“I’ve never met a changeling so pretty before,” he says, and I should brush it off as empty flattery, but when I look back into his face, he seems so earnest.

“Raze!”

A voice leaps over the sounds of merrymaking before I can figure out how to respond, and the boy’s head turns suddenly to its source.

A girl even taller than he is, wearing an equally badly fitting servant’s coat, strides towards us. The bonfire’s light dances over her dark brown skin in a way that almost makes her look as though she’s lit from within, and her twisted locks of hair are pushed back from her face by a hair wrap under a simple leather mask.

“Raze!” she repeats, fully taking over his attention. “What are you doing? We don’t have time for you to flirt. Our appointment is—” She glances at me and cuts herself off quickly. “We need to get going. Now.”

He sighs deeply, shoving the tray into my hands before I can protest. As he does, he leans in close.

“We’ll have to continue this some other time, I’m afraid, changeling,” he murmurs, with that same grin that I’ve officially decided, after several turns of changing my mind, is definitely irritating and not charming.

“Don’t count on it,” I hear myself say, not looking up at him.

“Raze,” the tall girl snaps again.

Then they disappear. They melt into the crowd as if they’d never been there at all, and I’m left standing on my own, holding a tray of half-spilled drinks, mouth still hanging a little open.

chapter three

I stand there stunned for several moments, while the world keeps turning around me, until I remember I need to get to the servants’ door. The tray is getting heavier by the second. People dance past, twirling carelessly and slinging flowers as they snatch glasses from the tray. Glass crunches underfoot, mingling with crushed petals, shards left from those who couldn’t be bothered to return their glasses.

I hear a cry of alarm, and for a second, my heart leaps into my throat, and I’m completely sure Isolde’s been caught.

I’m already planning our escape from prison by the time I realize it’s a totally different kind of cry. It’s spreading now, waves of awe and fear rippling through the crowd. The music stops abruptly as musicians’ fingers freeze on their instruments, and a hush falls over the wildest party of the year.

I, with everyone else, push toward the source of the disturbance. I elbow and shove, and when I see a bewildered-looking servant, I hand off the tray with its mostly empty glasses.

I’m shorter than nearly everyone in the crowd, and all I can see is shimmering silk tunics, dusky-purple sleeves, deep crimson coats, the backs of flower-adorned heads. People are pressing in now, too tight, and I can hardly breathe.

Then I’m at the front of the newly formed mass of people, and I can finally see what’s going on.