Page 41 of A Reign of Roses
Inside, it was even more packed than it had been before. I shoved through peals of laughter and gossip-tinged whispers until I found the latrine stalls and locked myself inside one. Itchy coat and mask shed, I breathed until my heart rate had slowed.
Only then did I emerge—
And spot Wyn backlit by gauzy pink light, prowling through, scaring women right and left.
“Wyn,” I croaked. “Over here.”
Even under those curled horns I could see his eyes light with relief. “Where were you?”
“Terribly sick. It got all over my mask…”
He appraised me, eyes narrowing. “I checked each stall. You weren’t here.”
“Where else would I have been vomiting for the last ten minutes?”
I sucked in a breath.
An excruciating pause as he appraised me.
Then the stalls behind me.
I didn’t exhale. Couldn’t as his lips pressed into an even line.
“Come on,” he said at last, pulling me by the arm from the salon. “I’ll find you another mask.”
Wyn led me back down the stairs and across the throne room. By the time we reached the dais I’d managed to loosen the unbearable tightness in my lungs just a bit. He guided me to my seat at the banquet table, and I found Lazarus’s chair beside mine empty.
“Here,” Wyn said, handing me a great gilded mask to match my dress. Solid gold and glimmering like the sun. Near-blindingly shiny, and as heavy as a slab of granite, the inside padded with sorrowful, mottled moth wings. The feel of them against my face as I slipped it over my head told me they were real.Cruelty.Everything in this palace—
“I’ll be watching from back there.” He motioned to where the other guards stood and I merely nodded, still a little shocked I’d gotten away with my deceit.
Nobody at the table spoke to me, and I was grateful. My mind was a whirlwind, and I needed…I needed…
I had no idea what I needed as I gripped a chalice filled with some bitter spirit.
Nobody was coming for me.
Kane, my family, my friends—all of them still thought I was dead.
I had no options. No plan.
I beheld my distorted reflection in the medley of sweating refreshments. A glistening, fatty spread stretched across the banquet table. Gold-flecked peas, bowls of spiced milks and stews, garlands of mulberry pastries—all of it oily and odious and pointed toward a whole roasted peacock, sitting directly before me, plumes of its magnificent, delicate tail feathers still intact.
Maybe I really would be sick.
A laugh that strung me as taut as a harp string ripped from my left. Lazarus wrapped up whatever conversation had brought him such mirth and took a casual seat beside me.
“Where have you been all night?”
He wore no mask, as if he were the only man in the palace—in the city—on equal footing with the Gods. No mask, but the richestgolden coat and pants I’d ever seen, stitched with care and precision, and fit to his muscled body like a glove.
We matched perfectly. Nausea swirled in my gut.
“I wasn’t feeling well.”
“I’m sure.” His tone sent my stomach plummeting down a ravine.
“Your Majesty—”
