Page 19

The mask covered half the face—leaving one eye bare, which made it a challenge—but also was a masterpiece of etched, curling demonic motifs inlaid with tiny rubies glittering at the corners. The bare mouth seemed to dare me to speak lies with painted lips.

Beneath it was a single stark white card:

I’m looking forward to finally meeting you.

—V.

My fingers hovered over the cool metal and velvet. When I finally touched it, a visceral jolt went through me. For a split second, the velvet didn’t feel like fabric. It felt like wet hair. Like a pulse hammering against my fingertips, frantic and terrified, before settling back into the cold material.

I carried the box to Leta in the parlor. She was muttering insults at a rebellious thread that refused to obey her needle.

“Package?” she asked, not looking up. Her attention was solely on her battle.

“Mask,” I said, my voice flat. “From the person who had sent the invitation.”

She froze mid-stitch, the needle suspended. Her voice was a breath of disbelief. “He sent one?”

“He knew what color the dress would be.”

She resumed her work with a sharp, irritated tug, her frown deepening. “He’s clever, that one. Too clever. Dangerous.”

I placed the box on the mantel’s cold stone, the red silk a slash of defiance against the gray. The shadows in the room stirred, agitated by the mask’s presence.

Still waiting for your golden guardian to return, Little Flame? one asked, its voice a mocking whisper that coiled around my ankles.

He’s been gone for too long, another murmured from the depths of an armchair, its tone laced with feigned, sorrowful sympathy. Perhaps he finally grew tired of watching a creature so magnificently determined to destroy herself.

I didn’t answer. The ache in my chest, the one I refused to acknowledge, had become a thing with teeth, gnawing through the walls of my composure.

You miss the judgment in his eyes, one hissed, its voice sharp with knowing malice.

You miss him.

You miss how he looked at you, as if, beneath all the ruin, you were still something holy.

I moved to the window, staring out at the ancient trees, their leaves a blaze of autumn gold. The wind combed through their branches like a patient hand. But there was no familiar silhouette lurking among them. No telltale glint of celestial light.

“Good,” I said aloud, the word a brittle defiance against the hollowness in the room. “He’s gone. Let him stay gone.”

Silence—a heavy, knowing silence—met my pronouncement.

Then a last whisper from the shadows met the air. But for how long, Cassia? How long before the leash tightens again?

The rest of the day spun in a clockwork blur of preparations. Leta fussed, her anxiety manifesting in a flurry of adjustments and muttered warnings. Aldric oversaw the household with his usual calm, his presence a silent, grounding force in the rising tide of my unease.

Leta laid out the crimson gown and the jet-black jewelry like sacred relics. She helped me step into the heavy silk’s embrace as though she was preparing me for a ritual sacrifice, not a corrupt celebration. The fabric clung to my body like water, pooling at my feet in a cascade of crimson. Her fingers, nimble and practiced, moved with deliberate precision.

With the gown in place, she circled behind me, her breath warm against my skin as she began the intricate binding of the corset at my back. Each pull drew a sharp, involuntary breath from me, the dress molding to my form. Her knuckles brushed against my bare back as she tightened the final knot and then smoothed the fabric with a sigh that sounded like a whispered blessing or perhaps a silent farewell.

Without a word, she moved to clasp the jet-black teardrop earrings through my lobes and fasten the antique chain around my neck, the pendant shaped like a licking flame and resting just above my heart.

As she worked, my thoughts drifted to another night, a lifetime ago, when this same dress had clung to me with the same whispered heat. It had maybe been in Marseille, at a covert masquerade for the supernatural elite hosted in a sunken garden beneath the sleeping city. Sera, in her reckless youth, had stolen an invitation. Lysa, my dearest, had pilfered three bottles of soul-wine, its vintage as ancient and as potent as forgotten sins. I had worn this crimson gown for the first time then, its daring slit shocking even that den of iniquity.

Lysa and I had danced barefoot in a ring of wild, laughing witches who sang in forgotten languages, their voices weaving spells in the humid night. I laughed until tears streamed down my face, a release so pure it was almost painful.

Sera, predictably, disappeared into the shadows with some vampire lord who made terrible jokes but possessed an undeniable charm. Lysa and I stayed behind, our mouths stained crimson from the soul-wine and our eyes glimmering with a wild light.

She kissed me. Lysa. Softly, tentatively. A question more than a demand. I gasped at the shocking realization of how easily I had let it happen, how much I had wanted it to happen. Her hand was warm against my cheek, her thumb trailing the delicate curve of my jaw. My back pressed against the garden wall’s rough stones, the unforgiving surface scraping the fragile silk of my gown. I had felt the surprising, welcome weight of her body pinning me there, mischief dancing in her smile.