throne, beckoning roughly for wine.
“Ordered to watch over a Night-poxed ball like a pack of wetnurses?” Emma heard him mutter to a soldier. Resentment snarled through his voice, a forest of brambles. “Us? The City’s forgotten where respect is due.”
He paused, tilting his goblet. He had seen Emma staring. She ducked her head, wishing her dress truly were a cloud of mist she might hide in. She felt the graze of Boar eyes on her bare skin. It made her feel small and exposed, a field mouse trembling in an open patch of ground.
“Enough.” Saskia’s eyes glinted defiance. “We don’t stand here shaking. That’s what they want.”
“Too right.” Selina hugged Gertie around the shoulders.
Nancy bared sharp little teeth. “And what do we want, loves?”
The others growled in response, grins widening.
Emma heard the growl in her own throat, felt the cool air on her sharp, exposed teeth. She raised her head. “We want to dance.”
The fox maidens exploded into yips and barks. Then a hand grabbed Emma’s and they were all running through the crowd. The room was a howl of color and noise. Ratfolk crowded the gambling tables, while giggling Ravens swapped kisses on the benches.Shadowed figures flitted among revelers to slip a bracelet off a wrist here, an amulet there. Eels lay under the open spigots of wine, gulping without the need to breathe: Frilly gills had appeared beneath their ears.
Someone thrust a goblet of star wine into Emma’s hands: black as night, its depths glowing with tiny white lights, like constellations. Then it was empty, and she was knocking back another, and a third. When she hiccuped, tiny motes of light floated from her tongue. She swayed as the music bound itself to her pulse, sharp and sweet and agonizing.
“Boots look nice.” Emma whipped round. Saskia stood behind her in a spiked black tunic and silver hose. Dabs of glitter on her cheekbones made her eyes look bluer than ever.
“The ones you gave me?” Emma tried to straighten up. She pointed one silver-booted foot at Saskia. “Yes, they’re perfect.”
“Didn’t give them, new girl. It was a bargain, remember?” Saskia leaned back on one hip, silver hose gleaming. “One pair of boots for a dance.”
“With you?”
“Who else?” Saskia bared her teeth in a fox grin.
Despite herself, Emma found herself grinning back. She let Saskia pull her to the floor. At the touch of hands around her waist, her pulse warmed.
Then the other fox maidens descended.
Selina seized them. “Darlings, we’ve been searching everywhere for you. Dancing time. Come on.”
Saskia shrugged and let her hands slip from Emma. At the sudden kiss of cold air around her waist, Emma felt strangely bereft.
The fox maidens plunged into the center of the dance floor andthrew themselves into the music, arms twined, hair flying. Emma spun with them, a star in orbit. All around her, bodies pressed close, rippling into one another. It brought back flashes of sweaty nightclubs with Julia: hair falling into her face, someone’s hands on her hips.
But everything in the Night City was richer, fiercer. And now it burst on Emma: She was too. Now she was a fox maiden, and immortal. The lines of her limbs sharp, her movements cold and swift as night air. Finally, she recognized the unfamiliar feeling in her body, the clawing energy trying to burst from beneath her skin. Power.
The strings shrieked to a crescendo. Her sisters circled her, a blur of hips moving and teeth flashing with laughter. Emma let her head fall back. She spun, seeing claws trace through the air at the ends of her fingers. She turned on one foot: once, twice, three times. She was newly light, like spider silk slung, or fox song leaping to the night sky. It was beautiful, this body. This power.
And the knowledge struck her that she would be bereft for the rest of her days, if she returned to the mortal world. The normalcy there, the mildness, would chafe her soul almost to bleeding. The air would not taste of incense and adventure. She would not snarl through the streets, or feel the pulse of magic beneath her skin.
As the dancers whirled around Emma, a seductive little whisper wondered why she would want to escape. She could give up her fruitless search for a way out. Forget the Turnbulls and sink into the Night City completely. Live one endless, dizzying adventure with her sisters, century after century.
The idea was exhilarating. Emma could not think why she had held herself back from it. She was sure she’d had a reason. But it slipped from her. The music had command of her body, and hermind was wiped clean. At the opening chords of a new song, the fox maidens looked at one another with comical joy. They flung back their heads and let out a piercing chorus of fox screams. Emma joined them, loudest of all.
As a gong rang out, they piled into the feasting hall. Beads of juice ran like dew from fresh-roasted meats; domed loaves of bread steamed in trenchers with golden roundels of butter and thick amber honey to drizzle on top. There were towers of quince and wild currants; greengages and plums scattered like jewels in a dragon’s hoard. Pitchers of chilled mead and lacy elderflower dripped icy tears from their rims.
The fox maidens tore into the feast. But Emma sat still, her plate bare. A song blazed through her mind. A different kind of hunger. For her true self: powerful, fierce. As a mortal, she had spent so long pretending to be smaller than she was, she had even fooled herself. But no more. She was ready.
“Saskia.”
“What?” Saskia paused, tooth-deep in a roast fowl. Grease painted her cheeks.
“I want to ask.” She would have to say it fast, while the power of the dance still flooded through her.
