I step inside my room. On the opposite end, the balcony doors open, letting in a soft breeze. The fire pops, crackling away in an ornately tiled hearth. An enormous mirror catches the shimmer of my gown.
When the door closes behind me, I strip out of the gown, take down my hair, and rummage through the wardrobe until I find a simpler dress. I don’t care for dresses, and it’s no use having my hair pinned up just so when I’m exhausted enough to go right to sleep, anyway.
I lie down in a bed more comfortable than any I’ve ever known, but sleep does not come, not with my thoughts spiraling the way they are. Not with the dragon’s voice echoing deep in my bones. I wonder what Kat would’ve done here. I wonder if she would have even made it here.
Marb hovers nearby. For the first time since I met her, she’s quiet. She flits to the hearth, then to the edge of the bed, smoothing an invisible wrinkle in the coverlet over and over again.
“The ball begins at midnight tomorrow,” she says at last, almost reluctantly. “I’ll come for you just before then to help you get ready.”
“Midnight,” I repeat. “That sounds more like an ending than a beginning.”
Marb flashes me a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “This is no ordinary court,” she says. “And he is no ordinary king. Get some rest while you can, Fireling.”
I still. “Fireling?”
She spins in the air, her wings shimmering like sunlit glass. “Yes. It’s what we call those who survive the fire.”
My stomach tightens. “What fire?”
“The dragon,” she says simply.
She studies me now—not with curiosity, but with something closer to reverence. A tingling ripples over my skin, as though she’s tracing the outline of my soul.
Marb blinks, her tiny face creasing in confusion. For a heartbeat, she looks… unsettled. Then she shakes it off, forcing a grin that doesn’t quite convince either of us.
“The dragon is very particular about who he allows to come here,” she continues. “In the early years, he barely brought anyone.”
The early years.
A quiet realization settles in my chest: Fairies don’t age the way humans do. I remember the stories my mother used to read me as a child—creatures who outlived empires, who watched centuries pass like seasons.
“How many usually survive?” I ask quietly.
Marb looks up at the ceiling, thinking. “The record is nineteen.”
Nineteen. Out of more than sixty.
“Sixty-two,” Marb corrects me.
I frown. “Did you just—”
She laughs lightly. “I can’t hear your thoughts. Not exactly. We read emotions. They’re colors to us.” Her gaze softens. “And the color you’re wearing right now is the same one all the girls wear when they start counting the odds.”
So she can read me. Noted.
“And the others?” I ask. “The girls who make it here—why are we called Firelings?”
Marb drifts closer, lowering her voice. “Because fire reveals,” she says, “but it also destroys. Some girls burn bright.” Her gaze sharpens. “Others… burn out.”
Silence stretches between us, heavy and deliberate.
“You were wise not to give them your name,” she adds suddenly.
I frown. “Why?”
Her wings still. Her tone lightens—but her eyes darken. “Because words hold power here. Especially names. A name is a claim. A thread of the soul.” She tilts her head, studying me with unsettling intensity. “Give it too freely—or to the wrong person—and anyone can pull on it until you unravel. And here at court,” she says softly, “claims become bargains. And bargains are weapons.”
My mind races, questions colliding. I wonder what color I look like to her now.
