Page 50 of Where Shadows Bloom
Madeleine swept up my hands and pulled me into position. All the dancers had paired themselves into two lines, so Madeleine placed herself across from me.
The first song began, lively and bright. Madeleine swept her right arm through the air, so I did the same, a bit delayed compared to the other dancers in my row. She leapt, I leapt. She twirled, I twirled. She swept me nearer, until we were only a foot apart.
“You’re an excellent pupil,” she said to me.
I laughed and hurried to step back with the rest of the dancers. “Just wait until I’ve stumbled and knocked you over like a ninepin.”
As I twirled in place, I could hear her chuckle. “It’s an honor to be your ninepin, then!”
We reunited in the middle of the dance floor.
“This part’s a little difficult,” she hastily said. “Put your left hand behind your back—good.” Madeleine slipped her right arm behind my back so she could hold my hand. She instructed me to do the same to her—with my other hand, I held the hand behind her back.
“We’re like a knot,” I remarked.
“Exactly. Now, we turn.”
With our tangled arms, just like all the other dancers, wespun in a slow circle. When I turned my head, Madeleine’s eyes met mine, and my heartbeat quickened.
It was just a dance. But we were so close.
I closed my eyes for just a second. In my mind, the entire ballroom changed, cloaked in beautiful darkness with only spare candles glowing like starlight. And Lope was here, dancing with me, smiling down at me, dressed in a beautiful silver suit.
I didn’t think you liked to dance, I would say.
She’d reply,You never asked.
“Ofelia?”
Madeleine’s voice shocked me back into awareness.
Gods. I was standing in the middle of the dance floor, unmoving, while the other dancers carried on.
“I—excuse me—” I pulled away from her, running off the dance floor and onto the gravel, my face burning.
Footsteps pattered against the gravel. Madeleine. She touched my arm with a kind smile. “It’s all right,” she said. “Dancing is difficult for everyone the first time.” She shook her head at me, something understanding in her eyes. “They say you grew up in the countryside? That you didn’t even know the king was your father?”
“That’s right,” I murmured.
“You must feel rather lost.”
I laughed bitterly. “I feel as though I’m drowning.”
Her hand slid down my arm until her fingers wove withmine. My body shivered involuntarily.
“Come with me,” she said. “Some food and conversation will lift your spirits.”
She pulled me over to a small table covered in marzipan pastries. I nibbled on a pastry while she asked a passing servant for sparkling wine.
Madeleine rested her head upon her folded hands like I’d seen Lope do when she played chess. “So, Ofelia, as a resident of Le Château, you must first learn how to be a good gossip,” said Madeleine, a mischievous smile on her face. “Do you have any stories for me?”
My heart thrilled. This was the information I longed for; the sort of information Lope had asked me to uncover. And there was one question in particular that hadn’t left me.What had happened to the missing woman? The marvelous singer who vanished?
“I—I heard something about a woman disappearing?” I asked faintly. “A singer, I think?”
A wide grin crossed her face. “Françoise, you mean?”
I nodded—though I couldn’t fathom why a girl’s disappearance would make hersmile.
