Page 92 of Moonmarked

She wasn’t there, and none of these fae around me rightnow wore the same emerald green she was wearing, and my God, I was suffocating on all this magic. It had slipped down my throat and filled my lungs, and now I felt like I couldn’t get enough air inside me to stay alive.

Run,said the voices in my head, and so I did.

I ran through the curtains, elbowing my way between fae who were just coming into the room, and by the time I made it to the doors, my eyes were full of tears, my throat burning, and my hands pulsating with heat.

Black dots in my vision as I breathed in the cooler, cleaner air of the ballroom, pressed my back against the wall right behind the door. The palms of my hands were burning, and I recognized the energy—themagic,the same one that I had used in that mermaid cavern to make shit float on air. The same heat I’d used to attack those werewolf men in the woods. The energy that made things rise in the air and explode—and it was pulsating in the very center of me, rushing down my shoulders and to my hands.

With my eyes squeezed shut, I willed it to go away, willed my heartbeat to slow down the beating, but it didn’t work. On the contrary—I began to feel thatcold,too.

Such a strange feeling that it took me a moment to even understand it myself. A burst of cold energy rose against the heat in my chest, and it was impossible to describe it properly, but it felt like I had half my body on fire and the other half covered in ice.

Before the minute was over, ice-cold shivers washed down my back. The heat inside me began to calm down. I was sure that if I looked at my hands, they’d be lit up from within, and the people would see, and then I’d be screwed for real, and…

Nobody knows who you are,said the voices in my head.

Holy shit, they were right.

I had a mask on. A dress that didn’t belong to me. I was just another nobody in this big room full of fae, and nobody knew who I was except for Lyall and Rune. Even if they saw my hands lighting up, nobody would know that they shouldn’t be.Nobody knows.

My heartbeat calmed down within the minute. The heat and the cold inside me took a step back, and when my eyes opened, the sound of the music and the whispers around me came back to my ears little by little. I was surrounded by so many people, and nobody was even looking my way.

I was okay.

But that woman wearing the green mask stayed in the center of my mind still.

I moved forward into the crowd, scanned my surroundings one more time to make sure Lyall wasn’t there, that he wasn’t coming after me, that he had noticed me gone. The doors to the Room of Whispers were still wide open with people coming and going, but no Lyall.

I shamelessly took advantage of the situation to go searching for Rune or to just disappear from this place for a moment until I had my thoughts in order. Until I could think through what that woman really said to me and find a better explanation as to what she could have meant. That’s all I needed—either Rune or a moment of peace and quiet.

So, I went ahead, eyes wide open, searching for that silver mask and black suit, for his silhouette that I would know anywhere, but if Rune hadn’t left the ball already, he was most certainly hiding somewhere I had yet to find.

I did find the third room that had opened in the ballroom, though—what I had no doubt the fae consideredattractions.To me, they were anything but. Mirrors thatdidn’t reflect shapes, and silk curtains that whispered poetry? Nothing attractive about it.

The small golden plaque on the wall over the doors of the last room was engraved with the wordsGallery of Time.Not that I was interested in what that might mean, but a look inside told me that the crowd of fae coming and going in there was much smaller than out here in the ballroom, where most were dancing, swinging side to side, following the rhythm of the music.

More importantly, there were no mirrors and no pieces of silk hanging from the ceiling, ready to whisper to me if I went close enough. Instead, the room was wide and round right into the doors, and then stretched into a corridor deeper. It was full of beautiful flowers in vases as tall as me or atop cocktail tables covered in golden silk. The walls were divided into panels, with paintings hanging on each one, the vivid colors portraying people that blinked and breathed and smiled.

I stopped on the threshold, unable to convince myself that what I was seeing was real, even after everything. It wasn’t even Hogwarts here, yet there were paintings on these walls, portraits of people who were blinking and moving, though slightly, breathing, sighing—and most were smiling, too.

Dumbfounded, I stepped into the room, wondering what more there was to Verenthia that could blow me away before I left. The music suddenly became distant, and even though nobody spoke in this room, either, the sound of footsteps and people who came and went was much louder. It gave me a sense of normalcy.

I walked toward the wall on the right, to the painting closest to me without an audience in front of it, and my breath caught in my throat all over again.

Queen Elyra the Glimmeringsaid the engraving hanging on the thick golden frame of the painting that was larger than my entire body.

Considering the woman’s hair color was identical to most Seelie fae I’d seen in Verenthia, I guessed she had been a Seelie queen. The line below her name said,Weaver of illusions so beautiful they induced madness.

The portrait showed the queen mid-laugh, and she moved her head slightly from side to side, blinked her golden eyes that were staring at something to the side, and she was surrounded by floating shards of light that flickered golden.

Strange but beautiful at the same time, and I don’t know why I got the feeling I’d have enjoyed a talk with this woman much,muchmore than with the current Seelie queen.

The next painting was of a man with dark hair, wearing armor painted black. His left cheek was scarred, his lips turned to a frown. He blinked, too, and he was breathing, his chest rising and falling slightly as he sat somewhere, the background a deep grey. The crown made of silver and colorful gemstones sat heavy on his brow. Below him the plaque saidKing Tyorin of the Midnights,followed byThe Silent King, whose shadow still speaks.

I couldn’t even begin to understand what the hell that meant or why these paintings seemed to hold my attention so fully, but I was moving onto the next one as soon as the three fae women in front of it moved deeper into the room and made way.

Princess Sulen, the Unseelie Flamewas a dark-eyed beauty with hair the color of fire, and withlive flamescoiling around her shoulders like a shawl. Flames that moved, danced about just slightly, and though this one didn’t blinkas she looked ahead, her peach-colored lips were slightly parted, and I could have sworn she was letting out short breaths.

Next was theDutchess Caelis of the Frozen Court,and below her name were the words,The Vanished Halfling, destroyer of spells,and she had a silver tint to her skin, just like her hair. Her eyes were blue, wide open as she looked to the side, like she could see the danger approaching and she was trying to be brave, not to run.

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