?I will, she snaps. A female with a darker, sultrier voice. Both of them young, but the male – boy – I’d say is somewhere around my age from his voice.Tomorrow is winter solstice and the Willow of Lore ceremony. It will mark exactly ten years since the willow was created and exactly one millennium since that pr –
?She cuts off mid-word and her aura coils tightly around her like a viper about to strike. My invisible fingers trying to feel her blood within her veins, but like with her aura I cannot feel exacts. She has blood and aura, same with the guy, but I cannotscent anything or feel exact magics or gain an internal image of what they are.
?Someone is listening, the female murmurs. Then with a bit of amusement,Someone who is not meant to be here.
?I am meant to be wherever I please.
?And somehow, without being able to see her, I know she curls her lips up and reveals a hint of her fangs.
?You are meant to be nothing, she whispers, and for some reason it jars me. So much truth in those six words.
?I blink.
?I’m staring at a smooth wall now. The same smooth wall I had seen that is decorated with frost. No alcove in sight, no whispers, no feeling of blood and aura that I can’t touch.
?“Mavyn?”
?I snap my head over to Jullia hesitating at the doorway. She’s dressed in fitted jeans, a knit sweater, and knee high boots. Her curly hair pulled up in a strategically messy bun and her glasses hanging lower on the bridge of her nose.
?“You good. . . ?” she draws out. Her lavender eyes glancing at the section of wall I had been staring at. “You’d been staring at nothing for a couple minutes and Hanna said you didn’t respond when she called your name.”
?Oh. Shit.
?I shake my head and wave my hand in the space between us. “Lost in thought, sorry.” I start walking over to her with a neutral expression, but hers narrows.
?“You murmured something after I said your name the first time.”
?I wince and round her body to enter the ballroom. “Just babbling,” I try as I slow to a stop staring at the ballroom. Drapes and curtains line the ceiling surrounding the giant chandelier in the middle. A mural past them being shown through the slivers of space between the fabrics. Snowflakes and icicles hang below them like they do down the hall.
?Jullia grumbles behind me. “I am meant to be wherever I please,” she repeats. “That doesn’t sound like babbling. Not when your voice didn’t sound exactly like your own.”
?I continue observing the space. The columns surrounding the oval room have carvings up and down them, with the dance floor right below the chandelier with an ornamental floor that outlines where the dance floor ends. The outer reaches of the room full with tables at certain heights so people can sit and dine or stand with their drinks.
?Overall the room is huge. Much, much larger than what the building shown on our maps would be able to hold. I wonder if this building is like Ms. Elaycia’s. The outside looking a certain way but inside it’s much larger than it seems.
?“Mavyn,” Jullia snaps and I give her an exasperated look. She only clucks her tongue at me. “Your eyes are still red too.”
?I twist that fourth key within me so fast it would have given anyone whiplash before waving my hand at her again. “Just an old. . . memory.” She gives me a look and I roll my eyes. “I think I was seeing a memory from that. . . vampyr.”
?Her eyes widen as her brows shoot up. She pushes her glasses up on her nose before linking arms with me and walking us further into the space. Away from the edges of the room and from open ears listening. So far it looks beautiful, like a dark winter wood. White and black with hints of blue.
?“What was the memory?” she whispers as we slowly stroll through the room. Stepping onto the actual dance floor with its intricate design. It’s the only part of the room in warm colors, with the circular space a sort of golden-brown with hints of bronze and brass. The edges wisping into black like smoke and red lines in a specific design go through it.
?I shrug as I stop us so I can tip my head back and look at the chandelier above. “It was nearly ten years after the Willow of Lore was first created,” I whisper back. “The winter solstice was tomorrow and they were having a masquerade ball, the ceremony would have been tomorrow, and two people were whispering about what sounded like the War of Gods.”
?Jullia hums as I bend my head down to look at the floor. The very center free of those red ornamental lines because of whatever design they make up. My throat constricts for a moment as I imagine this place full like I had seen it in that memory.
?People dancing, music playing, costumes and outfits and masks. Jullia had shown me her dress. An all-white gown. Her skirt with fabric mimicking fur because she’s disguising herself as a snow selkie. It basically looks like a white otter. Her white hair she’ll straighten and her mask is something that covers the entirety of her face.
?There’s a tradition a lot of the couples do. A sort of hide and seek. Hunter and prey. Whoever is prey and can make it all the way to midnight before getting caught is rumored to get a wish. Whether the wish is answered is never disclosed, but every year couples still like to play.
?Of course it’s between couples because the prize for the hunter is their prey. The night ending in clothing ripped and heated sex.
?Spinning Jullia around, I pull her arm up so her hand can rest of my shoulder and grab her free hand. She giggles through her surprise and confusion before she realizes what I’m doing and giggles again.
?“No more talk about things out of our control,” I state with a dramatic nod. “Can I have this dance?”
?Jullia slightly curtsies before announcing, “Why of course, my lovely lady.”
