2.

When Psyke returned to the ballroom, arms prickling, bare with cold and vulnerability, a man's shadow crossed her path, too close to be a servant. Maledicte, she thought, and her fairly trapped. But a glance up and further up still reassured her of that even as her breath caught. This wasn't Maledicte at all, but Maledicte's lover: Janus Ixion, Lord Last, the bastard nephew of the king.

Her smile never faltered, even as Ixion bowed silently, and without a word, or even truly a glance at her, offered a hand.

His eyes were on King Aris, and Psyke, taking advantage of her veil, stared likewise, trying to see what drew his attention. Aris, despite his somber mien and mourning clothes, gifted his nephew with the hint of a smile and the barest drop of a chin. Approval for his choice.

As the dance began, Ixion's attention turned to her, as was only proper, his blue eyes bright behind his simple mask. Psyke dropped her gaze beneath the weight of things unsaid around them: her mother's matrimonial plans and Aris's tacit acknowledgement of such. She flushed as his hand slid warmly around her waist, nestled over the small of her back, and curved around the top of her hip.

Dancing with her sisters was never like this. Even her two fiances had never touched her with such surety, such assumed intimacy. His composure and experience--for surely he must be talented to keep Maledicte so content--seemed far older than his years, made her forget that she was the elder, made her feel as awkward as her first come-out.

"How fares the search for your father?" she asked, when the first long pattern of Gathering Lilies swept them back into each others' arms.

Only after his hands around hers twitched, did she think that it might have been a terrible question to ask. Smile, she reminded herself. Don't speak. If you can, simper.

His grip eased, though it had never come near to discomfort. "Well enough," he said. "They've not found him or his body. With Echo's Particulars scouring the streets, though, it's only a matter of time."

The dance whirled them apart from each other, leaving Psyke with too much time to think on his answer. It had sounded almost as if he were glad Last were lost, regretful that this state of unknowing must end. She darted a glance at the King once more, and found his gaze somber. A tiny shiver touched her. Ixion was Maledicte's lover after all, and if Maledicte was one quarter the villain rumor held him to be, perhaps Ixion's phrasing only represented the most common gossip: Ixion knew his father was dead because his lover had done it, and feared Maledicte's guilt being uncovered.

The refrain came back around and he took her into his arms again, smiling gently. "Aris seems pleased to see you at my side," he said.

"My father served with him during the Xipos war," she said. "An admiral on his fleet. He died on the sea."

"Ah," Janus said. "I know of him then. Admiral Send'em Down. I studied his deeds in Itarus. They do not love him there. His ship killed four of the Itarusine princesses."

"I loved him, what care I for their sentiments?" Psyke said. "And it was only because the Itarusines chose to use noblewomen as shields on their own ships. He had no choice."

"I agree with you," Janus said. "It was war, and he was a soldier at heart. But it does make me wonder--his ship went down in a battle after Aris sued for peace."

Old outrage thickened in her breast, but she had heard all the variants of the rumors before. That Admiral Bellane outright defied the King and sought to prolong the war, that Admiral Bellane had pushed the fight, preferring to die in battle as a soldier than linger on in peace, that an Itarusine captain had chosen to take out the worst of their Antyrrian enemies and never mind the truce, even the rumour that Admiral Bellane had chosen to die asea rather than be ransomed or killed. His papers, so useful to her in other ways, were silent on that last charge, and that lack chafed her.

Hot words flew to her lips, but the bright eyes on hers were empty of malice. His steps in the dance were tight and curbed, holding himself to her pace, so that she seemed possessed of grace for once, instead of a galloping awkwardness. Small kindnesses, she thought, and swallowed the words back.

"Communication on the battlefield is difficult enough," Psyke said instead. "Communication across stormy seas is another magnitude of problem, a matter of flagships and spyglasses and men peering through the storms. Of trained birds that falter in the sharp sea air. My father never knew the war was over."

"I see," Janus said. He released her then, for her elaborate final steps, the swoop and trailing of her gloved fingers above the ground, the little dip that gave the dance its name.

He bowed to her, and she dropped a curtsey, oddly pleased with herself. Olympia would be pleased. Maledicte danced often with Psyke but was unacceptable for marriage. Janus Ixion, though a bastard, was entirely possible. And were Psyke honest with herself, she was not so averse to the idea. Janus was royalty, after all, noble on both sides, even if the birth had been unsanctioned; more, he was gentle in nature and possessed of a calm certainty she envied.

Still thinking of possibilities and looking after him, she was in position to see his face change from blank politeness to white anger and concern. He pushed aside the servant that had spoken to him and disappeared toward a balconet in some haste.

Curiosity, her friend and one-time fiance Dionyses said, was no sin, but a boon. Curiosity and a sense of inquiry raised men above beasts.

Psyke made her quiet way over to the balconet. Clasped in its shadows, overhung by eaves green with winterberries, Maledicte folded into Janus's arms, and kissed him without discretion or restraint.

Psyke's cheeks burned behind her veil. Maledicte's pale hands, more delicate than one would expect from a duellist, tightened on Janus's broad shoulders, clawed into his hair, and when Janus pulled away, Maledicte let out a hoarse moan of frustration and want. His lips were bruised dark, and his mask hung, loosely caged in Janus's fingers.

Tracing the smooth lines of her own lips, Psyke felt a flicker of something that might be envy, or might be fear. Dionyses had kissed her cheeks, her temple, but never more, always so chaste with her. Rue had once kissed her mouth, a sweet mingling of breath, and sworn his devotion.

Psyke fled the balconet doors and discovery. She ducked behind one of the slow, swinging mirrors when Janus entered almost on her heels. His hair had been sleeked back into place, and only a faint ruddy tinge to his lips betrayed his activities.

Her skin prickled and she turned, dropping a tiny curtsey to the man approaching her.

Of course it was Maledicte, and Maledicte in a visible temper, dark eyes narrowed behind the beaked mask, mouth twisting.

"Lady," he said, that uncanny rasp stirring the delicate hairs on the back of her nape. "Give me this dance."

Psyke cast a quick glance back, hoping to see Olympia's attention on her, to see that tiny head shake that denoted disapproval and a reason to say no. No such relief offered though, and so she took Maledicte's hands, allowing him to take her into the waltz.

One silent circuit of the room, and Psyke spotted Olympia and a reason for her chaperone's inattentiveness. The chaperones, clustered together, were watching Mirabile instead, watching with all the wariness of shepherds who found a wolf lounging in their fold. Mirabile leaned close to the debutantes, whispering scandal; a moment later, Lucy's shocked shout of laughter rang out, and was immediately stifled.

"If you hate me so much that you can't be bothered to look at me, I wonder why you agreed to dance at all. Surely no one would fault you for turning me away," Maledicte said and Psyke sighed.

Vanity, she thought. He couldn't bear that she ignored him, though he had no opinion of her whatsoever. As if that were not vice enough, he added impatience to his account.

"Can't you answer me? Or were you never trained to talk and keep count of your steps at the same time?"

"I have younger sisters waiting for me to wed," Psyke admitted. "Mother's considering all options."

His steps faltered a pace. "She can't think to attach me? With my reputation, I thought to be safe from matchmaking mamas at least."

"Oh no, not you," Psyke said, and bit her lips behind the veil. Tact. Maledicte might not want to wed her, but no man liked being dismissed so abruptly.

"Be brave, then. Tell me who your mother would have you marry. She's had all year to pick and choose." Left unsaid, but present in his voice, were all the years that had already passed.

A sudden upwelling of sympathy touched her and she spoke honestly. "She intends me to wed Lord Last." Better for him to know now; Janus would have to marry at some point, and after seeing the way they clutched each other, Psyke couldn't imagine marriage being anything but bitter gall to him. Best to accustom himself to the taste now.

Maledicte's mouth thinned to a line; his voice, already a rasp, narrowed to a venomous whisper. "And she thinks to use Janus's lover to meet him. Does she want me to tell you what pleases him? What makes him sweat and cry out? What his skin feels like under my lips? What he says to me while we're abed?"

Heat washed Psyke, a full choking flush as if she had stepped unawares into a fire. Maledicte's hands screwed tight on her wrists and fingers, and embarrassment gave way to a blaze of pain. Her eyes watered; she whimpered under her breath, a tiny, scared sound that reminded her of mice cradled in cats' paws. Surely he couldn't hurt her here? Not in sight of everyone? But there were no cries of outrage rising, no signs that anyone noticed, or more likely, cared enough to intervene and risk Maledicte's sword turned in their direction. She struggled uselessly in his grip.

He spoke, more venomous whispers that she didn't hear, lost in the rushing waves of pain. Her fingers were numb; her bones ground together and she went limp against him.

His grip eased and shifted; the surcease of pain made her head swim. He spun her in the waltz and she counted measures in her head, trying to estimate how much longer this could go on. Her wrists throbbed; the blood pounded in her head and the room took on the aspect of nightmare.

Finally, the musicians stopped, and Psyke tried to slip away. Maledicte pinned her with a vivid and malevolent gaze and she stopped immediately, taught obedience in that moment of pain.

His grip left her wrist, slid up her forearms, scaldingly intimate on skin unused to touch, and herded her to a quiet cul-de-sac created of hanging mirrors.

He drew her close, put his lips by her ear. "Your mother may want Janus for you. Aris may want the same. But if you take Janus from me--" His breath hissed out at the very thought. "If you take him, I'll kill you. Are we understood?"

Then, only then, did he release his grip on her entirely. She stumbled to her feet, stumbled forward, banging her arm on the edge of the glass and wincing. Olympia's dark skirts showed in her vision and Psyke floundered toward them, wanting to be held, warm and safe against them, as she had as a child.

She wept in Olympia's lap, her veil gone, aware she was making a spectacle of herself but unable to stop. Perhaps it was that awareness that allowed her to see Harriet totter and fall. Perhaps it was simply that Psyke was the only one unmasked in the ballroom at the moment, and her vision was unimpaired.

Harriet, so quiet, even in distress, would never have thought to complain that she was feeling ill, or breathless in her too-tight corset. Psyke scrubbed at the tears on her face, and said, "Olympia--"

The deep tolling of the palace's death bell rang out over her voice, and in its echoes, she thought she heard the distant sound of Haith's steed, riding up from the land of the dead.

Her tears stopped, traded for shock, when the young lady Sweet, on her way to Harriet's side, fell also. No graceful faint, but a headlong sprawl and strange, choked cry. Her slippers drummed the floor for a moment, as if she meant to dance to a tune only she heard, and then ceased.

Chryses DeGuerre's lessons in the schoolroom came back and Psyke knew that the blueness of her lips would never fade, and that the fixed rigidity in Harriet's face, her bulging tongue augured not sickness but sudden death.

As Psyke looked on, her face wet with tears, the other debutantes tottered and fell to the accompaniment of rising panic among the court.

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