Page 85 of To Dance with Death

“A palace is not a museum. You can’t just roam around.”

“Then show me your city. You must know safe routes we can take.” Like on Anell. If that palace had tunnels, surely this one does, too. He presses his lips flat, but I say, “We have hours to kill, and I am going one way or another—unless you plan to fetter our wrists together or pin me down—”

“I should.”

“You wouldn’t,” I say, glaring.

For a moment, I think he might. Then, begrudgingly, he releasesme.

“Join me, Anton. You know this place better than anyone. If you don’t want to be seen, you won’t be. Or would you have me believe otherwise?”

He scrubs his hair, and I almost laugh. Grumpy Anton is not something I’ve seen before. This side of him is new—rough-edged and ill fitting—and rather comical at that.

Only after the world’s most long-suffering sigh does he say, “What is it you wish to see?”

“All of it,” I say honestly. Then I add, cautiously, “They say you were a magnificent inventor. That even your workshop could be considered one of Miridran’s greatest wonders. Many were caught, even imprisoned, trying to sneak inside for a glimpse of the inventor king’s grand workings. Or are the tales untrue? Contrived?”

“Certainly not,” he bites, his pride winning out. He encircles my wrist with his fingers once more. “Fine. I will offer you a glimpse and nothing more.” He pulls me toward him, releasing me near the door. “And only because you are a persistent little miscreant.”

I think youlikemiscreants,I do not say.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Anton’s workshop, it turns out, is not far away.

Like on Anell, the hallway we emerge into sparkles with a glass mosaic, only the fragments are smaller, shimmering like glitter under the skylight above. There are guards everywhere, Anton tells me—though he knows their stations well, so he pulls me swiftly into a corridor hidden behind a statue at the far end. At least it isn’t dark like the tunnels on the isle, the light from the other side leaking through in swaths of red and blue. Minutes later, we reach a grand parlor that is used as a study, he tells me, and is reserved for the residents of the palace. The room is elongated with high, arching windows, the space divvied into multiple seating areas.

It isn’t empty. A gathering of women curl onto a sofa, some sitting on the floor beneath in a crescent before the grand hearth.

If they are residents, I wonder if they are members of his Glory Court. Women he rescued under the guise of a harem, now in the comfort of his palace until they can be safely reintegrated into society.

They have yet to notice us. Past a shelf, Anton grabs a tome and hands one to me, and we use them to hide our faces until we can make for the exit near the back. Another hidden hallway—tunnelfeels too shabby a word, considering the sky-high glass ceiling above—and finally Anton halts before two tall, narrow double doors.

The inside of the workshop is long, with rows of Palladian windows ornamented by painted ironwork on the right. To the left, the wall is wrought with shelves that hold tomes, journals, stacks of papers. Tools of every variety. Small statues, glass trinkets. At the far end is a great, unlit furnace behind a workstation with small metal tables, blowpipes, and large shears stacked along each one.

The real marvel, however, is the elongated worktable stretching its length. Or several, I’m realizing, each holding different projects. Cut glass, sheaves of it, lay scattered next to more iron tools I don’t recognize. Tubes rimmed in gold with legs, similar to the looking glass Anton showed me on Anell but much larger. Magnifying glasses the size of a dinner plate. Jewelry. Halberds and other weaponry, most half finished, chunks of cut metal scattered alongside them.

“Is it everything you thought it would be and more?” Anton quips with a lazy sort of sarcasm, shoving his hands into his pockets. Then he mumbles, “At least the sot didn’t throw out all my belongings.”

I assume he means Gustav.

“Show me your favorite project,” I say, making a show of casually perusing his shelves.

“How aboutleastfavorite?” But then, as his gaze crawls over the space, he perks up. Goes rigid. “Where in the blasted souls—”

He marches past the table, scans the rest of the room. “That bastard. That absolute rat.”

“What is it?”

“It’s missing. He took it. Destroyed it, probably. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn it’s at the bottom of the river. Or maybe he gave it to Sadira so she might parade around Razam in the damned thing and make a mockery of me.” Before I can demandclarification, he bends and snatches something off the floor—then tosses it so that it clanks and rolls and lands at my feet.

I stoop to pick it up, my vision a cluster of spiraling stars. My breath hitches, though, as it sharpens into focus.

It’s a small hellebore formed with shards of glass.

It matches the dress he brought to Anell. The gown I wore when I became the Fate of Morta. But I can’t tell him that, can’t tell him that he gave me the dress—had it altered, even—so that I might wear it for the final performance.

So that he might slight Illian in doing so.