She shakes her head. “Absolutely not. The temple is here and there are”—her eyes skirt over to Lucien’s frame and soften—“people whom I care for.”

I laugh a little under my breath. She practically has stars in her eyes over him.

“I hope you stay,” I say, nudging her knowingly. “I think you two would make a very cute couple.”

The words burn coming out, but some part of me knows they’re sincere. I want Lucien to have a peaceful, normal life, with a peaceful, normal girl. Tarroux just stares wistfully at Lucien. Finally, her father motions at her from the refreshment table, and she bids me a shy farewell and trots over.

I let out a hard, small breath. There’s a full musical stand in the corner, firehorns and windlutes chiming prettily into the dim room. The song changes to something more upbeat, easing a fraction of the tension in my chest, and suddenly the drunken nobles are clamoring to pair off and crowd the dance floor. I watch them twirl like colorful flowers over the marble, their loveliness eclipsed by the fact the open balcony shows the lights of Vetris below, and the thousands of crowded fires beyond the wall where the army sleeps.

Still, the smoke of the wartime forest razings lingers in the night sky.

“Lady Zera?”

I look up to see none other than Fione. She looks pensive but beautiful in a gray organza gown that makes her blue eyes seem more silver. She isn’t standing close to me, though it’s closer than usual. But that means little.

I smirk at her and nod over to where Varia’s standing. “Ah, parents. They’re truly clueless, aren’t they? Not that I would know. Or remember. But I imagine they can be.”

I don’t expect her to speak to me. After all, I can see her fists tightening in her skirts.

“Your jewelry is very pretty,” Fione offers finally, her words stiff. “It’s valkerax bone, isn’t it?”

I blink. “Is it?”

She nods, holding out her valkerax-headed cane so I can see it clearly beyond her sleeves. “You can tell by the way things look dimmer around it. Valkerax bones suck in light. See?”

I look at my bracelet and her ivory cane—I hadn’t noticed before with so much light around, but with only the candlelight, it’s easy to see the haze of dimness that surrounds the bones, as if the slightest of shadows is hanging over them and only them.

“It’s why the darkness in the pipe the valkerax skeleton was in seemed so oppressive,” Fione says.

“Oh!” I marvel. “I can always count on you to help things make more sense, Your Grace.”