I glanced back to my father, unhappiness curdling in my stomach. “You thought what would help?”

But Daddy wasn’t listening, and now people were drawing near us—Alessandra, his physicians, members of the court. I felt the private haven we’d shared for a few precious moments collapsing.

Other people needed his time. Mine was up.

But the sound of my name halted my retreat.

“Selah!” My stepmother shook her head, lips pursed. “The evening isn’t over.”

Daddy cast me a worried glance. “Alessandra, I think the ball can spare her.”

“But the Council can’t.” Her tone was utterly bare of sympathy. My father’s chest and shoulders deflated. “The Roots—now.”

“W-wait—” I stammered. But Dr. Gold and Dr. Pugh descended as I spoke. No one heard me excuse myself as Dr. Pugh began rambling about how much better Daddy was looking.

“Clearly, the treatment is working,” said Dr. Pugh. Dr. Gold nodded brightly, an attempt at a smile stretched across his kind, young face.

Daddy had told me not to worry. It didn’t look as if his doctors were of the same mind.

I wanted to press him, to pinpoint when he’d become this worn, fragile thing, like a page in an old book.

But no one looked at me. I had no one left to question. I could only obey.

The glass decorations in the branches overhead blurred in my vision as I walked away. And as I pushed through a streaming willow’s branches and out the side door, I finally began to cry.

Tears streamed down my face as I shuffled down one, two, three flights of comfortless marble stairs, empty but for the echoes of the party. I pressed my back to the cold wall of the bottom landing and fished in the pocket of my gown until the wooden beads of my rosary whispered against my fingers.

One by one, I choked out the string of prayers Momma taught me when I was a little girl. Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Hail Mary, full of grace. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. The beautiful words eased my blistering pain, smoothing me out and untangling my snarled nerves.

But as my tears subsided, I caught the sounds of quiet conversation—of talk not coming from the ball upstairs. Vague uneasiness rose inside me again, sickly and clinging like fog. The Council meeting in the Roots had already begun.

If Alessandra came down and caught me crying in the dark, she’d lean into my weakness, press on my bruises in front of the others until they thought me as spineless as she did.

Slowly, slowly, I crept down the stairs.