Page 124 of Prince of Masks
For a beat, I stand there, torn between going to greet Serena, who I haven’t even talked to since Rugby Sunday, and turning my back on her for my own private chamber.
I decide on the latter.
I disappear before she can spot me, and I hide away in the bed. Sleep doesn’t find me quickly, I’m too zinged with caffeine.
But I swear, the moment I do drift off, a hand grabs me by the shoulder and shakes me softly.
I blink against the fatigue weighing on me, heavier than the thick, feathery quilt pressing me down into the mattress.
A delicate, angular face is turned down at me.
Amelia Sinclair perches on the edge of the bed, her hand firm on my shoulder. A tender smile is wisped over her full mouth.
The grip of her fingers softens the more I blink awake.
She says nothing, merely watches as a yawn starts to rise through me, twisting my face, then it splits—
I stretch out over the bed, twisting and turning, feeling all the aches ease and the balls of tension unwind.
Amelia slips off the bed, then steals my hanged robe from the hook on the wardrobe door. “It’s time,” she says—and though her smile is tender and warm, and the look in her soft gaze ismaternal, and the tone of her voice is gentle, it strikes me like a warning.
My stomach erupts, a sudden burst of moths fluttering.
I really,reallydon’t want to do this.
The reluctance shows in my lethargic climb out of the bed, the way I tug on the robe as if my arms are as heavy as stone, and the moody kick of my feet into the slippers.
Amelia hands me a small teacup filled halfway with a murky orange brew. “For energy,” she tells me, soft.
That’s all she has to say before I’m throwing back the thick, sludge and it slugs down my throat.
A shudder rinses me.
Gross stuff, thick like honey in texture, but that’s not the bad part. It’s that singe down my throat, the burn bubbling in my chest—
Then a small burp escapes me.
Amelia’s mouth tugs down. The disapproval is painted into every crease of the frown.
I mutter asorryand abandon the teacup on the nightstand.
I am no stranger to the Debutante Ball, or, more officially, The Imperial Ball of Debutantes.
The Cravens have attended each year, but the times I attended, I wore colour.
Thatis the tell.
White gowns, debutantes.
Colour, unavailable.
Black, married.
That’s for the women.
For the men, it comes down to accessories. Their black-tie dress is without the adornments if the men are bachelors, but it’s accentuated with a cane if one is married, and a top hat if he’s unavailable.
I watch that white gown of mine, across the room.
