18
Jagger, as in most things, was right.
The conjurers were coming to dinner.
After the violent destruction of their ancestral homes, Jagger had sent out an army of slipshots to find and deliver invitations to the Bards, the Clarks, and the Wards. The Bards and the Clarks had accepted. The Wards couldn’t be found.
Since the moment Griff, Justice, and I had returned to Hell Gate reeking of anise and smoke, everyone had been in a state of glee-filled terror. It was that sharp euphoria that extended just beyond the edges of fear. It was probably exactly what mice felt when they were clutched in an eagle’s talons, soaring over endless green fields: they’d moved beyond fear and were now blissfully viewing the world from on high. What did it matter that death was only seconds away? They were flying, while every moment before that, they’d merely crawled on the ground.
The euphoric terror had a specific taste. Surprisingly, it was the exact taste of Rou’s cinnamon and clove roast ham, raisin and brown sugar sweet potatoes, and seaweed and vinegar salad. The smells from Rou’s kitchen permeated Hell Gate, bitter seaweed and sweet caramelized sugar, the taste of a mouse’s dying whimper.
Hell Gate, though, had always thrived on the ecstasy of fear, death, and pain, so it wasn’t unusual that the hall and all its denizens would be so aroused. The consensus among all of Jagger’s creatures was that the conjurers would either align with Hell Gate or crush it. Both were terrifying prospects in their own right.
It was incredible that the Bards and the Clarks had accepted Jagger’s invitation. For centuries, conjurers had ignored creatures of mud and blood, figments, spirits, and leggerocks. A conjurer accepting a leggerock’s dinner invitation was like the aforementioned eagle accepting a mouse’s invite for tea. It was just as likely the eagle would eat the mouse as the tea cakes it served.
Jagger wasn’t concerned at all though. His gloating happiness filled Hell Gate in a perfumed fog.
“You see what I’ve done,” he boasted. “Push someone into a corner, destroy all exits, and then kindly open an escape hatch for them? They’ll take it. Every time. In their hurry to flee, they won’t bother to see that the escape hatch leads into a dragon’s open mouth.”
“If we’re the dragon,” I said, tired from a night of fire and sore-hearted from seeing Luvic, “we’d better hope that when we swallow the conjurers, they don’t poison us.”
Jagger laughed. He was in a buoyant, jubilant mood I’d never seen before. “They won’t. I’ve hinted we have the only means to defeat the Smith and retrieve their crown.”
Me.
He meant me.
The smile he gave was full of smug satisfaction.
It left me with a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, like I’d eaten sour yogurt and was going to be sick. It stayed even when I slept, tossing and turning through the morning and the early afternoon. It stayed after I ate a quick lunch in the kitchen and asked Harry the slipshot which families had accepted Jagger’s invitation.
The queasy feeling only left when I found a black silk dress hanging on my door with a note in Jagger’s hand: Wear this.
The queasiness was replaced with cold resolve. Even the terror-tinged euphoria leaking through the halls lessened its hold.
I immediately recognized the dress for what it was.
My unveiling.
I glided down the stone hall in the diaphanous black silk gown, a dark thundercloud sweeping across the gray skies. I hadn’t taken much time to look at myself since becoming a mine. Every time I did, I could only see my dad staring back at me. A Ward. It gave me a strange disjointed feeling, as if I didn’t know myself at all. It was disorienting to see the evidence of someone else in the mirror.
My features had always been forgettable. I was made to be the indeterminate shade of everything and everyone, so I was nothing and no one. How had I described Philoneas? As a boringly average middle-school teacher? It was surprising I’d never realized the connection. I was exactly the same.
The dress flew around me, catching air currents and billowing in sweeping clouds. It was beautiful, which it was supposed to be, but in the way venomous snakes were beautiful.
Strapless. Floor-length. Cut low in a sharp sweetheart neckline that offered my chest to anyone stupid enough to take their eyes off mine. A quartet of silk panels slit to my upper thighs, flowing around my legs, giving tantalizing glimpses of everything.
The silk fell over my skin, caressing me with soft whispers. The last time I’d worn a silk dress, Finn and I had danced. That dress had felt like kisses. Like a prelude to love.
The smooth glide of this gown didn’t feel like kisses; it felt like seductive glide of silk chains as they wrapped around you.
The dress had taken my forgettable, average features, wrapped them in silk, and turned me into an erotic nightmare.
Every creature, living being or spirit, fled from my path. I’d never seen the halls cleared so quickly. It’s interesting what becoming a mine will do.
I wondered if the Clarks or the Bards would be as intimidated. Doubtful.
I held up my hand to knock on Jagger’s door and heard the muffled tail end of his conversation.
