Page 22 of Where Shadows Bloom

7

Ofelia

Dressed in our finery, Lope and I breathlessly stood in a queue of courtiers entering the ballroom. My heart was fluttering like a butterfly trapped in my chest.

I curled my fingers tighter into the hard muscle of Lope’s arm. With her other hand, her thumb grazed against my knuckles. All the warmth in my body rushed into my cheeks as I met her gaze. Could she tell by looking at me how tender my heart was toward her? Or that I knew about the beautiful words she’d written—possibly about me?

“I’ll be beside you all night, I promise,” she said.

Relief washed over me. She was the steady ground I could rely upon, always.

We had survived the Shadows. A party would be a trifle.

We entered into a hurricane: dancers spinning in skirts of blue silk like crashing waves, their sapphire-suited partners whirling them around and around in the storm. Above it all soared beautiful music, light and chirping, fifty times louderand fuller and lovelier than the lone harpsichord my mother played at our manor.

The thought of my mother stung me, and I breathed steadily through it. I couldn’t be afraid now. I had to find her.

Mother will be just around the corner, I tried to tell myself.We will find her, and everything will be back to normal.

I carefully removed my hand from Lope’s arm to smooth my skirts. Just like the others did, I held my shoulders back and my head high and confident. I dove into the current of courtiers standing at the edge of the dance floor.

“Excuse me,” I said, locking my gaze with the first person who looked in my direction—a lady about my mother’s age with golden paint on her eyelids. “Excuse me, madame, I’m looking for my mother, Mirabelle de Bouchillon? She looks like me. She’s a little taller than I am....”

The woman turned away and carried on her previous conversation.

I asked another stranger and another. When I said Mother’s name, the partygoers gave me the same confused stare. Even Lope, who’d rather fight monsters than attend a party, was willing to ask a courtier or two whether they’d heard of Mirabelle de Bouchillon.

“Her Ladyship arrived only a few days ago, we believe,” said Lope to a viscount in a cerulean suit.

The viscount shrugged helplessly. “I’m sorry, mademoiselle. A new arrival like yourself always brings new gossip to the court. I’d certainly know if she had arrived.” He pointedbehind us, past the dancers and past tables stacked high with fresh fruit and pastries. “The salon des jeux is that way. Ask at the gambling tables. If there’s any news, they’ll have it.”

We thanked him profusely and tore through the ballroom. In our mad dash, I caught a quick glance of extraordinary beauty—the ballroom’s ceiling, a massive painting of the thousandfold gods in their finery, each with their face turned from the dancers swirling on the parquet below.

Please look at me just this once, I begged the divinities.Help me find her. I’ll be the most obedient daughter, I promise.

The adjoining chamber was more intimate. There were a dozen tables with a dozen different games, and courtiers all around, laughing and shouting and clinking their bags full of coins. The faint haze of pipe smoke swirled around us. That and the perfume and the cologne and the sweat and the spice-filled pomanders made my senses reel.

“You there!”

I started and whirled on my heel toward the voice. Quickly, I scanned each of the gamblers, looking for the chestnut brown of Mother’s hair or her turned-up nose or the way she’d tilt her head when calling to me....

“Coucou! Mesdemoiselles!” called the lady with her hand aloft. She had sapphires and diamonds placed delicately among her scarlet curls. “Come here, come here!”

Hand in hand, Lope and I drifted toward the noblewoman and her friends.

At the center of their table was a heap of pastries, covered in melted chocolate and ripe, bursting fruit, all sprinkled with flakes of gold. And all around the pastries were stacks of gold coins, diamond rings, pearl earrings, hands of cards, wooden fans set aside, and a dozen glasses of wine.

“New arrivals!” shouted the woman who had called us with her swooping, musical voice. I glanced down at her, sitting far back in her chair while a young man languorously pressed kisses along her arm. In her other hand, she waved her cards back and forth like they were a fan. “Verynew arrivals indeed! I’ve not seen these faces here before.”

“I daresay I’d remember that face,” remarked a man with blue ribbons tied into his long dark curls. He pointed at Lope. He pointed at her wound; the scar that looked like a tear had seared its way down her cheek.

Hot fury boiled in my middle. I opened my mouth, ready to scold him for drawing mocking attention to this sign of Lope’s bravery, before I remembered: people at this court did not seem to like speaking about the Shadows. And I needed to ingratiate myself with these nobles as much as possible if I wanted to find my mother. I breathed out the anger and tried to be as cool and unflappable as Lope.

“Yes, sir, we are new,” I said, my voice small. All my life I’d yearned for this, and now that I was here, in this moment, it all seemed so big and somuch. Days ago I’d been full of such hope for this place. But this reality had never been my dream.“We arrived here at dawn.”

“How fascinating!” remarked a man with dark brown skin, setting down his cards and leaning his hand on his cheek. “Where did you come from, then?”

“The countryside,” I said. “The nearest town is Bosque de las Encinas—”

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