“Why is it that no one is questioning a palace that has appeared out of nowhere?” Signa demanded, wasting no time. “No one seems to recognize you as the man who accused my uncle. They only see you as a prince.” Her steps were rigid as she counted from one to three in her head. Signa would be damned if she allowed herself to blunder a simple dance before Fate.
“Human minds are easy to placate.” Again, the golden threads around them glistened. “I can control what they see, what they do… If necessary, I could have everyone forget that Elijah’s imprisonment ever happened.”
Fate braced her when she missed a step, as if he’d anticipated her doing so. Only then did Signa allow herself to truly look at this man. She didn’t care for the heat of Fate’s body, or that touching him made her hands clammy. Still, she appreciated that he was gentle with her, and that he handed his information over easily. It didn’t hurt that feigning the role of a prince didn’t feel out of reach for him, either. His face was one that belonged on the pages of newspapers throughout the world, broad and chiseled in all the right places, with a proud square jaw. He was strong, too, his body firm beneath her fingers. And she couldn’t forget the cleverness in those eyes—always a little squinted, as though he was in a constant state of assessment and perpetually dissatisfied with his findings.
Signa could have sworn she’d seen that look before, though she couldn’t place where.
“Why are you here?” she asked as he spun her.
His answer was too simple. Too relaxed. “I’m here to meet you, Miss Farrow.”
She missed another step, though Fate took her by the elbow and corrected her before anyone could notice.
Signa scowled, trying not to let herself linger too long on his words. It would seem, with increasing evidence, that the man was a true and proper rake with a tongue of silver. “What about your brother? Are you not here for him?”
Fate leaned forward, a mere breath away from starting a new scandal. “I no longer have a brother. I told you already, I’m here for you.”
Signa trained her eyes on his chest, hating herself when she felt her cheeks warm.
The light in Fate’s eyes dimmed when he was unable to catch her gaze. “This song will only play for so long. Aren’t you going to ask why I’m here for you?”
“No.” She had no intention of falling for his tricks, and certainly not when there were more pressing matters. “I want you to leave Blythe alone. The price for her life has already been paid.”
“Yes, by a man who had ten more years left on this earth. Believe me, I’m aware.” Fate’s grip tightened, and though he didn’t show it, she could feel a storm raging inside him. “There is a ripple effect when you toy with a person’s fate. Why don’t you take a guess who’s left to deal with the repercussions.”
Signa’s skin burned beneath his sweltering touch. “I promise you that she’s worth our effort. Mine and yours.”
He puffed an amused breath from deep in his chest. “No one is worth that much.”
“I don’t believe you mean that.” She gave no thought to what she was saying, the words pouring from her even as Fate’s expression went taut. “You can’t tell me that there’s never been someone you would do anything for. That there was never anyone you believed was worth it.”
The music crashed to a halt. All around her, bodies slumped forward, bent at the waist like puppets with their strings cut. The walls flickered, the facade splintering to reveal glimpses of bare gray stone webbed and cracking. Signa shot a panicked look through the crowd in search of Blythe, but her cousin was nowhere in sight.
Fate took a breath, then tightened his hold on Signa as the music started once more. Immediately, the crumbling stone disappeared, replaced once more by gilded amber as bodies snapped upright like tin soldiers and twirled without any sign that they’d ever stopped.
“What exactly did Death tell you?”
“Only that you once loved a woman,” she said in a rush, staring at the walls as they flickered from gray to gilded, “and that he had to take her.”
“Well, that’s a start.” Fate’s laugh was the grate of carriage chains dragging over cobblestone. “But I’m afraid that barely scratches the surface, Little Bird.”
Chills rippled through her, and Signa had to fight every instinct telling her to pull away. “Don’t you dare call me that. He was about to tell me more, but you took away his ability to speak with me. Didn’t you?”