Page 104 of The Ragpicker King
Conor tied the silver strings of his new mask neatly behind his head.
“I’ll tell you,” he said hoarsely. “I swear it, but—I must go now.”
Kel said nothing, only nodded. Conor turned on his heel and walked away, leaving Kel staring after him.
When Lin arrived at Marivent, it had begun to rain. A light drizzle that had the carriage driver warning her to step carefully and avoid the mud.
Lin did not mind. The weather only made the Palace seem more magical. Jewel-toned lamps glowed through a softening mist, like puffs of colored air. The driver had told her to follow the path of flowers to find the Solstice Ball; the blossoms were wet and bright, drops of rain trembling on their petals. Crushed under her slippers as she walked, they gave off the smell of bright-green things, lacquered with a sweet overlayer of tuberose and jasmine.
She pulled her thick velvet shawl tighter around herself as she walked. It was strange to be here. There were countless Story-Spinner tales that involved a young girl being summoned to a ball at the Palace—whatever Palace it might be in the story. She had not been charmed by Marivent before when she had made her secret visits to heal Kel and then the King. They had been hurried, furtive expeditions, during which she had always feared that she would be seen. Discovered. Now she wassupposedto be here.
Mariam had sworn up and down that her iridescent rose-colored dress—a forbidden color for her, of course, but Lin had accepted that no one on the Hill seemed to care—was the height of fashion. That her hair, a fountain of loose curls, looked just as it should. And indeed, when the carriage had come to retrieve her from the Sault, the driver had looked surprised and admiring.
Her confidence took her nearly to the doors of the ballroom. The Armory was a gray stone building near to the place where the green lawns of Marivent dropped away into sea cliffs. A curved glass dome was set atop it; torches burned along this last stretch of the path, sputtering against the drizzle. Through the leaded-glass windows of the Armory she could see flickering candlelight, the figures of men and women in fancy dress, their faces hidden by an array of masks all in the shapes of different animals: cats and boars and foxes, peacocks and phoenixes.
Oh, no.She realized with a start of alarm that she had no mask and had made no plan as to how to get one. The invitation had mentioned that the Solstice Ball was a masked affair, and yet she’d completely forgotten.
She looked down helplessly at her empty hands, as if a mask might suddenly appear in them. There was laughter behind her; something thumped against her shoulder. She whirled around to find two drunken nobles behind her—a woman in a gray mouse mask decorated with sparkling hearts, and a boy wearing a striped black-and-white domino. “Sosorry.” The woman giggled, leaning on the arm of the boy—her son? her lover?—as he led her back to the ballroom.
Lin felt her stomach lurch. The idea of walking bare-faced into the ballroom held no appeal. The nobility, the Charter Families, even the Prince would stare, whisper... They knew who she was: Mayesh’s granddaughter, apparently too silly to remember the rules of etiquette. By the Goddess, why had she evencome?
A moment later, she was hurrying away from the yellow light spilling from the ballroom. Across the wet grass to the crushed stone of the cliff path. She could see the ocean to her right, surging gray-green at the feet of the cliffs.
Thunder rumbled overhead, the sound of gray-black clouds colliding far out to sea. The rain was turning from a drizzle to a true downpour. The various follies she had seen from the NorthTower—impermanent structures of white-painted wood and plaster, meant to amuse and delight the eye—had been placed along the path in a row bordering the cliff edge. Most were open to the sky. Lin ducked into one that offered shelter: It was modeled after an old temple, its angled plaster roof held up with fluted pillars. Through the gaps between the pillars she could see the storm moving in from the ocean, churning the water into white-tipped waves.
She leaned against a pillar, letting her head fall back. It was not real marble, thankfully, only wood painted to resemble stone. She knew she was ruining the hair Mariam had carefully curled and pinned; she felt a jolt of guilt for that, and another for her slippers, wet and stained with mud.So foolish,she thought savagely. Why had she ever imagined she wanted to come to the Hill, to open herself up to the judgment of the nobility and their hangers-on?
She straightened, smoothing her hands down the front of her dress—a deep satin so close to the true color of roses that she almost expected it to have a scent. The material was cool and slippery under her hands. Around her neck she wore her mother’smagal,the hollow circle on its thin gold chain.
She recalled Mariam fastening it for her. Her dear Mariam had been so delighted that Lin was attending the Solstice Ball that she had nearly flown around the room like a hummingbird. Lin smiled at the memory and told herself not to be ridiculous. She had come all this way; she was as finely dressed as she needed to be; she had nothing to be ashamed of, whether she had a mask or not. And how disappointed would Mariam be if she found that Lin had not attended the party at all, but merely hid in a folly?
Thunder cracked again overhead. Out to sea, lightning illuminated the horizon, turning the surging waves to moving, silvery mountains. The rain was a steady downpour, rattling the plaster roof. Lin sighed to herself. Well, there was nothing to be done about it; she wouldn’t be the only guest arriving at the ball soaking wet—
Movement caught her eye, and Lin squinted through the pillars. Someone was coming down the cliff path. Odd. Who would be out for a stroll in weather like this?
He came closer. It was a he, she could see that now, a tall young man, wearing the mask of a silver ram.
She took a step back as the man ducked into the folly. He pushed the hood of his velvet cloak back and water streamed from the soaked material, pattering to the stone floor.
It was dark in the folly, but not so dark that she was blind. She could see that he was all in black, wet dark curls plastered to his head. The silver mask with the twisting horns on either side was bright as a star. It covered half his face, but she knew him immediately.
It was Prince Conor, looming over her, water streaming from his hair.
“What are you doing in here?” he snapped. “Benaset let me know you’d come through the West Gate. When you didn’t arrive at the party, I thought you’d fallen off one of the cliffs.”
Lin immediately felt truculent. “I was lost.”
She could see his gray eyes widen behind the mask. “You gotlost? How could you get lost? There is a path of flowers laid down that leads directly to the doors of the Armory—”
Lin crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, how was I supposed to know that? You didn’t mention it.”
He shook his head, causing a cascade of silver droplets to fly from his dark hair. “I didn’t think I had to mentionevery single thing—”
Lin scowled, though she doubted he could see it in the darkness of the folly. “I don’t see why you came all the way out here to find me if you were only planning to be rude.”
“I wasn’tplanningto be rude— Good Gods.” He passed a hand across his face. “It is absolutely unbelievable,” he said, to no one in particular. “I have been shouted at by famous ambassadors. Hadinkpots and expensive ceramics thrown at me by furious diplomats. Been in more than one fistfight with a future monarch. Yet nothing,nothing,has ever infuriated me the way you do.”
“I oughtn’t to have come.” Lin dropped her arms. “Girls in the Story-Spinner tales always end up absolutely triumphing at the royal parties they attend, and everyone marvels and admires them, and that isnevergoing to happen to me. I am always going to be odd and awkward and wind up hiding in a folly—”
