“Does this mean we win?” I asked.

The women around me looked baffled, but Mirene whooped and punched the air, and then a few people clapped. I clearly had the ball; therefore, I must have caught it. Devlin complained about Jesane’s betrayal, but without venom. The game was done.

When I turned around, I caught Commander Asan watching me. When we made eye contact, she swivelled on the spot and marched off up the lawns toward the house.

Millie jogged over to me. “How did you do that?” she asked under her breath.

I looked at the ball again. Innocent, brown, a little scuffed. “I’m not entirely sure. It felt like someone dropped the ball into my hand.”

Lace? I wondered. But who would care whether I won or lost?

“More refreshments are available in the parlour,” called Reverend Celane.

Perhaps it was just a lucky catch, after all. Millie and I walked up the path toward the house, where warm orange light spilled out the windows. Maybe small good things were allowed to happen to me, every now and again.

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

Celane’s parlour was spacious and pleasantly cool, with soft red carpets furnishing the floor and wide windows looking out over the garden. Old paintings hung on the dark panelled walls—still-lives of sacred instruments, muted landscapes, and antique maps of the city on stained yellow parchment. Guests lounged on leather couches, playing cards and drinking wine.

“There’s the woman you pissed off,” Millie muttered out the corner of her mouth.

Ilva stood by a bookshelf, her arms folded across her chest. She was pretending to read the spines, but kept glancing across the room at Jesane, who was engaged in a lively discussion with two other Heralds. No one else paid her any attention, and she looked so pathetic that I almost felt sorry for her. Almost, but not quite.

“I’m going to talk to her,” said Millie.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

She just grinned and slipped out of my reach, leaving me alone in the entrance to the room.

“Great,” I muttered. Now I’m the pathetic one.

I fidgeted, my eyes sweeping over the faces of the other women in the room. This was the kind of socialising I was least equipped to handle. Everyone here was so much more established and important than I was, and I had none of Millie’s charm—I could not just walk up to the Heralds and start a conversation. Never mind that I would probably have to interrupt them to do so. Even the idea made me cringe.

Time, I decided, to hide in a bathroom.

The corridor beyond the parlour was decorated with a beautiful collection of devotionals to the Star Eater. Each of the traditional verses was written out in red ink, and embossed with small pieces of gold or semiprecious stones. I had not realised Celane was so ardent in her faith, but her passion revealed itself through the obvious care she took in presenting these scripts. Each lovingly framed in cedar wood, each protected by a screen of spotless glass.