Page 17 of How to Marry a Winged King

What would my family think, to find me in an enchanted ball gown? Gripped by sudden panic, I tore off my clothing and kicked the glass slippers away. I couldn’t find the tūī-feathered mask, and for a nerve-scratching moment, I thought I’d dropped it on my way through the house, before I remembered I’d left it sitting on the tower. Not ideal, but at least not incriminating. I sank down onto the edge of the bed in my undergarments, breathing hard.

After several steadying gulps, I got up and hid the items deep in the recesses of my battered wardrobe before climbing into bed. It took a long time for sleep to roll over me.

WHEN I CAME INTO the drawing room after breakfast, the atmosphere bristled. Acantha was at her writing desk, making one of her world-conquering lists with furious intensity. My stepmother was scowling her way through the morning’s gossip sheet, the headline of which I could read from across the room: MYSTERIOUS STRANGER STEALS KING’S HEART? It made me want to grin maniacally.

Instead, I adopted a demure expression and poured myself a cup of tea.

“How was the ball?” I couldn’t resist asking with false casualness, despite Rose’s frantic headshaking.

Acantha hissed in a breath between her teeth.

“The masked lady was there again,” Rose said after it became clear that no one else was going to answer me. “The king left with her. No one knows who she is.”

Lady Bloodthorn put the paper down. “I have had messages flying back and forth all morning. No one has heard anything about her.”

“She can’t be a child of one of the houses, can she?” Acantha looked up from her list, where she had detailed the names of her competitors along with their weaknesses. “Which means he can’t marry her, regardless. I don’t know why he’s wasting everyone’s time with this, this nobody.”

“Perhaps that’s why he’s wasting so much time with a nobody,” Rose said, looking thoughtful. “To make a point.”

Acantha made a furious sound. “It’s an insult. Or it will be, to whomever he proposes to.”

“Maybe she’s not a nobody!” I said, more forcefully than I meant to.

Three sets of eyes swung towards me in surprise.

My fingers had curled themselves into fists without my noticing. I hastily uncurled them and tried to sound only mildly interested in the topic. “I mean, if no one knows who she is, she could be anyone, couldn’t she? Anyone pure sidhe,” I amended. “Maybe she’s a sorceress, or, or a princess from another court.”

Rose frowned at me. “How do you know what she looked like?”

My mouth went dry. “Isn’t that how you described her yesterday? I just assumed. What did she look like?”

Rose’s eyes widened, looking past me, and I turned with sudden foreboding. Lord Bloodthorn stood there. In his hand he held the silver mask I’d left on the tower last night. Tāwhiri’s green-black feathers glittered from its edges.

The room sat quiet as Lord Bloodthorn lifted the object to the light. I took a half-step towards him, driven by an indignant objection that the mask was mine, and then jerked myself back, but my movement hadn’t gone unnoticed. His gaze stabbed me. I tried to look as meek and unsuspicious and as generally not-there as possible even as sweat broke out on the back of my neck.

His lip curled, but he turned his cold gaze away from me and back to his real family. I nearly sagged with relief.

How had he gotten the mask? I’d taken off the illusion last night, on the tower, I thought with a thrill of pure fear. Had someone seen me? It had been darkly lit—would they have recognised me as human?

Lord Bloodthorn held up the mask by one of its long feathers so that it swung gently. “This was left by the mysterious lady atop the western tower of the palace last night. His majesty had been picnicking there with her.” He sneered and threw the mask across the table, where it skittered to a stop near Rose.

“Do you know who she is?” Acantha asked, always the boldest of us.

“It does not matter who she is,” said Lord Bloodthorn. “What matters is that it was not you on that tower last night, daughter.”

Rose had picked up the mask and was examining it, frowning. “This doesn’t fit the face,” she said, almost to herself.

My panic, which had begun to ebb, swelled back in full force. I attempted to become one with the wallpaper.

“What?” Lord Bloodthorn barked.

Rose stiffened but lifted her chin. “This mask is made to be close-fitting. It doesn’t match the face of the lady we saw. The angles aren’t sharp enough, the nose too broad and cheeks too round. Almost like a—” Her eyes suddenly widened, and she cut herself off, but not before her gaze had flicked damningly towards me.

“Almost like a human’s,” Acantha finished for her.

It was as if a void had formed around me, dragging in sound and attention both, my entire family’s attention abruptly centring on me in a way it never had before. I smiled weakly out of sheer self-defensive reflex, my mind scrabbling to find the words that would please them, but my brain felt curiously empty, as if the metaphorical void had also sucked all my higher brain power out.

Lord Bloodthorn stalked over to Rose and took the mask from her. “Put this on, Cinders,” he said in a low, dangerous voice.