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Rare stone, enchanted to life by magic. Ren knew the best blacksmiths in the city needed at least a year of constant work to make one successfully. And she also knew only one in every thirty statues actually came to life. The rest were discarded. Using a priceless statue to dispense towels felt like blasphemy.
Timmons nodded a confirmation. “Statues can only be activated ‘in defense of the city, or the city’s interests.’ I suppose we cannot risk Theo Brood leaving tonight without his ass properly wiped.”
Ren snorted. The sharpness of the sound earned a few glances, but she didn’t care. She could always count on Timmons to help her quietly eviscerate the nobility, even if she was destined to join their ranks before long. “Are you packed?” Ren asked. “The Monroe home will be a step down from this place.”
Timmons waved a dismissive hand. “What is there to pack? The whole point of coming to your house for the holiday is that I can wear the same comfortable clothes the entire time.”
“Are you pretending not to care about fashion while wearing a tailored outfit?”
“I was,” Timmons laughed. “Thanks for calling me out, you sack. It was a gift from the Winters family. Perfect for interviews. And the occasional dance party.”
Ren messed with the frills at the shoulder. “It suits you.”
“I should hope so,” Timmons replied before falling abruptly silent.
Her gaze fixed on something over Ren’s shoulder. A glance showed no one was there, but her friend’s eyes grew wider and wider. It took a moment to notice the tiny red streaks coloring her irises. Like dying flames. So that’s what she’d gone into a back room to do.
“Seriously, Timmons? How much did you take?”
She offered a lazy smile. “Just a little. There’s a gremlin on your shoulder.”
“Lovely. Tell him I said hello.”
Timmons lowered her voice to a whisper. “She says hello.”
And then she cackled to herself, eyes roaming about the rest of the room. It was clearly a dose of dragon’s breath, or the breath. Ren had taken a hit one time, her sophomore year. It was an unpleasant experience. The breath illuminated the unseen world around them. Magical streaks and creatures from other dimensions. It allowed the imbiber to see the world the way dragons had once seen it. Although there was some contention on that subject. A few experts believed users were seeing the illusions that dragons would have wielded as a mechanism to distract their prey. No one knew for sure because the dragons—who were the true first inhabitants of this continent—had long been extinct.
“If you knew how it was made,” Ren said, “you’d never take it again.”
The hallucinogen was created from the corpses of buried dragons. Their decay gave off noxious fumes that could be harvested and refined into inhalable smoke. It was like sipping extinction. Timmons just smiled, though. “The bookshelf is on fire.”
“That’d be a pity. Those are first editions.”
The silence stretched as both of them looked around the room. It was just quiet enough that Devlin’s voice snaked back into Ren’s head. You just have to be right. It’s exhausting. The emotions she’d been keeping carefully bottled must have broken through in her expression, because Timmons slid an unexpected arm around her.
“Let’s dance.”
Even intoxicated, her friend proved rather convincing. Ren took a final swig of her drink before giving in to the summoning. The musicians were picking faster rhythms now as the night pushed on and the crowd of dancers grew. Timmons forged a path, catching glances as she went. Once they’d carved out a space for themselves on the balcony, her friend turned in tight circles, black skirt swishing and catching the moon’s light.
Ren smiled, two-stepping in time with the rhythm. She wasn’t going to turn any heads like her friend, but there was a certain satisfaction in letting her feet pound the floor. She swung Timmons around a few times, laughing merrily, forgetting everything except the music.
It didn’t take long for the crowd to double. Bodies pressed around them. Timmons was quick to sink her teeth into the extra attention, lifting her hands overhead. Ren was about to suggest taking a break when the music stopped. Everyone turned to look.
Theo Brood was making his entrance.
He looked properly smashed already. His collar had been loosened, though Ren guessed not by his own hands. He lifted his glass unsteadily, sloshing liquid onto the nearest scion. Bright hair curled down a pale forehead. Ren didn’t think he looked that handsome, but that didn’t stop Brood from grinning like the world had fallen neatly into his back pocket.
“Everyone!” He shouted the word. “It is—it is past time for my yearly party trick. Remember last year? We gave Kingston those exquisite wyvern wings?”
That was greeted with obnoxious laughter. Ren could never tell if it was forced or not. Did they actually find each other humorous? Or did they laugh to keep up appearances with their future employers? A few students slapped the shoulder of another boy she recognized from her anatomical magic class.
“Tonight I will showcase magic so clever that we’ll have the viceroy’s investigators knocking on the door!”
Theo stumbled forward. Ren couldn’t believe how quickly the crowd parted to make way for him. The sight clawed through her own memories, linking with a moment that could very well have been this moment’s twin. Ren had been much younger then. Another crowd had parted to make way for another Brood. Theo’s father—Landwin. She could still picture his proud strides, the broad shoulders, the self-importance. He’d joined her at the railing of the canal, eyed the wreckage and the bodies below, then called for medics with that gilded voice of his.…
Ren shoved that memory aside before her stomach turned. She swallowed back bile as Theo Brood reached the balcony’s edge and gestured to the waiting musicians.
“Away from there! Come now! Out of the way!”
