I pressed a hand to my ribs, feeling as if my lungs didn’t have room behind my bones. What he was saying couldn’t be true. If Isolde was Holland’s daughter …
A group of women floated past us arm in arm, talking in hushed whispers as they made their way to the back of the room. Zola drained his glass, setting it down on the case between us and I wiped my brow with the back of my hand, feeling dizzy. Everything suddenly looked as if we were underwater. I needed air.
When I tried to step past him, he caught my arm, squeezing. “What do you think you’re doing?”
The man beside us looked over his shoulder for just a moment, his eyes landing on Zola’s grip on the sleeve of my dress. “Get your hand off me,” I growled through clenched teeth, daring him to make a scene.
I wrenched my arm free and gave the man a timid smile before I stepped into the aisle of cases, Zola’s hot stare pinned to my back. Zola was a liar. I knew that. But there was some uneasiness that had lifted within me when he’d said the words. I searched through the candlelit memories I had of my mother. Of her stories. She’d never told me anything of her parents. Nothing of her home.
But why would my mother leave this?
I looked around the room, biting down on my lip. In every direction, people laughed and talked, at ease in their fancy clothes. But no one seemed to notice how much I didn’t fit in that dress or in that room. The hall was filled with the songs of the gems, resounding so loud that it made me feel off balance. No one seemed to notice that either.
I drifted past the cases, my eyes flitting over their glass tops, and stopped short when the melody of the stone in the next case caught my ear. It was one I’d only ever heard once.
Larimar. I stilled, listening. Like the ringing call of birds or the whistle of wind in a cavern. It was one of the rarest gems in existence. And that was the point. This gala wasn’t just a party. It was a display of wealth and power.
The slide of a hand moved over my hip, hooking my waist, and my fingers immediately went for the knife inside my skirts. The cava splashed from my glass as I whirled and I pressed the tip of the knife into the crisp white shirt before me, pulled over a broad chest.
But a scent I knew poured into my lungs as I inhaled and looked up into green eyes, the glass shaking furiously in my hand.
West.
FOURTEEN
I sucked in a breath, swallowing down the cry in my throat as I stared up at him. His gold-streaked hair was combed back from his face, the color of his skin aglow in the candlelight. Even the sound of the gems quieted, snuffed out by the violent winds roaring inside of me.
West reached up between us, wrapping his hand around the handle of the knife in my hand, and I watched him swallow, his eyes changing. They were weighed down by dark circles, making him look worn and thin.
I took hold of his jacket, crumpling the fine fabric as I pulled him toward me and pressed my face to his chest. I instantly felt as if my legs would give out beneath the heavy dress. As if I were going to sink to the floor.
“Fable.” The sound of his voice summoned the pain under my ribs again, and my heartbeat kicked up, my blood running hotter in my veins.
Something in the back of my mind was whispering in warning. Telling me to look for Zola. To pick up my skirts and run. But I couldn’t move, leaning into the warmth of West, afraid that he would disappear. That I’d imagined him there.
“Are you all right?” he breathed, tilting my face up to look at him.
I nodded weakly.
He took the glass from my hand and set it onto the case beside us. “Let’s go.”
And then we were walking. The eyes in the room drifted toward us as we passed, and West’s fingers wound into mine. I let him pull me through the crowd, toward the night sky cast beyond the open doors. I didn’t care anymore about what plan Saint and Clove had. I didn’t care if Zola was watching or whether it was true what he’d said about my mother.