Page 33 of A Court of Ash and Midnight
Well, the last part mostly makes sense. Daemon isn’t supposed to be able to leave the castle grounds, so of course he can’t admit that he did so. He must have been traveling nearby and seen the hunters chasing me and decided to intervene. But Kyrn is hundreds of miles from Shadow’s Keep. What was he doing there, and how had we made it back in such a short amount of time?
None of it made any sense. I want to talk to Daemon, to demand answers, but that’s not easy when I can’t even find him.
“What are those flower crowns for anyways?” I ask, forcing myself to think of something other than my confusing life and the green-eyed fae who altered it forever.
The women all shoot each other looks, and Yenna shrugs. “The Queen’s Liberation Ball.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Oh, you celebrate that?” It’s the yearly anniversary of Queen Sarielle reclaiming her throne from the usurper Avonia, nearly five hundred years ago.
“No,” Yenna scoffs. “But while all the fae are distracted with their revelry, we have our own little celebration. We’ve spent days preparing the feast they’ll partake of tonight, so it’s our reward to ourselves for all the hard work.”
“You should come!” Carmeline exclaims.
Brasa and Lyana smile and nod in encouragement.
“Sure, thank you.” I offer my own smile. “Is it here in the kitchen?”
“No,” Lyana says. “We have our own special place. Out in one of the gardens.”
“We’ll show you later,” Yenna says. “Meet us here at sundown.” She sweeps her gaze up the length of me and makes a gesture with her hand. “And wear something nice.”
A few hourslater, I examine myself in my small mirror. I hadn’t really known exactly what Yenna was expecting when she instructed me to wear something nice, so I’d settled on a simple black dress that hangs to my ankles. I rotate my hips as I stand there, feeling the strangeness of it swishing around my boots. I’ve never actually worn a dress before.
It has short sleeves that barely extend to the edge of my shoulder, so I grab a cloak from the wardrobe. The nights have been growing longer and colder as autumn heads toward winter. It’s a deep green velvet with a silver clasp that looks like a crescent moon. My hair has grown astonishingly fast over the last couple of months and now hits a bit below my collar bone in the front, which is also odd. I feel as if a stranger is looking back at me from the oval piece of glass.
“What do you think?” I ask Trix.
The little cat-dragon lifts her head sleepily from her spot on my bed and gives a chirrup of approval before tucking her head beneath a wing and going back to sleep.
The castle is empty as I make my way down to the kitchen. The Liberation Ball is taking place on the enormous green beyond the castle where we usually spar, and it had started late in the afternoon, so all the Guardians and trainees have already been at it for an hour or so. I feel a thrill of delight at the idea of spending an evening without any fae, off with my own kind at a secret rendezvous. My footsteps echo down the hallways, and through the windows I pass, I can see the twilight purple of the sky outside as the last of the sun fades, and the glittering lights strung across the green below. It is beautiful, like the fae arebeautiful, and it is not a place that I belong. If any such place exists in this world.
I am turning the final corner toward the kitchen when I abruptly come face to face with Professor Julian coming from the other direction.
“Oh!” I say, startled. “Apologies.”
Professor Julian takes in my dress and my cloak. “You’re running late to the ball, dear. Here, I’ll accompany you.”
I can feel my face fall. “No, I… I’m not going. I just came down to find some food in the kitchen. But thank you so much.”
“Nonsense!” Julian takes me by the elbow and turns me around. “There’s plenty of food at the ball.”
My heart drops into my stomach as we walk down the hall and out the main doors of the castle onto the lawn. The lights of the ball sparkle before us like something from a dream. Lights of all different sizes and colors hang in the air with no poles and no string. Sheer gossamer creations shimmer in the air along with them, formed into flowers and birds and dragons and stars. They float and spin slowly, looking almost alive. Huge copper fire bowls dot the space, flickering with flames in unnatural shades of green and gold and purple. The sky is dotted with clouds that almost seem to match the pastels below. And for all I know, one of the House of Sky Incantrixes had worked their magic to make it so.
It fills me with wonder, yet I know the beauty of this place is just a façade over a core of darkness.
Professor Julian leads the way into the crowd of fae. There are tables upon tables cascading with decadent food, and golden fountains of wine scattered about the green. Each fountain is different. One looks like a peacock with pink wine pouring from its mouth, one looks like a goddess with pale golden wine draining from a pitcher held in her hands, and one looks like storm clouds from which wine so dark red it’s almost blackbleeds into the basin below. Performers move about the milling fae, some dancing with fire, others playing soft melodies, and others contorting their bodies around each other in rather intimate displays. I notice that none of them are human. I am the only human in the crowd.
It’s clear from the sidelong glances I receive that I am very much not welcome at this most holy of fae celebrations. It’s also clear it’s by design that Yenna and the others are not present here to serve food. They do all the work, but they are not expected to be seen here. Professor Julian seems oblivious to it, as always, as he guides me to one of the tables laden high with food, this particular one all different types of exotic fruit. He chats animatedly and then saunters off, distracted by another table upon which stands a silver tree hung with jewel-toned combs dripping with golden honey.
Well, that’s just perfect. Now I’m alone in the midst of dozens of fae who seem to think I’m desecrating their party with my mere presence. I am not a stranger to loneliness, having lived the life I’ve lived. But here, surrounded by this huge crowd, I’ve never felt more alone in my whole life.
I wait for a couple of minutes, hovering at the edge of the crowd, to see if Julian is going to come back, but he seems entranced by one of the performers, and I have no intention of following him around like a lost puppy. Maybe if I head back to the kitchen now, the others will still be waiting for me. It’s only just past nightfall. Decision made, I shove a couple of bites of fruit into my mouth, discard my plate, and start to cut my way around the milling fae back toward the castle. As I near the entrance to the festivities, I pass by one of the fountains of wine, the one with the peacock. On a whim, I grab a silver goblet and fill it with rose-colored liquid before I walk off. Might as well partake so I can say I’m the one human who attended, albeit briefly, a fae ball.
Lifting the goblet to my lips, I take a sip before I continue walking. The flavor explodes across my tongue. It tastes like sunlight and moonlight and flowers. It’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever had in my entire life, and I know, in this moment, that I’ll never be able to drink a pint of ale in a pub again. Pausing, I take another sip. I’m tempted to down the entire goblet, but I decide to take the rest to Yenna and Carmeline and the others. They should taste this nectar of the stars. They’re the ones who made this ball come to life, after all.
I take a couple of steps toward the castle and the world spins. I bump into someone who snarls at me like a wild animal. Through my fractured vision, I can see the last of the party lights ahead. I’m a few feet from freedom. But suddenly I feel as if I could fly away. I feel so light, so weightless, so full of effervescence, that I lift my arms because it actually feels possible that I could fly all the way to the castle. And then, if I’ve missed my kitchen friends, I can fly around Shadow’s Keep until I find them.
Warmth spreads through my body and I feel so euphoric that, for several moments, I forget I’m on a mission to get back to the castle. I turn in a slow circle and the colors hit me like a thousand rainbows. The lights. The floating art. The performers. And the fae themselves. Why are they all so beautiful? They shouldn’t exist in the same world that I do. It makes no sense at all. I take a step forward, bump into someone else, this time someone who shoves me away, hard. It feels like I’m falling. Iamfalling. But I’m falling so slowly, so gracefully. Surely my wings will save me…
