—The Book of Holy Law, Tract 856 （green text, spoken directly by Apollius to Gerard Arceneaux）
Twenty minutes later and ten until eight, Gabe opened the door again, just as Lore was dragging a comb through her hair. “Give me a second,” she said, twisting it into a messy braid and winding it around her head. The bag had held a handful of jet hairpins; she stuck them in the braid to hold it in place and only stabbed her scalp once.
He didn’t say anything, didn’t relax his pose. Gabe’s shoulders nearly took up the width of the doorframe, solid and straight. He’d evened out whatever apprehension had made them crooked before. A harsh sound; his throat clearing. “You look…”
She looked good, and she knew it. The gown fit perfectly, as if it’d been made for her, and the lack of ornamentation or jewelry suited it just fine. Lore resisted the urge to twirl. She’d done it a couple times before he opened the door, but as satisfying as the swirl of skirts had been, it felt somewhat morbid, what with an impending doom ritual. Instead, she ignored Gabe, nodded at her reflection in the spotted mirror, and approached the door. “Let’s get this over with.”
But he didn’t move. Gabe blocked the door, looking down at her with an expression that seemed to hover somewhere between determination and pain. She met his gaze, tried to keep her own expression from saying anything at all.
“I’m going to keep you safe,” he murmured. “You can trust that.”
“I can’t trust anything,” she said lightly, and there was no waver in it; she wouldn’t give him wavering. Lore nodded to the door. “We’re going to be late.”
He stood there a moment longer, looking for words and not finding them. Finally, Gabe turned and offered her his elbow, the same way he’d done when they were newly arrived and dressed like foxgloves, headed to Bastian’s masquerade with no idea what to expect.
They walked into the hall. They were silent.
In a twist of dark irony, the eclipse ball was taking place in the same atrium that Bastian and Lore had crossed through on their way to the catacombs. A long table stood at one end of the glass room, nearly covered by the leaves of poisonous flowers, though the plants stood far enough away so as not to be a danger to the wine fountain burbling in the table’s center. Silver chairs were placed next to the gleaming windows, clustered for ease of gossip. A string band was stationed in the corner, playing a lively song for the spinning dancers in the center of the floor. There were far more guests than Lore had expected, enough to make the large atrium feel crowded.
She recognized Cecelia in the corner, though she didn’t appear to have any poison tea at this particular party. Next to her, Dani, along with another blond woman who had to be her sister. Amelia, Lore remembered. The blond woman’s eyes tracked to Lore as soon as she entered the room, then darted away, but Dani didn’t avert her gaze even when Lore met it.
It hurt more than it should, to know that she’d been working for Anton from the beginning, that all her overtures of companionship had an ulterior motive. Unfair of Lore to judge for that, all things considered, but the hurt remained as she tore her eyes from the other woman. Briefly, she wondered if Alie was in on it, too, if all the tentative friendships she’d made here were predicated on eventual betrayal, an even shakier foundation than she’d assumed.
Lore made herself stop thinking of that. She didn’t have the time or the energy for it now.
August’s throne wasn’t helping the crowding issue. It wasn’t the huge one from downstairs—instead, a travel throne stood on a wooden dais at the front end of the atrium, wrought in woven strands of gold and silver. At the top, a sun and moon hovered over each other, held up by threads of precious metals so thin they were nearly invisible.
The Sainted King himself looked oddly stoic for a party. Stoic, and even worse than the last time Lore had seen him—his face gaunt, his eyes set back in darkened hollows, the skin beneath them bruised. He watched Gabe escort Lore inside but didn’t acknowledge them, his face drawn in thought.
He appeared to be the only major player here so far. There were no Presque Mort, no Anton, no Bellegarde, though Alie was among the spinning dancers. This seemed like any other party, and the normalcy made Lore’s dread go from a slink through her middle to a slow spiral in her chest.
Lore looked for Bastian, hoping he was here even if his captors weren’t. She didn’t see him. Nerves made her hand twitch—Gabe tightened his elbow around it, as good as a vise.