Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) - Jay Kristoff Page 0,111

Everyone in the room raised theirs, save Mia. Tric looked at her, eyes widening. To not toast the consul would invite scandal. Teeth grinding so hard she feared they might break, Mia plucked a glass off a nearby tray and raised it like the rest of the sheep.

“Consul Julius Scaeva!” Marconi cried. “May the Everseeing bless him!”

“Consul Scaeva!” came the crowd’s cry.

Glasses were clinked, drinks quaffed, polite applause filling the room. Praetor Marconi stepped down with a bow and the music picked up again. Mia was scowling behind her masque. Suddenly missing this world, this life, far less than she had a moment ag—

“Do you dance?” Tric asked.

Mia blinked. Looked up at Tric’s masque and the hazel eyes beyond.

“What?”

“Do. You. Dance?” he repeated.

Mia laughed in spite of herself. “Why? Do you?”

“Shahiid Aalea has been teaching me. In case I found myself having to romance some marrowborn daughter or dona of quality.”

“Donas of quality tend to have rather high standards, Bara Cuddlegiver.”

“She says I’m excellent, I’ll have you know.”

The boy offered his elbow. Mia glanced around the room. Empty, smiling faces, hiding the real faces within. These marrowborn bastards dipped in gold and lies. Had she really ever felt like she belonged here? Had this ever been her world?

She lifted her masque and quaffed her glass of goldwine with one swallow. Grabbed another from a passing tray and finished it just as quick.

“Fuck it, then.”

Dunking her burning cigarillo in a passing glass of wine, she took Tric’s arm.

As they stepped onto the dance floor, Tric took her by the hand, his big, sword-callused fingers entwined with her own. Butterflies took wing in her belly as he placed his free hand at the small of her back. Mia swore the music got louder, the conversations around them seeming to dim. And there in the midst of that sea of empty, smiling faces, they began to dance.

It was odd, but with the boy’s face covered, Mia could see only his eyes. Staring up into those big pools of sparkling hazel and realizing they were fixated entirely on her. All the pearls and jewels, the silk and glitter, the opulence on display. These pretty dons and donas all dipped in gold. And still, he only looked at her.

She’d known he was graceful from watching him in the Hall of Songs, but Daughters, for all his other failings in Aalea’s lessons, the boy could dance. For a moment, Mia found herself swept up, cradled in his arms, spun and dipped and swayed as the music seemed to grow louder still and all the world beyond became nothing. For a moment, she wasn’t Mia Corvere, daughter of a murdered house, parched with the thirst for revenge. Not a fledgling assassin or a servant of a goddess. Just a girl. And he a boy. Their eyes blind to all but each other. Aalea’s voice echoing in her ears.

“Enjoy yourselves, my dears. Laugh. Love. Remember what it is to live, and forget, if only for a moment, what it is to serve.”

“Invitations, please.”

Mia realized the music had stopped. The room was silent. She turned, found herself looking at three Luminatii legionaries, bedecked in polished gravebone breastplates. The leader was built like a brick wall. Cold blue eyes looking right at Tric.

“Invitations,” he repeated.

Tric glanced to Mia. Reached into his coat pocket.

“Of course…”

The centurion snapped his fingers, pointed at Ashlinn and Osrik loitering on the edge of the crowd. “Them, too. Anyone with the blood tears.” Soldiers were fanning out among the astonished guests now, singling out the acolytes wearing Aalea’s masques. Hush. Pip. Jessamine. Petrus. Carlotta …

Tric was fumbling in his pocket, brought out only flakes of dust.

“I’m sure I had it a moment ago…”

Mia reached to the hidden pocket inside her corset. But where her invite had been safely stowed, again there was only a handful of dust. As if …

As if …

“As I thought,” the centurion declared. “Come with us, Bara Cuddlegiver.”

Hands clamped down on Tric’s elbow. Mia’s wrist. She glanced to Osrik as Ashlinn was seized by the shoulder. Mia caught a glimpse of manacles, the gleam of steel. The guests around them were appalled that their gathering had been interrupted, Praetor Marconi demanding to know who would dare disturb the peace of his house. But in a blinking, the illusion of that peace all came undone.

Tric grabbed the hand that had seized him, bent back the owner’s arm and snapped it at the elbow. Mia tore a stiletto from her corset, stabbed the Luminatii