“Stay tonight,” he murmurs.
For a moment, I think he means with him, like with him, and my heart speeds with some combination of desire and dread. Then, abruptly, I remember there’s going to be a party—that’s what he’s asking me to stay for. Those unseen servants, wherever they are, must be preparing the estate. Soon Valerian, my would-be murderer, might be dancing in the garden.
Well, maybe not dancing. He’ll probably be leaning against a wall stiffly, with a drink in his hand, bandages around his ribs, and a new plan to murder me in his heart. If not new orders to murder me from Cardan.
“Your friends won’t like it,” I say, sliding off the table.
“They’ll quickly be too drunk to notice. You can’t spend your life locked up in Madoc’s glorified barracks.” He gives me a smile that is clearly meant to charm me. It kind of works. I think about Dain’s offer to give me a love mark on my brow and wonder idly if Locke might have one, because, despite everything, I am tempted.
“I don’t have the right clothes,” I say, gesturing to the tunic I have on, stained with Valerian’s blood.
He looks me up and down longer than an inspection of my garments requires. “I can find you a gown. I can find you anything you’d like. You asked me about Cardan, Valerian, and Nicasia—come see them outside of school, come see them be foolish and drunk and debased. See their vulnerabilities, the cracks in their armor. You’ve got to know them to beat them, right? I don’t say you’ll like them any better, but you don’t need to like them.”
“I like you,” I tell him. “I like playing pretend with you.”
“Pretend?” he echoes, as though he’s not sure if I’m insulting him.
“Of course,” I say, going to the windows of the hall and looking out. Moonlight streams onto the leafy entrance to the maze. Torches are burning nearby, the flames flickering and wavering in the wind. “Of course we’re pretending! We don’t belong together, but it’s fun anyway.”
He gives me an evaluating, conspiratorial look. “Then let’s keep doing it.”
“Okay,” I say helplessly. “I’ll stay. I’ll go to your party.” I have had little fun in my life so far. The promise of more is difficult to resist.
He leads me through several rooms until we come to double doors. For a moment, he hesitates, glancing back at me. Then he pushes them open, and we’re in an enormous bedroom. A thick, oppressive layer of dust blankets everything. There are footprints—two sets. He’s come in here before, but not many times.
“The dresses in the closet were my mother’s. Borrow whatever you like,” he says, taking my hand.
Looking around this untouched room at the heart of the house, I understand the grief that made him lock it up for so long. I am glad to be let in. If I had a room full of my mother’s things, I do not know if I would let anyone inside. I don’t even know if I would brave it myself.
He opens one of the closets. Much of the clothing is moth-eaten, but I can see what they once were. A skirt with a beaded pattern of pomegranates, another that pulls up, like a curtain, to show a stage with jeweled mechanical puppets underneath. There is even one stitched with the silhouette of dancing fauns as tall as the skirt itself. I’ve admired Oriana’s dresses for their elegance and opulence, but these awaken in me a hunger for a dress that’s riotous. They make me wish I’d seen Locke’s mother in one of her gowns. They make me think she must have liked to laugh.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dress like any of these,” I tell him. “You really want me to wear one?”
He brushes a hand over a sleeve. “I guess they’re a bit rotted.”
“No,” I say. “I like them.”