How much more of me was I going to shed before the end?
Raising my hand off his shoulder, I touched his mask the way I’d done countless times already, half my mind on trying to come up with a way to keep track of which person I’d danced with in this room.
Then I saw fire.
The ballroom fell away. I was no longer dancing, but I was standing in a dark room lit only by a huge fire ahead—a furnace bigger than any I’d ever seen before. The heat coming off it was almost unbearable, and it had a different flavor from the other temperatures I’d felt in the other memories. The eyes through which I was looking moved, focused lower on the hands, on this long rod between them, and the glass at the end of it, very close to the edge of that furnace. It was spinning, that rod, and moving closer and closer as the body I was in leaned forward.
The eyes focused on the way the flames kissed the edges of that molten glass—and that, too, was different. The smell was stronger than the other memories—ashes and something acidic. The sound of the spinning rod and the crackling fire was different, too, but that wasn’t what took my breath away.
It was my chest.
Or rather what went oninsideit, inside this body. The feelings—pure joy, and so much pride, and a mind that was calm, clear. I felt all of it as if it were mine, felt happy andproud of the way the molten glass was shaping at the end of that rod.
I fell back as my lungs screamed for air. I hadn’t been breathing at all for Time knew how long, and the ballroom was still there. The guy I was dancing with was still there—and he was real.Hefelt.There was no doubt about it in my mind because I’d felt those emotions together with him as if they were mine.
He let go of me, stepped back.
My heart fell all the way to my heels. He didn’t even want to touch my mask.
No—wait!
No voice left me. He turned to walk away from me, and I reached for him the same way my last partner had reached for me, likeIwas one of them, too.
But I wasn’t, and I’d be damned if I let him get away.
So, I ran again, grabbed his hand, and before he even turned to look at me, I pressed it right onto my mask.
His arm froze. His entire body froze mid-movement, his head still only half turned to me.Please, please, please,I chanted to myself, and my lips moved with the words, too. I begged whoever would listen with all my being for him to see that I was real, too, and for this to be over.
I don’t know what it was about this place, but the very air going down my throat felt wrong, unlike anything I’d ever felt before. This whole thing still felt wrong, just like it had before we entered. It just did a great job keeping me distracted since I found myself all alone in that darkness.
Then the guy fell back, pulled his hand away from my mask. Stood there and looked at me, lips parted. I could only see a little bit of his chin because of the shadows falling from the edge of his mask, and I thought Iknewthat chin, knew the shade of his skin, but I could very well be trying to foolmyself here. With the way I wanted to get out of this placenow, that was a very real possibility.
Either way, the man who let me into this place said to give away my mask when I felt it wasright,and this was as close torightas I was going to get. So, I reached behind my head, unlaced the silk ties as fast as I could, and took it off.
Time’s Teeth, I was shaking.
The next time I blinked, the entire ballroom changed. The colors became brighter, the movements clearer, and I could have sworn that even the sound of the music was a bit louder now, too.
The guy looked at me for a second, and I had never held more hope and hopelessness in my heart at the same time. I knew well what the consequences would be if I chose wrong, but…
I hadn’t.
Because in the next second, he pulled the mask off his face, too, almost violently.
March-it’s March-it’s March-it’s March?—
My mouth opened and a scream ripped right out of me, even if my voice never produced it. March was standing in front of me, looking just as confused as I was, and even though tears had gathered in my eyes, I was smiling.
My body barely cooperated when I went closer, lifted my mask to his face. I was shaking so badly still that the thing almost slipped from my hand, but March caught my wrist and steadied me.
He smiled, too, just a little, and the colors in his eyes repainted the world for me from scratch. I released a long breath of relief as he put his mask over my face.
Once more, the world fell away.
I was in a kitchen.
How strange. It was a kitchen I knew, yet I’d never seen it before in my whole life. The tiles were white and red. The cupboards, too. Someone was screaming—a muffled scream—and I was moving. The body I was in was moving, shooting forward, and through these eyes I saw a man, taller than me. All my focus was on him because I was going to him,aimingfor where he stood across the room.
