Page 68 of Shadows of Perl

“What did you say? I missed it.”

“I gathered you didn’t want to talk about summer. So I asked if you had any plans for the holidays.”

“The holidays,” I repeat, scanning to find Jordan again. The number of Draguns in the room has doubled. And Jordan is not near the bar or at any of the tables. “Look, I don’t want to date you.”

“Ow.” My partner winces, and I realize my nails are dug into his arm. “My family and I like to spend ours in Aspen,” he goes on.

“Please, shut up.”

To my relief, the tempo of the chorus picks up, and he lets go of me. I turn twice and lock hands with a new partner. This one wears a red vest and wedding ring. Still no sight of Jordan. I blink hard. Maybe I imagined it. Maybe he’s not actually here. With my free hand, I run my fingers across the features of my face and force out a breath.

“Is everything okay?” my new partner asks.

“We’re not talking. Just dance.”

We promenade, moving in step with each other, side by side, our hands linked, when I spot Abby. She and a partner dance toward us as all the dancing couples split into two lines.

“No luck on my end so far. How about you?” I say as she comes close enough to hear me.

“Unless she’s wearing a different face, she isn’t on this dance floor,” she says, stepping backward, the distance between our lines growing. The dance switches; we circle and my partner turns me.

“What about Mynick?” I ask, but she’s already too far to hear me without shouting.

My hand slips from my partner’s, and I search for an opening in the crowd to escape this prison. But I spin and end up back-to-back with my next partner. The music takes on a peppier lilt as it ushers in the final stanza, thank goodness.

Our hands lock behind our backs with an ease that feels familiar. I kick, tapping my feet, left first then right, executing the dance perfectly but still keeping an eye on every server that passes through. Back-to-back, we sidestep, when I spot Mynick returning with another pair of Draguns. My grip tightens on my partner. They’re looking for me. They have to be. That snake! The cry of a violin signals the next move. My partner spins me around to face him. I gaze up into green eyes.

Jordan pulls me tight to his chest.

Twenty-One

Jordan

Fear burns in the girl’s eyes. But their shade of brown seems to silence the sounds in the ballroom. Their uncanny familiarity. She yanks her chin down sharply, watching her feet. I’m not sure what has her frazzled: the pendant on my chest or her worry that she isn’t a good dancer. But she’s quite good. I reach for her chin, to pull her gaze back up, before closing my hand in a fist. I don’t know this girl. I hold her gently against me, following the steps of the music, my body familiar with its rhythm.

The last thing I want to be doing is dancing, but I need to blend in. The song plays on, and the chaos that has wound me in a knot over the last few days eases with each step. It’s been endless: Searching for intel on safe houses that mention anyone who could possibly look like Quell. Combing through Yagrin’s instructions on sun tracking. He really left me high and dry, bailing on that Duncan raid. By the time I got there, one of the residents of the building had been killed. Wearing one of my personas and a stolen law enforcement badge, I cornered the guy inside and managed to bury my dagger in his gut before he hurt anyone else. He was deranged, shouting about all kinds of things: his House’s resurgence, the revenge to be had for all the wrongs done to their House, and how he intended to find Sola Sfenti’s bones and unearth new magic. The Dragunhead’s investigating what exactly the hostages saw before I arrived. The world is unraveling at its seams.

I tried to tell Yagrin about it, but he just wanted to hear more stories of when we were young. Stories I’ve buried. The sleepless nights also don’t help. And Charlie and Yani have been quiet since someone murdered Francis. So tonight, I’m hunting down a suspected financier of safe houses. If Quell’s been in or around them, Audubon would know.

He sits alone in a corner of the ballroom with a briefcase beneath his seat. He is supposedly meeting here tonight with someone. The music peps up, and the next dance is an eight count. My dancing partner executes the moves perfectly, demanding my full attention. I smile. Dancing with someone skilled is so much better…She twirls effortlessly, then folds into my arms for a sway from side to side. She stiffens against me, so I put some distance between us, hoping that will help her relax. But she sticks close, pressing her face against my chest for the next move, and I swallow hard.

“Are you alright?”

She smiles and glances at me for a second; her eyes make me completely forget what I was going to say next. Her arms climb up my shoulders, hooking behind my neck. I hold her waist gently. I haven’t been this close to someone since…I can see her, almost smell her. The music bumps faster, and I skip to it, remembering being tangled like this with Quell, how we wound around to the music with a magnetic synergy as if the song was written for us, each note composed by our beating hearts. Her eyes were the same brown as my partner’s, more breathtaking than a field kissed by sunset and sweeter than honey.

I dance backward a few steps, both of us holding our flat palms one on top of the other behind our backs. And when I look at the girl on the dance floor with me, for a second, I pretend she is someone else.

We rotate, touch elbows, and rotate the other way. Memories of Quell haunt each dance step and shift into the melody. The sounds remind me of her. My dancing partner feels like her. And I let all of it take me until my memories and I are alone in that ballroom. I move faster, beside myself, and miss the next step. It knocks me back to my senses.

My cheeks flush with shame, my heart races. And I can hardly look at the girl. As the music approaches its crescendo, she spins in my grasp one last time, pressing her back against my chest. I hug around her for the final four count before the first dip. She steals a glimpse at me, eyes the color of a satyr butterfly. But as I bring her up, I spot a pair from House of Oralia with artsy painted faces wearing bright teal dresses follow a woman in a dark red suit out a side door, then glance over their shoulders. Perl thinks Oralia is a joke of a House. Now they’re having private meetings? My insides twist. Audubon hasn’t moved. But the ballroom has changed. It’s more crowded. It’s like an ambush. I spot coins on throats everywhere. Draguns. All over this place.

The hair on my arms stands up. No one knew I was raiding here tonight. Charlie hovers near the ballroom entrance. He’s hunched over, as if the bones in his back hurt to move. He’s visibly more frail than the last time I saw him. He scans the room. When he looks in my direction, I can tell he hasn’t been sleeping well either. He is pale and his stare is weary. He takes another look around before ducking out. Is he looking for me? Beaulah? I look for Yani but don’t see her.

The shrill of violins races to the song’s end, and I turn the girl in my arms swiftly, looping her under my arm before bending her backward for the finish. The music ends. The dance floor bursts into applause. She doesn’t breathe, watching me as I set her right on her feet.

“Your eyes, they’re—” But my words are cut off when several things happen at once.

Draguns form up around the dance floor, led by someone I recognize but can’t quite place. The girl, now behind me, is swallowed by the crowd.

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