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Blowing out her breath, Margaret returned her attention to the others. She had lost a few minutes to that failed search of her own memory; now, a new influx of dancers was streaming into the center of the room, while the orchestra re-tuned. Despite the eye-bright she had applied earlier, she still couldn’t see anything extraordinary either in the actions of the musicians or in the movements of the crowd beyond.

There had to be something she was missing, but...

“Riven! Good God, man, what are you doing muttering to yourself at the back of the room?” King Thomas’s jovial voice sounded first, breaking through her absorption—and then his big body slammed into her and sent her stumbling forward, crashing onto her knees and pulling Amalie with her.

“Your Majesty—!” Lord Riven’s warning came a second too late.

“What in the world—?” Thomas demanded.

Cursing silently but thoroughly, Margaret threw out her free hand to catch herself on the ballroom floor but kept the cloak firmly wrapped around her right side. To her left, Amalie had kept hold of her own half of the cloak only by dint of kneeling in an uncomfortably twisted position.

Behind them, Thomas continued cheerfully, “I didn’t think I’d had that much joy yet tonight. Did I just walk into that wall without realizing?”

Margaret kept her lips shut but rolled her eyes with deep feeling as she rose awkwardly to her feet. Amalie steadied her with one hand on her arm, but the lorelei’s eyelids remained lowered, her lush mouth pulled into a tight, unhappy line.

Lord Riven said tightly, “Perhaps Your Majesty would like to step to one side?”

“Oh, certainly, certainly. All the better for a private conversation, eh? And by the way, old fellow...” Thomas leaned closer, his tone dropping to a confidential murmur. “You might want to have a quiet word with your lady wife before the next ball circles ’round. I hate to speak out of turn, but the fact is, she laid on her perfume tonight so thick, I can smell it by you even now! Of course, I know you’ve been buried in the countryside for centuries, so you wouldn’t be aware of the current fashions, but just between the two of us, I thought I’d better let you know—that style of scent ain’t meant for respectable ladies. It might give people the wrong impression, y’know.”

“I beg your pardon?” Lord Riven’s tone was positively arctic. “I’m afraid I don’t know, Your Majesty. Exactly what impression do you imagine anyone here tonight might be taking of my wife?”

Oh, for goodness’ sake! Margaret ground her teeth together, enduring the moment in excruciating silence. Could she reach out to pinch her husband’s arm without losing the cloak’s protection?

Before she could make up her mind, Amalie lifted her chin as if to steel herself and then spoke from beneath the sheltering fabric, her voice pained but steady. “It is not Lady Riven that you’ve sensed tonight, Your Majesty.”

“Amalie?” King Thomas’s jaw dropped as he whirled around, gaping.

His body froze mid-turn as the orchestra struck up a familiar, surging melody. That waltz.

The music shuddered through Margaret’s body, fixing her feet to the ground. Black, twisting trees thrust upwards through the ballroom floor to fully enclose their small group. She blinked and blinked again—but either the eyebright infusion had had no effect or else this sinister new forest around them was no mere illusion after all.

Gold and silver leaves dripped from the gnarled branches. The music of the orchestra swept through them as powerfully as the mighty Danube river...

Which seemed like an odd comparison for her mind to make until she felt a sudden touch of clarity:

A different instrument had joined the waltz: Amalie’s voice, just beside her. No wonder the Danube had sprung to mind! The lorelei was inseparably attached to that river, the source of her power and her rebirth. Now, her thrillingly compelling song ran in a low, wordless counterpoint to the supernatural waltz. Amalie’s song didn’t clash with the main melody but ran past it on an independent course, like the current of the Danube as it flowed through the Vienna woods: companionable but never confined to the limits of the trees.

As that new melody ran through Margaret’s body, lightness flowed along with it; suddenly, she found it simple to lift her feet once more. Thank goodness Amalie had come tonight!

The waltz continued, but Margaret turned to her still-singing companion and whispered, “Can you tell where all this is coming from?”

Amalie’s voice didn’t falter or slow, but as she sang, she lifted her shoulders in a shrug and tilted her head in the direction of the orchestra that played the waltz.

No new information there...but now that she was free to move, Margaret started forward with intent, pushing through the all-too-real woodland and tugging a softly singing Amalie with her. When she turned for one last look over her shoulder, she found her husband’s burning gaze fixed in her general direction, but his own feet were clearly still trapped against the floor.

Margaret wasn’t abandoning him by pursuing her investigation, and she knew that with perfect logic...but even so, she felt a deep pang in her chest as she left him there.

Finding the orchestra was easier said than done among this unnatural thicket of trees. Thin, metallic gold and silver leaves scraped against the still upheld silver cloak, but no other guests were anywhere to be seen. It was as if they’d been transported to another realm entirely—and Margaret could only imagine that the effect must be even more intense for every dancer who’d been trapped by the music, hours of movement wearing through their dancing slippers while ordinary clocks ticked off a mere ten minutes outside the supernatural wood.

No wonder this waltz so badly unsettled every powerful man in attendance! Every tattered dancing slipper was a tangible reminder that, whether they themselves had danced or been frozen in place by that eerie music, kings and emperors alike were helpless to the waltz’s will.

It must feel like an open taunt, especially to those who’d already been tempted to declare war only to establish their own supremacy.

Still, this phenomenon really was fascinating. Margaret ducked again and again under gnarled, twisting black branches as she and Amalie quested through the woodland, which stretched much farther than the ballroom had before. Before the waltz had begun, they’d stood a mere twelve feet or so from the first row of musicians; now, she could only follow the aural source of the music in hope of reaching them in time. She was dreadfully aware that time passed differently here; at any moment, the waltz might end and leave her with nothing more discovered.

If she’d harbored any remaining doubts about the tangibility of these sinister black trees, the long scrape left on her right arm would have resolved them; it was sheer frustration that led her to snap off the next branch in her way, rather than any need of further physical proof. She held it braced in her hand as she squeezed herself sideways through the next two tightly-pressed trees...

And found the orchestra at last in a small clearing of their own, surrounded by a circular carpet of fallen metal leaves.