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Dru wasn’t sure how to respond. I don’t mind danger seemed flirtatious, and she had no interest in flirting with this jerk. “You must be disappointed,” she said, “finding that the masks have matched you with a Shadowhunter. I am sure you were hoping for one of the gentry fey.”

“It is true I do not much like Shadowhunters,” Byrne mused. He had the voice of a person who had been in charge of something important once, and had never forgotten what it was like. “But the last time I ran into them, it was not unamusing.”

Dru’s skin prickled. “I, myself, am not feeling terribly amusing tonight. I’m sure the twins won’t mind if you find your fun elsewhere than with me.”

“The twins,” he laughed. “Feckless children. Their opinions are of no interest to me. You are more of an anomaly. A Shadowhunter in the Seelie Court. The Prince clearly finds you fascinating, though I’ve no idea why.”

Dru made a face. “Something you faeries never seem to grasp is that just because you can only tell the truth doesn’t mean you need to tell it to everyone all the time.”

He laughed again. For someone claiming to find her boring, he seemed to find her company more to his taste than Dru would have liked. “In the mortal world,” he said, “you have museums, do you not? Where you display the remains of animals that no longer exist. Species that have died out upon your earth. Perhaps Ash thinks of you that way. When every Shadowhunter is gone, you will remain, a glimpse into days gone by.”

Dru’s head jerked up. “What do you mean, ‘when every Shadowhunter is gone’?” she hissed. “What have you heard?”

“Oh, nothing.” His hand in hers was cold. Maybe it was the material of his gloves. “Only that no reign lasts forever.”

“The reign of angels does,” said Dru; she didn’t know where the words came from, but they felt true.

“God trembles in Heaven,” Byrne said, “and his angels are white with the terror of God.” He grinned. “Do you like that? Swinburne, one of your stranger mundane poets. It isn’t true that the reign of angels lasts forever, though. Lucifer was an angel once, and now no more. How great his sorrow was, to lose Heaven.”

Dru frowned. Faeries tended to be fairly ignorant about Christian mythology—but the look in his eyes silenced her question. An unsettling light flickered there, colder than any she’d seen before. She felt a sudden, irrational stab of fear—

A shadow fell over them both. “Lord Byrne,” said a softly drawling voice. “I’d wondered if we’d be seeing you here.”

Ash.

Byrne stepped immediately out of the dance, and Dru followed him. The dancers continued to whirl by, oblivious to the fact that their Prince had appeared among them. He had no mask. In a world of gems and gold, feathers and finery, Ash looked as clean and precise as a blade. He wore black, against which his pale hair and skin contrasted like the silver cross guard of a black sword. His only ornament was a pin at his collar in the shape of a circlet of thorns with a swan in the center.

His eyes were luminous, unreadable, and fixed on Dru.

“I am sure you would not mind if I danced with your partner,” Ash said to Byrne, without looking at him. “There are some things of note I must discuss with her.”

Byrne chuckled his uncomfortable chuckle. His mask dipped as he bowed, the light of the bonfire sparking off his golden horns. “Of course,” he said, and slithered away into the crowd like a snake.

“That,” Dru said, watching him go, “is a very weird man.”

Ash extended his hand to her. Rings of gold and silver gleamed on his fingers. “Not the strangest person my mother has brought into this Court.”

Dru almost hesitated. But what would be the point? She could not refuse Ash, for so many reasons.

When he slid his hand into hers she felt a thrum of energy pass through her. She was suddenly aware, as she hadn’t been before, of the feeling of the night: the breeze on her skin, the dampness of the grass through the thin fabric of her shoes, the silky rustle of her dress.

Ash drew her into the dance. And they glided together, too easily. Maybe because they had been training together, Dru thought, as he set his hand at her back. He was as graceful in this as he was wielding a weapon. She imagined him raising his blade, cutting a seam of silver across the sky. She thought of the beauty of angels, as they truly were: so intense it would blind a human, so painful it would break a mortal heart.

Around them, the revel spun on. At the edge of the lake, lit candles were being placed into baskets of flowers and sent to float on the water. A dryad was enchanting shadows so that they moved separately from their owners, dancing across the grass, bowing when their owners shook their heads, coming closer when their owners laughed. On the raised platform, the twins were eating a bowl of cherries, all of which were pairs. They glowed like small red hearts under the starlight.

They say the Prince has no heart. They say the old King took it.

She wondered if Ash was going to mention that she’d stolen Julian’s drawing from his room. Maybe he hadn’t noticed, or had forgotten he had it in the first place.

“Why didn’t Rathna bring you to me when you arrived?” Ash said. He didn’t sound angry, more curious. “I had to hear from Callen that you were here.”

“She was distracted by the masks, I think,” Dru said. “And finding her partner.” She started to look for Rathna in the crowd, but Ash interrupted her.

“And why did you pick this mask?” he asked, touching the red-and-black domino lightly. His fingers brushed her cheek, the contact brief but deliberate. “It’s not what I would have chosen for you, nor imagined you would choose for yourself.”

Dru wanted to snap that nobody had asked him, but it was true enough that she hadn’t chosen the mask. The twins had picked it for her.

She tilted her head back to look up at him. His eyes were a dark jade green, searching and thoughtful. “What did you think I would have picked?”