Page 59 of Magick and Lead
“Actually, let’s not—” I began, but Kitty was already grabbing my hand, pulling me into a move called the Tritty-Trot that she’d forced me to learn when we were dating. I cooperated halfheartedly, scanning the room again for Essa. I spotted her some thirty yards away at my three o’clock, dancing with Blaize—and doing a surprisingly good job for someone who’d never danced to jazz before. Our eyes met, and we both abruptly looked away. Hell if I’d let her make me jealous…
“Eyes on your partner, flyboy,” Kitty said, squeezing my hand with surprising strength that made my fingers throb.
I tried to keep my attention on her, but a pulse of intuition tugged at me, and my gaze shifted to the far side of the room. There stood a man in black, wearing a wide-brimmed hat. The same fellow who’d been following us on the street. A spook.Dammit.
Kitty elbowed me in the ribs. “Are you trying to get us eliminated? You’re not even dancing.”
With a grunt of annoyance, I resumed the Tritty-Trot. When I looked back to where the man in black had been, he was gone. My head whipped in the other direction, to where Essa was—but I’d lost sight of her, too. Something tapped me on the shoulder, and I wheeled, my heart thumping, ready to throw a punch. But it was just the bespectacled judge, tapping us out.
“Nice job. You got us eliminated,” Kitty huffed, taking my arm and leading me off the dance floor while I continued to cast around, looking for Essa.
Essa. Hey!I tried to reach out to her using the simnal, but I couldn’t reach her—either because Parthar was too far away, or because she’d closed her mind to me.
If Blaize is making a move on her…I thought, grinding my teeth.
Suzie was ahead of us at the bar, waving us over. She already had another drink in her hand.
“This oaf got us eliminated already! Can you believe it?” Kitty said, thumbing toward me.
“Us too!” Suzie cried. “My stupid brother saw his old boyfriend and ran off to make up with him.” She gestured vaguely toward the balcony, then turned her attention to me. “So, where’s this friend of yours you wanted me to meet? Is he as tall and handsome as you?”
“It’s ashe, actually,” I said.
Suzie shrugged, laughing. “That works, too. I’m a modern girl, you know.”
“She’s here somewhere…”
My words trailed off as a commotion across the room caught my attention.
Blaize had his arms around Essa, going in for a kiss, and she was struggling to get away. She smacked him across the face, a blow loud enough to be heard over the music of the band. He grabbed at her as she tried to duck away from him—and her fake arm came off in his hand.
His face crinkled with confusion. The people around them pulled back, pointing and chattering. With the parting of the crowd, I caught sight of the man in the hat again. He stared at me eerily for a beat, then turned, disappearing among the dancers.
“Excuse me,” Kitty said suddenly, setting her drink on the bar and hurrying off into the crowd, moving in the same direction as the man in black—towards Essa.
It hit me then like a wave of nausea. Of course. Kitty was a spy. And so was the man in the wide-brimmed hat. They were working together. And now, they were going for Essa…
I grabbed a stack of napkins from the bar top and linked arms with Suzie. She was our mission objective, and I wasn’t about to let her go. “Listen, Suzie. Something’s about to go down. Stay close to me, alright?”
She grinned, her eyelids heavy with booze. “Ooh. Big strong ace is gonna protect me?”
“That’s right,” I said, tugging her after me into the crowd. “Whatever happens, just make sure we leave together, alright?”
She laughed, giving me a salute. “Ooh, yes, sir.”
27
ESSA
The handsome pilot I’d been dancing with stood frowning down at my fake arm in his hand. I could almost hear the machinery of his brain clattering as he tried to figure out what it meant. And, my dragon intuition told me, he was nearing the correct answer.
He looked up from the fake hand to me. “Who are you?”
An initial flush of shame and embarrassment had washed over me when the arm came loose. The circle of dancers who’d stopped to stare made my mind flash back to a childhood when I was always a curiosity to the other children in court. Whereas my sister Paemalla or my cousin Laynine might have been strong, or clever, or beautiful—I was always Essaphine, the one-armed princess. An oddity. A cautionary tale. A walking tragedy. For a second, I was my childhood self again. Small, afraid, and broken.
But I’d come a long way from being a mousy, scared little girl. I was Essa, Irska of the Skrathan. Queen of Maethalia. And I forced myself to stand tall and snatch the wooden arm back from the pilot.
“Who am I?” I repeated. “I told you, I’m Esther?—”
