After the bulk of the guests had arrived, they set to walking around the room, milling with strangers. Nina wanted to dance. When she’d pictured this moment as a girl—and she’d pictured it often, the whirlwind romance, the engagement party with exquisite music and distinguished guests—she’d focused on the dance.
“Not now,” Luc told her. “We must speak to a number of people.”
“We have already spoken to a number of people as they arrived,” she replied.
“Nina, no one dances at their engagement party.”
Having learned most of the things she knew from books, she did not recall this detail. In her romances, in her imagination, there had been dancing.
Nina stared at Luc, but he smiled and dragged her to talk to another couple, then another. Luc knew exactly what he wanted to say to each person and monopolized every conversation, steering it in the direction of his choice. She was left standing silently at his side.
She had a panicked feeling, as if splinters were digging into the palms of her hands. She wanted to draw herself into a corner and take a deep breath, but there was a terrible amount of activity, dozens of people smiling at her. She gripped Luc’s arm.
She felt he was the only element keeping her afloat, and why, why was there such tightness in her chest?
“Could we sit down for a moment? Perhaps go outside for a breath of fresh air?” she asked. “I do not feel too well.”
“Darling, do you see that man over there?” Luc said. “That is Flavio Odem, and I am hoping he will help finance a crucial business venture of mine. We have to talk to him.”
“Five minutes, Luc.”
“Nina, we must take advantage of this opportunity. It is difficult to obtain a meeting with a number of people in this room.”
“Luc, please.”
He was looking in the direction of Odem and only threw her a quick, irritated glance.
“He is heading toward the smoking room. Nina … fine, you go outside for a minute. I can’t take you into the smoking room with the men, anyway.”
“Luc.”
“Be a good girl,” he said, and now he granted her a sweet smile.
He left with that. Nina somehow managed to slide out of the house. She took a deep breath.
The full moon smiled above her, and Nina tipped her head up to look at it.
How much better and quieter it was outside, the voices of the party muffled, the lights of the chandeliers not blinding her. She’d wanted this, had she not? She’d come to Loisail for this, and the city had been cruel, but now it had granted her the childhood dream she’d built from scraps of books. And soon they’d be away from the metropolis; Luc had promised her a long honeymoon, and they would settle in another city. This suited her well.
Something buzzed against her cheek, and Nina turned her head and saw a nocturnal beetle flutter and land on her hand.
It was a blue lightning bug, with luminous spots, a creature meant for warmer climates and summer days. How odd it should fly around Loisail! Then again, it had been a warm spring.
I must tell Hector of this find, she thought, and had to mentally correct herself because it was Luc. She ought to tell Luc about the beetle. She turned her head, ready to slip back into the party, and then did not move.
Because Luc would not care. He was in the smoking room, speaking to his friends.
The beetle flashed blue in a blinking, cycling pattern, then suddenly took off, fluttering away.
She followed it, drawn by its light, with slow steps, then faster, then so fast, she was running, almost tripping over her dress. Three blocks from the house, she lost sight of the insect.
Nina stood there, stunned, uncertain, not knowing what she was doing or why.
It came to her then, a single thought so overwhelming, it erased everything: the discomfort of the evening and the rational voice in her head pleading for her to turn back ceased. The thought was simply that she wanted Hector.
She ran toward the nearest avenue where she might catch a carriage, almost stumbling into the path of a horse. The driver yelled a curse and reined in his mount, the carriage stopping right in front of her.
“Are you mad, girl?!” he exclaimed.
Yes, she thought. Yes and no, for she had not been this clearheaded in days.
“Take me to Boniface,” she told the driver, and when he looked at her skeptically, she removed her pearl earrings and held them up. “You can have these if you do.”
He muttered under his breath but snatched the earrings all the same, and she hurried inside. The wheels did not turn fast enough for her taste, nor could she rush out of the vehicle fast enough as the carriage pulled up in front of Hector’s building. She forced the entrance open with her power, not even thinking to use it; the door simply sprang open, obeying her desire more than her mind. She ran up the stairs and knocked three times.
Hector opened the door in his lounging robe and stared at her, looking surprised.
She stood breathless before him and managed to speak in a low voice. “You will forgive me, but I had to see you,” she said.
She walked past him, and he was too startled to impede her path. An army might not have been able to hold her back at this point.
“Are you unwell? Is something amiss?” he asked, sounding worried.
“It was my engagement party tonight,” she replied.
She felt as if she were sinking into the deepest of waters and appropriately took a deep breath, a swimmer ready to dive under the waves. “Hector, I cannot marry Luc Lémy. I do not love him, and I do not believe I could find true happiness with him.”
Now that she had started speaking, it all became easier. She was nervous but determined. She had broken to the surface. She was not drowning but living, everything inside her eager and awake.
“I am in love with another man. Since Oldhouse and before that. He is intelligent and dedicated and kind. He understands me, and I believe I understand him. I like the way he talks and the way he smiles. I like many things about him, I cannot ever remember all of them.”
She approached him and did not know what to do with her hands, she was too nervous. She settled for clutching them together, and her voice dipped.
“I love you,” she concluded.
The minutes went by in a dense silence. He looked more wearied than pleased. Then again, she was unsure how men should take declarations of love. This did not appear in any of her books.
“You have nothing to say to me?” she asked.
“Nina,” he said with a sigh, “Nina we must get you back to your party.”
He extended a hand, as if to point her to the door, and she tensed at once.
“No,” she said, brushing his hand away. “No, did you not hear me? I do not want to go back. I won’t marry him.”
He gave her an odd, brittle look. His shoulders were hunched.
Anger licked her skin.
“What is wrong with you? I am here, baring my heart to you, and you can hardly look at me.”
“Decisions made in the haste of the moment are often regretted. Come morning, you might see matters in a different light,” he replied.
“Different light?”
“Yes. What do you think will happen to your reputation? There will be a scandal if you break this engagement, doubly compounded if you break it for me.”
“I know exactly what I am doing. I have finally regained my senses and realize I cannot walk a path of lies,” she told him.