“Not as good a time as my sister.” Alyx took a deep swill from his own cup. “You and Yvette make a handsome couple on the dance floor.”
Elm’s smile did not touch his eyes. He hadn’t said one word to Yvette Laburnum during their dance. He rolled his shoulder, Alyx’s hand dropping off his back.
“She’s hasn’t shut up about you since we arrived,” one of the idiot younger brothers said. “Not that she shuts up much at all—”
Sentence half-finished, the boy’s eyes drifted over Elm’s shoulder. His brothers did the same, their jaws slackening. When Elm turned, Ione was standing under the archway, framed by candlelight and silk and sweeping garlands. She looked like spring—an Equinox goddess.
Her hair was parted to the side, a few strands tucked behind her ears. The rest was loosely spun behind her head, fastened by a pearl-studded pin. Sheer, delicate sleeves caressed the soft lines of her arms. And the neckline of her gown plummeted in a deep, ruinous V, revealing the long, beckoning line between her breasts. The bodice held her like a glove, kissing over her waist and down to her hips, where it was met with a flowing, lavender-pink skirt.
Ione cast her gaze over the crowd, passing Elm, then hurtling back. The muscles in the corner of her mouth twitched. She took her hands in her skirt and lowered to a curtsy, exposing even more of that heart-stopping neckline.
Elm ran a hand down the back of his neck, shoved the goblet back at Alyx, and headed straight for her.
She waited for him between the columns. When Elm offered his hand, she took it, and that thing between them—the thread, the unquiet ache—began to pulse.
“You’re late,” he said, his finger toying with the cuff of her sleeve.
“I know. I was in the dungeon.”
Elm’s gaze shot up. “Why?”
“To see my father.” She looked away. “He’s alive. Frostbitten like Uncle Erik, but alive. I asked him if he’d seen me on Equinox with Hauth—if he knew where my Maiden Card might be. He didn’t. But he had seen Hauth and me dancing that night. He’d known I was too drunk to be alone with a man—and done nothing.” Her eyes glazed over, unfocused. “I shouldn’t be surprised, now that I know what he did to Elspeth, that his fear of offending a Rowan was greater than his desire to keep his own daughter safe.”
Elm raised her hand to his mouth. Whispered over her knuckles. “I’m sorry, Hawthorn.”
Her gaze came back into focus. “People are watching us.”
So they were. When Elm glanced over his shoulder, half of the faces in the great hall wore the practiced look of watching but not watching—listening but not listening.
He didn’t bother to mollify them with a smile. He was tired of all the pageantry. “Let them look,” he said, lowering Ione’s hand to his chest. “Dance with me, Hawthorn.”
“Aren’t you meant to be wooing Blunder’s daughters?”
“I intend to. One, in particular.” Elm’s voice grew quiet. “Please, will you dance with me?”
Her eyes were guarded. “All right.”
The song was an easy pace. When they entered the line of dancers, Elm’s other hand slipped across Ione’s hip and over the small of her back, guiding her to the sway of the music.
“Reach into my tunic pocket,” he whispered in her ear. “Left side.”
A ghost of a flush kissed her cheeks. She dipped her hand into his tunic. When she pulled out the Nightmare Card, a hum sounded in her throat. “Thief.”
“More than you know.”
Her skirt bushed against Elm’s leg when he turned her. “Won’t they be missing it in Hauth’s room?”
“Probably. Though I doubt anyone will bang on my door, asking for it. I’m the heir. The list of people who might reprimand me grows short.”
Ione pinched the Nightmare Card between her thumb and forefinger. “Those yellow eyes…” She pressed the Card to Elm’s chest. “Use it. Go into my head. See if you can find the Maiden Card.”
He spun her, dipped her. “What, here?”
“Why not?”
“It takes focus to use a Nightmare Card. And you, in that dress—”
“How would you know what it takes if your father never had a Nightmare until Equinox?”
A coy smile lifted the corners of Elm’s mouth. He spun the Card between deft fingers, then—prestidigitation—disappeared it into his sleeve. “There are two Nightmare Cards, are there not?”
For a fleeting moment, a flicker of something—not quite warmth, but nearly—touched Ione’s scrutinous gaze. “The more time I spend with you, Prince, the less I seem to know you.”
“That’s not what I want.” Elm twirled her away, then pulled her back into his chest. “I want you to know me very well, Ione Hawthorn. Which is”—he dipped her again, bowing over her and speaking against her throat—“a rather horrifying feeling, if I’m perfectly honest.”
The apples of Ione’s cheeks rounded. Elm thought she might truly smile. He held his breath, waiting for it. But then she blinked, and her face was without expression, perfect and stone smooth. Unreadable—unreachable.
He was so sick of the Maiden Card.
The song ended on a flurry, and then Elm was leading them away, back to the other side of the columns, away from the crowd. He looked left and right, but Stone was crawling with courtiers. Even the gardens, even the stairwell.
He could take her to his room, or the cellar again. Somewhere private. But for a reason he wasn’t ready to tell her, Elm wanted them to be seen together—for people to get used to the heir of Blunder, leaning a whit too close to Ione Hawthorn’s face.
He dug through his pocket, retrieving his Scythe. He tapped the red Card three times, focusing on the orchestra. Louder.
The music swelled, instruments sounding with new fervor. “So that no one will hear us.”
Ione leaned against the column, autumn air flittering in through the garden door, catching in her skirt. “Will it hurt,” she said, her gaze dropping to the Nightmare Card, “when you enter my mind?”
“No. I wouldn’t have brought it if it did.”
She closed her eyes. “Go on, then.”
Elm tapped the Nightmare Card three times and fell beneath its salt tide. He’d only used Ravyn’s Card a handful of times, but it was enough like the Scythe to know how to urge the magic outward—into a person. He had no trouble fixating on Ione.
He pushed the salt over her. When he spoke, it was with a closed mouth. Hawthorn.
She jumped. “Should—” Her lips snapped shut. Should I think about Equinox?
Yes.
Ione drew in a breath. Let it out. And then Elm was not seeing her anymore, but her mind. Her memories.
He was Ione, and Ione was in the throne room, looking up at the dais. The King sat in his throne. On his right, tall and broad and unbroken, was Hauth.
“You have done your kingdom a great service, Tyrn,” the King said, an empty goblet in his left hand and the Nightmare Card in his right. “This Card has been lost for many years. Name your price and it shall be yours.”
A hand gripped Ione’s arm. She looked up at her father, but his gaze was on the King, wide with anticipation. He led her closer to the dais. “This is my daughter, Ione. She is amiable.” Tyrn pulled her in front of him and pushed her a step forward. “And unwed.”