The skirt of Lore’s dress caught under her foot again. “Bleeding God and his bloody wounds.”
“Yes, good, get it all out of your system now.” Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Dukes’ cousins generally keep a civil tongue. Match the script to the costume.”
“I’ll be sure to start peacock squawking, then.” The narrow, twisting stairs the bloodcoats had led them up would be entirely impossible in Lore’s heeled violet shoes, and so they took the long way, walking down each hall to the wide steps at their ends, twisting back in on themselves to funnel down the turret. “That is what I’m supposed to be, right? A peacock? Not actually a plum pudding?”
“Are we supposed to be something?”
“It’s a masquerade, Mort, the costumes are the whole point.” But she couldn’t quite puzzle out what their costumes were. The tulle of her skirt was layered shades of purple, wine-dark on the bottom and a nearly white lavender on the top. Embroidered threads of green lined the deep-violet bodice, ending in wide leaves around the plunging neck. Some kind of flower? Gabriel’s costume didn’t give any clues—regular court clothes, only odd for being all in shades of green.
“You should probably refrain from calling me Mort once we arrive,” Gabriel said. “Doesn’t exactly sound familial.”
“Just Gabriel, then?”
He paused. “Gabe.”
“Gabe,” she repeated, feeling out the word on her tongue.
He gave a solemn nod, a tiny tick of a smile in the corner of his dour mouth. Lore returned it, then reapplied herself to the arduous task of walking in her ridiculous dress.
Earlier, it had seemed like their rooms were miles from the center of the Citadel, but as the candelabras became more ornate and the iron-barred floor more polished with each descended stairway, Lore felt like they were getting there too fast. Her heart beat a nervous tattoo and sweat misted her skin, making the already-itchy tulle nigh unbearable.
“What’s your full name?” Gabriel—Gabe—asked after a moment. They’d turned a corner and found themselves in a wide atrium that she vaguely remembered from earlier. Rosebushes grew profuse in ceramic pots, traced in golden gilt, hiding delicate wrought-iron tables and tiny statues of frolicking nymphs. “Is Lore short for something?”
“No.” She shrugged. “It’s the only name I have.”
“We’ll have to make something up, then. Something that sounds like the cousin of a duke.” He looked down at her, brow thoughtfully knit. The gentle light of the fading sunset through the atrium’s huge windows strobed over his face, then pitched it to shadow as they turned into another hallway. “Eldelore.”
Her nose wrinkled.
The brow over his eye patch rose. “You have approximately two minutes to come up with a better one.”
“Two minutes?”
They turned another corner, and the doors of the throne room loomed up ahead. Gabe gave her a chagrined look from the corner of his eye. “I did say approximately.”
The entrance to the throne room somehow looked even more intimidating than it had this morning, the sunset light burnishing the Bleeding God’s Hearts on the door with pink and crimson and orange. Five bloodcoat guards stared straight ahead, swords sheathed at their sides, not a bayonet in sight. Lore assumed the weapon wasn’t elegant enough for inside the Citadel. Such slaughter was saved for outside the walls.
These guards weren’t the ones who’d been there earlier, though. “New bloodcoats?” Lore whispered out of the corner of her mouth, only loud enough for Gabe to hear.
“I’d imagine the ones who saw you this morning won’t be making an appearance again,” Gabriel murmured. “August is thorough. The guards who caught you in the Ward are probably gone, too. Keeps the circle of people who know who you really are as small as it can be.”
“So the guards were reassigned?”
“If you want to call sent to the Burnt Isles reassigned.”
So the Citadel was just as violent as the streets of Dellaire, even if the blades were polished and the blood was mopped up more quickly.
“Name?” the bloodcoat at the door asked as they approached. Clearly, it was a formality. His eyes were wide as he looked at Gabe, like someone might look at a ghost.
“Leif Gabriel Remaut, Duke of Balgia,” Gabriel announced, voice strong and sure as if he’d done this a thousand times. “And my cousin, Eldelore Remaut.”
Lore dug her nails into Gabriel’s arm. His lips twisted against a smirk.
The bloodcoat nodded, then opened the door.
And revealed the kind of sumptuous chaos that could’ve been the dead gods’ Shining Realm or any one of the myriad hells.
Opulently dressed courtiers whirled to mad music from a small orchestra. Hair was done up in spirals and towers, powdered impossible colors—deep greens and gem-bright blues and light blush-pinks. Some of the dancers appeared to be dressed like animals, with half masks covering their eyes and false ears on their heads, made of expensive fabric. A thin slip of a person wore shimmering butterfly wings on their back, the same bright yellow as their hair. Another had what looked like actual swan feathers attached to the back of her diaphanous gown, and her dance partner wore nothing but feathers around her waist and breasts.
If Lore’s eyebrows climbed any farther, they’d disappear into her hairline. “You weren’t exaggerating about my dress being tame.”
“Positively chaste.” Gabriel looked like he’d rather be walking into a jail cell than this party. His jaw was a tight line, and the muscles under Lore’s slack hand were tense as a fence post.
A familiar scent itched at Lore’s nose. Belladonna.
She whipped around, searching the crowd anxiously. There, in the corner—a group of courtiers took turns drinking from a tiny ceramic cup, not even trying to hide it. Their faces were flushed, their legs unsteady, their eyes glassy with a euphoric poison high. Flashes of gray showed at wrists and throats, stone working its silent way through veins as just enough Mortem was pulled forth to slow the ravage of time. Painful years added to pampered lives.
“They’ll kill themselves if they drink too much,” she muttered. “The key is moderation, and nothing about this party tells me these people know anything about that.”
“Citadel physicians are highly skilled at treating overdoses.” Gabriel’s blue eye flashed as he turned away from the knot of poisoned nobles. “It happens all the time. There are laws in place that force a nobleman to step down in favor of his heir if he lives too long.”
“I haven’t seen anyone that looks like a revenant.”
“Citadel physicians are skilled at treating that, too. Take a good look at some of the older nobles next time you get a chance. Cosmetics and padding go a long way to hide stone veins and emaciation.”
Lore’s jaw tightened as she watched the extravagantly dressed courtiers pass the poison, giggling. She didn’t realize she’d taken a step toward the group until Gabe’s hand landed on her shoulder.
He shook his head. “Just leave it, Lore.”
And what could she do, even if she did go over there? It wouldn’t make a difference.
So Lore sighed, and shook her hands out of their fists, and turned to observe the Court of the Citadel in all its debauchery.