Page 95 of Moonmarked

Then the woman turned back toward the entrance of this part of the gallery where they’d hung the portraits of thecursed royalty.She turned as if she’d heard someone, though nobody was there that I could see.

And when she faced me again, I thought to whisper, “Who are you?”

My whisper did come out of me, and she heard. The room was so silent, it was impossible to miss it.

But the woman didn’t answer me. She moved so fast I hardly saw it, only felt the cold handle of the knife in my hand that she grabbed and raised, then locked my fingers around it. A second, that’s all she needed.

A second to leave that knife in my hand, turn around, and run back to the Gallery of Time.

Wait!I screamed with all my strength, and no voice left me, and my knees were shaking, my body refusing to obeyme as it fought against the heat and the cold that were slowly draining the fucking life out of me.

I reminded myself to breathe. I reminded myself to close my eyes, to move back, lean against the wall, focus on surviving whatever was going on inside me.

It wasbrutal. It lasted a while, and it was worse because I didn’t understand it. All I knew was that there wassomethinginside me that was fighting against itself, againstme,and until I forced it to calm down all the way, I couldn’t even let myself open my eyes.

When I did, the room hadn’t changed. It was just as dark, and the portraits surrounded me, silently hanging on their walls, and the woman with half her portrait torn off was just by my side, its frame touching my shoulder.

A silent scream and I jumped back forward, the knife in my hand raised, even if I was confused as fuck still.

She still looked almost identical to me, the queen, and the blue of her eyes matched my own, like her hair, her forehead, the curve of her chin.

That word replayed in my mind—impossible—yet she was there, and she was looking at me, clutching a handle of something made of silver crystals that could have been a knife just like the one I was holding.

I looked at it, dumbfounded, my hand shaking as I brought it close to see it better. A thin handle made of milky-colored marble, with a figure of a broken crown engraved on one side, the other empty. The blade was as thick as my middle finger, just slightly longer and curved at the tip, deadly in the hands of someone who knew what to do with it.

Someone like that woman who could be back in here any second.

I don’t know how I moved, grabbed the mask that had fallen on the floor, dusted off the cobwebs and put it on my face again—to hide it. To make sure nobody saw that I looked like half that painting. I briefly considered ruining it completely, just like someone had torn the half of it, but I didn’t dare get close to that face. I didn’t dare destroy it for fear I’d destroy my own self.

With the knife in hand and my mask on my face, I ran.

Too many masks.

Too many colors and too many whispers, andfartoo much magic around me.

Not enough air to breathe.

I somehow made it all the way out of the Gallery of Time and into the Whispering Ball again, except now it felt like everyone was watching me, everyone knew exactly who I was underneath the mask, and everyone knew exactly who the woman in the half-torn portrait was, too. The image of her was in front of my mind’s eye no matter how hard I tried to shove it back.

Fuck, I was sweating, and the knife made me so uncomfortable under the sleeve of my dress where I’d hidden it, and I couldn’t see the exit doors of this place for the life of me.

Then a whisper came in my ear from a man.

“Ice fae women are cold to look at, but their insides are made of fire—or so I’m told.”

And he moved on.

I didn’t even get to see his mask because he only whispered the words in my ear and moved on.

I’m not a fucking fae!I wanted to scream at him at thetop of my lungs, but I already knew that my voice wouldn’t work here, and I also wanted to save energy to run away.

Just run until I found the doors and then got out of here, out of the palace, just go somewhereoutside.

And I made it. All the way to the other side of the room, I made it, elbowing my way through the crowd, through the dancers that swung in their partners’ arms with the melody. I felt eyes on me from everywhere, but I convinced myself that it wasn’t real, that feeling. My mask was on and nobody knew me, never mind that that woman wearing red had known enough to come after me, to follow me into that room.

Stupid, stupid, stupid,I screamed at myself in my mind. My fucking curiosity was going to be the death of me—quite literally, it seemed—and then I slammed onto a chest that could have been a piece of wall.

Lyall’s wide eyes under his golden mask locked on mine, his hands on my shoulders, his body far too close to mine for my liking.

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