Page 111 of The Fallen Kingdom

Two days later it is the night of the debutante ball.

The night Sorcha killed my mother.

“What on earth has you so agitated?” Mother says as she helps me into the dress. This should be my maid’s job, but tonight my mother insisted on helping me herself. Just as she did last time. She is wearing the gown I remember: the silk fabric dyed such a light pink that it’s almost ivory. An unusual color for an Edinburgh matron, but it complements her pale skin and her upswept ginger hair.

The last time I saw that dress it was covered in blood.

Crimson suits you best.

I flinch. “What if we don’t go?” My hand is trembling as I smooth my dress. “Would that be all right?”

Mother smiles at me like I’m being silly. “You’re nervous, aren’t you?”

“No. Mum—”

“There.” She does up the last button and steps back to inspect me. “You look so beautiful. I have just one last thing and it’ll look perfect.”

Mother walks over to the dresser and picks up a wool bundle. My heart pounds when I stare at the familiar fabric.Please no.

She opens it up and there, nestled in the wool, are the familiar stalks of blue thistle.Seilgflùr.

My heart roars in my ears and my vision tunnels. I stare at the flower and memories flash in my mind.

My mother in the street, dress soaked through with blood. How I pressed my hands to her empty chest as if I could put her back together again. As if I could give her a heart—at that moment, I would have given her my own.

“Isn’t it lovely? It’ll be the only color on you.”

It’ll be the only color on you. The only color.

I jerk away from her, almost smacking into the vanity table. “Where did you get that?”

Mother looks slightly taken aback by the force of my words. “A woman gave them to me.”

A woman. Not a man. The first time, Kiaran gave them to my mother for my protection. She wove them into my hair and their power allowed me to see Sorcha.

“Who? What did she look like?” I’m aware of the terror in my voice, but I can’t tamp it down.

Mother looks alarmed. “I don’t recall. Why does it matter?”

Sorcha said she’d make the same choices again. She’d kill my mother again. She made it clear she wasn’t earning my forgiveness. And I’m not a Falconer anymore. I don’t have any powers to fight her.

I’m just human.

Now the question is: Who was the woman? Was it Sorcha, or Aithinne?

“Aileana? Why does it matter?” she asks again.

“It doesn’t,” I say quickly. “It’s nothing.” I’ve lied to her so many times. About me. About everything. “I promise, it’s nothing.”

My stomach is in knots for the rest of the night. By the time we leave for the Assembly Rooms, I’m shaking so badly that I have to wind my reticule around my wrist or I’ll drop it. My heart is slamming against my rib cage; I’m surprised no one else can hear it.

As we queue up at the front doors, my mother laughs and tells me that it’s all right to be nervous. But I’m not nervous. I’m bloody terrified. I barely manage a nod when other people greet me. I don’t pay attention to the dresses all around me, or the men dressed in fine eveningwear. It’s all a blur of color, a burst of laughter and violins amid my panicked thoughts.

My memories are flashing too fast. The songs are the same. The dresses are the same. It takes the same number of steps to reach the ballroom doors and the same damn song is playing when we enter.

When my name is announced, I barely hear it over my heaving breaths.

A hand grasps my arm and gently but firmly leads me out to the center of the dance floor. I inhale the scent of cigar smoke and whisky. “Come along,” Father says.

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