Page 23

A violin thrummed, lush and slow, guiding dancers into measured waltzes. Dresses swept the marble like whispered sins. Masks tilted. Goblets raised. Eyes gleamed. Through it all, threading the crowd like a gathering shadow, he came.

I turned to step toward the dance floor as an imposing figure blocked my path. The coldness of his body brushed my bare shoulder, too close for a stranger. His scent then struck—amber, smoke, and something colder like winter buried under velvet. My breath caught, and for a heartbeat, I was frozen.

“Welcome, Ms. Flame,” his voice said, playful.

Slowly, Valden circled me until he stood at my side. A black trench coat embroidered with shifting gold sigils framed him. Beneath it, a night-silk waistcoat and a silver chain gleamed like a captive promise. He was not the tallest nor the most adorned, yet all eyes bent to him. His silver-white hair fell in a pristine curtain, parted by the strap of his black metal mask, which was shaped into a snarling beast with spiraling horns and crowned by delicate chains.

But he just watched, savoring the silence before the storm.

Finally, he offered his hand, his palm up. A deceptively courtly gesture.

When I hesitated, my shadows trembled, whispering, He found you. He was always coming.

One voice, which sounded terrifyingly like a distorted echo of Lysanthe screaming, whispered back, So were you.

I placed my hand in his, and his fingers closed over mine. He brought my hand to his mouth slowly, giving me time to pull away, but I didn’t. I didn’t even want to. His lips brushed my knuckles, showing the faintest graze of a fang.

His words fell against my skin like honey. “Welcome to my humble home, Miss Vex. I am Valden.”

The music shifted as soft strings blended into a haunting waltz, its richness causing the chandeliers to tremble. Beneath my heels, the floor seemed to hum, vibrating.

He extended another gloved hand toward me, an offering that felt less like an invitation and more like a sin. “Shall we dance, Miss Vex?”

The ballroom had already parted around us, an unspoken circle forming in the center as if the carousal itself bowed to his presence. I did not want to move. A strange gravity had rooted me to the spot, a resistance I did not understand. My limbs felt heavy, and a voice that was not my own—a voice that sounded terrifyingly like Lysanthe whispering through water—told me to lift my hand. To take it. To surrender.

Valden’s gaze was a physical weight, a pull I could not resist.

He guided me forward with effortless ease, each step seamless on the polished marble. We slipped into the current of the waltz, and his hand settled on the lower part of my back, commanding yet reverent.

I should have cared, should have resisted the dizzying pull of his lead. But I instead found myself noticing how my pulse skipped beneath his touch.

“You wear a frown like perfume,” he said, his voice low.

“It keeps away the things I don’t want to get too close,” I said, after finally finding my voice somewhere in the depths of my muddy mind. It came out sounding hoarse and breathless.

“It seems I need a stronger scent for you.” Then his gaze flicked over the mask, a flash of clinical satisfaction in his eyes. “Though I must say the accessory suits you. It seems to bring out a certain…pliability I hadn’t expected.” He smiled, a slow, devastating thing.

We spun once, and the ballroom blurred into a carousel of masked faces and spilled starlight. I caught fleeting glimpses of horned fae laughing behind gilded fans, witches with serpent tattoos coiling up their bare shoulders, and vampires sipping garnet wine, but all of it receded into a distant hum. It was just us, and the intensity of it was almost too much. I met his gaze through the mask, and those stormy eyes locked onto mine. The gloved fingers at my back tightened, guiding me deeper into the swirl.

“Why am I here, Valden?” I asked, forcing the words past a dry throat.

He turned me into a slow, precise twirl, my gown fanning out like a bleeding rose. “Because I wanted you to be.”

“Not good enough,” I snapped.

His laughter softly rumbled—a sound meant for private ears.

We circled again, skirts brushing the polished marble, and breathed air thick with perfume and candle smoke. The golden light fractured with our every move, and his presence pressed tighter around me.

He leaned in, close enough that the glint of his mask brushed my hair. “Give me two hours,” he said, his voice like a velvet-draped iron, “and I will tell you everything.”

I blinked. And for the first time, I realized something was wrong. Not overt danger but a heaviness settling over the world. It was as if the air had thickened with syrup, slowing my thoughts.

“You expect me to wait like some naive mortal you’ve bewitched with red wine and compliments?” I said, biting the words out.

He smiled again, wider this time. “Not at all. I expect you to wait because you’re curious. And because you know I’m not the only one watching you tonight.”

He spun me then, a dramatic dip that should have earned applause. My hand braced against his chest instinctively. Beneath the tailored fabric, I felt no heartbeat, no breath. Only that terrible stillness, beautiful and awful.