She did not see anyone in collector’s robes. Maybe they congregated elsewhere. Or maybe…they’d changed. Lux’s eyes burrowed into the back of a thin man suited in black. She chewed at her lip. Her glance flicked to Cecily.
“Pull up your hood,” she whispered.
A small alcove containing an urn wasn’t far from them. Overfull with plum-colored dahlias, it would mark the safest hiding place. Lux shifted toward it slowly, and with a quick scan of the room, wedged her pack behind it.
“You’re sure you can’t come with me?” asked Cecily.
Lux shook her head. “I can’t leave this unfinished.” The doors opened beneath Manphry’s hands. “Go. You will get through this time.”
Lux strode with purpose toward the doors, her shoulders thrown back—a mask of indifference secured upon her face. Her hair was not done up as she’d planned, but perhaps that was for the better. She needed at least one thing to feel like herself.
“Manphry,” she said. “Which way to the Hallowed Banquet?”
Eyes the shade of decayed wood met hers. Manphry focused only on her—not on the short collector rushing out into the rain. “You’re not meant to be here, Ms. Thorn. Up the stairs.”
“Why am I not meant to be here?” Her quick glance revealed a carriage slowing to a stop before the steps. An open gate beyond, another coming through.
The rain poured steadily. The clouds were low and grey.
Twilight.
Everything changes at twilight.
“You’re not meant to be here,” he said again.
So they hadn’t told him. Thus this husk of a man was forced to repeat his instruction without any other thought. Lux glanced again to the courtyard—to a hooded figure darting beyond the gate.
Her entire body exhaled.
“Up the stairs, you said?” She turned away from the door. “Then I will just—”
A boy leaned casually against the banister on the second-floor landing. A goblet hung from his hand. He didn’t smile or nod when their gazes collided but, instead, sipped from hiscup. His eyes, however, could not be missed. A far cry from his current, confident slouch, they drank her in like they couldn’t get enough.
Lux sucked in a breath. Her body felt as though it’d caught fire. Manphry had shut the doors to the elements but now she begged for the breeze. Shaw lowered the goblet when another addressed him. Achingly slow, his stare broke with hers.
Lux looked across the landing. Toward the person who’d come down the staircase and now spoke to Shaw so intently. A person she felt most sick to meet again. Corvin’s icy coloring complemented the darkly intense feel of the manor. He spoke fast, his arm gesturing back the way he’d come, and it was as Lux contemplated ducking away, that his glance strayed far enough—and ensnared her own.
Goosebumps lifted all along her bare arms.
Corvin stilled, almost startled, and then his lips lifted—a hard, slow grin. He crooked his finger at her.
Lux imagined herself snapping it.
Instead, she gave in to the gesture.
She wasn’t alone on the stairs leading up toward the unfamiliar ballroom. But it felt as if she were. Two sets of eyes—one warm, one cold—watched her intently. Lux found she couldn’t look at either of them, though for entirely different reasons. She stared instead just above them. Behind them.
At Alixsander’s portrait.
Did Corvin reallymurder you because you were good?
Someone stepped to Corvin’s shoulder—a woman in a black gown. It drew Lux’s attention to his own attire. The fact it wasn’t his customary color. Corvin wore a pin-striped suit of silver with a blood-red bow pinned to his lapel. Lux’s mouth opened and closed, glancing down at once to her front. Had he taken a strip of her gown’s fabric? Her stomach twisted when he offered a charming grin to the guest.
It remained so when he returned his focus to her.
Do not look at Shaw. Do not. You don’t know him. He’s no one—
Her gaze slipped.
