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Taly bit back a grin, giving a little hop to kiss him on the cheek before following the light.

She lowered the hood of her white fur-lined cloak to keep the mist off her hair. It wasn’t far, but it was wet, with no carpet to keep the women’s dresses from rubbing against the cobbles. Clenching the feathery mass of her skirts tight in one hand, she stepped up on a natural shelf of wood that had curled outward from the dome’s base, pulled back the curtain draped between twin pillars of woody vines, and felt her breath catch.

It was the flowers she saw first.

Tiny, bioluminescent flowers that glowed pale yellow. There had to be thousands of them, covering every available surface, sprouting from the coiling vines that tangled to form walls, chairs, and rows of terraces that rose up and up and up. All the way to where a sprawling canopy of silver leaves flickeredlike jewels above them, thick enough to keep off the snow and mist but with enough transparency to still see the stars twinkling beyond.

The drone of idle chatter filled the air, punctuated by the occasional shriek of childish laughter as people in the upper rows took their seats. The stairways were packed with opposing streams of people, with more still filing in through the arch of silver ivy curving over the main entrance. The entire city had turned out, it seemed.

Good.

The more people showed up, the more tonight would play in Ivain’s favor.

Taly pulled back the curtain a little more, angling her body so that she could see the nobility idling on the main floor. Of the 12 Houses, eight had blood representation on the island, and their banners waved behind the small stadium of thrones, each one high-backed and proud, that flowed down to the main stage.

The Ghislain dragon, the Fairmont fox, and the Thanos chalice, tipped on its side in a pool of blood, marked their family’s section. And then there were the five white roses of House Agno, three golden mechanical gears for Bontu, shimmering gusts of wind for Tira, a willow weeping blood for Arylaan, and a screaming, three-eyed falcon for Myridan.

In another life, there might’ve been a banner waving for her too. For the woman that would’ve been Corinna.

Taly scented him before she saw him, cigar smoke and black tea.

“So, how did I do?” Ivain asked, bracing one arm against the side of the dome as he stooped to peer over her shoulder.

Taly smiled back at him. “I think you already know how you did, old man.”

He gave a soft but hearty laugh. “I hate these things.”

“Me too.” Even hidden in the shadows, she couldn’t shake the feeling of all those eyes staring. “There are Sanctifiers in the crowd.”

Their crimson cloaks stood out like a wound on the second terrace. At least 20 of them clustered together. People avoided the surrounding rows.

Beneath the banner of House Myridan, the Lord Shroud—their leader—sat with his hood thrown back to reveal the glamoured shadows obscuring his face.

An alliance, it seemed. Or the beginning of one. That could be a problem.

Ivain was utterly still as he assessed them. “If they so much as look at you, I’ll kill them.”

The words were said so simply, so matter of fact, that Taly was reminded of the predator at her back—a man so ancient and powerful, it made her look like a speck.

She reached up to place a hand over the one resting on her shoulder. “You shouldn’t have worn white. Terrible color for bloodletting.” She was only half joking.

“Sarina’s doing.” Ivain tugged at his tie, and just like that, the predator was gone, put back in his cage. “I hate this suit. Almost as much as I hate speeches.”

“It’s not too late to run away,” Taly offered.

“You know Sarina would find us.”

“Yeah, but that could take years. And in the meantime, you’d get out of your speech, and I would be able to get a head start on the flock of pigeons who will inevitably come looking for blood when they discover how many of their brethren gave their lives for this dress.”

Ivain chuckled softly. “You look beautiful,” he said, giving her hand a squeeze. “As beautiful as your mother in that dress.”

Taly fingered the long, downy feathers on her skirt. Fabric was almost impossible to find now, and nothing the tailorhad come up with had quite suited Sarina’s vision. So, they’d gone searching in the basement and found one of Breena’s old dresses.

It had been altered heavily. Taly was shorter than her mother and smaller in the shoulders and hips. But it still felt good to have the same fabric against her skin. To feel the memory woven into the fibers. A subtle reminder that she had more than enough strength in her blood to get her through tonight.

Taly asked, “What would she have said about all of this? About tonight?”

Ivain sighed, an old sadness flickering behind his smile. “She would’ve said that feathers itch.”