“He prefers puzzles now,” I said, and then I sealed my lips shut for the rest of that long journey.

I was there to provide backup, as part of our agreement. I wouldn’t be tricked into sharing any more.

Leander gave up asking questions soon enough, humming a low tune to himself as he gazed out of the window into the pitch darkness with every appearance of relaxation. I found myself growing edgier and edgier, though, until the metal layers of my gown shivered with my twitching left leg as my shoe tapped rapidly against the carriage floor.

I’d been so focused on the mechanics of our journey—the gown I would need to assemble and the weapons I would need to bring—that it hadn’t even struck me, until now, how many people we’d be meeting…or rather, just how many people were about to meet me, exactly as I truly was.

Dad did tell me to do more of my work in the sunlight.

A necromancers’ midnight ball hardly counted, except that for the first time in my life, I wasn’t hiding any parts of me. I’d given up that option when I’d joined forces with Leander, forming an alliance of mutual protection against all of those ordinary, respectable men and women around us who were so horrified by both of our powers.

Whether my own powers were unnatural or not, no one at this ball would have any right to be scandalized by them. But the idea of stepping into a whole room full of strangers without even the slightest pretense of normality…

Leander’s long, elegant fingers closed around my jittering knee and shocked me into utter stillness. “It’s all right,” he murmured as my breath stuttered in my throat and tingling waves of warmth shot through every thin layer of metal. “We can still turn around if this is too much for you. I’ll understand.” His fingers stroked lightly across my armored knee and then lifted, retreating into darkness. “I know you don’t often mingle with other people. If I’ve pushed you too far—”

“I’m not afraid of anything.” I twitched my skirts back into place with a purposeful rattle. “I’m only impatient. How far away is this place?”

“Just around the next corner.” Could he see in the dark? The carriage turned scarcely a moment after his words. “There. Just one moment…”

He spoke a long, hissing word under his breath, and a sheet of green flame erupted from the ground to our left. Beyond it, lit by that leaping green glow, stretched a vast, curving white building formed of an oddly bumpy… No. Really?

I squinted, leaning closer to the window. Yes! Those walls—or at least their exterior—were definitely made of closely-fitted human bones.

Clearly, Leander was not the only necromancer who believed in making a ridiculously over-the-top statement.