Page 8

Below, smaller but not less confident:

BEAUTY IS BORING.

A woman in nothing but black feathers approached, carrying a silver tray of masks. “Your mask,” she said.

I reached for a plain black lace one at the edge of the tray. Her hand covered mine before I could touch it.

“Not that one.”

“Why not?”

She didn’t wait for my answer. She picked another—white porcelain, gold vines curling around the eyeholes, tiny painted flowers on one side.

Zinnias.

My stomach dropped.

“No,” I said.

Her smile didn’t move. “This one belongs to you.”

“I didn’t request anything.”

“I know.”

She pressed it into my hand anyway. Colder than the room had any right to make it. “Who chose this?”

Her gaze slid past my shoulder into the crowd, and for the first time her smile looked strained at the edges. “The House.”

I followed her gaze and scanned hundreds of masked faces, all turned toward the stage, toward each other, toward everything except me.

Except one.

Alone on the second-floor balcony, he stood watching. Bare chest. Black trousers. A chain hung loose from one wrist. His mask was blackened iron, hammered and scarred, shaped like a devil's face with swept-back horns that curved upward like broken crowns. The jaw hung open in a permanent snarl, the lower half hinged and slightly misaligned, as if it had been wrenched and reset wrong. Narrow brass eye slits cut horizontally across the upper face, the metal worn thin at the edges where pale crescents of skin showed through. The surface was pitted and dented, marked with deep gouges that looked deliberate—claw marks or blade work, something violent enough to leave permanent scars in iron. Leather straps ran behind the mask, buckled tight at the back of his skull. The mouth opening was ragged, the edges filed sharp, and I could see the faint gleam of teeth behind the gap.

He wasn’t moving. Just watching me through those brass slits with an attention so focused it felt like pressure against my skin.

Something tightened behind my ribs, something I couldn’t name and didn’t particularly want.

“Who is that?” I asked.

The woman didn’t answer right away. When I glanced at her, her face had gone pale under her makeup.

“Who is he?”

Her fingers closed around my forearm. “Put your mask on.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s looking at you.”

Almost laughing, I shook my head. “He’s across the room."

“You don’t understand.” Her grip tightened hard enough to leave marks. “Nobody wants Malachi Rusk to notice them.”

The name meant nothing to me, and apparently my blank expression made that clear. I looked back at the balcony and found it empty.

He was gone.