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I reach out cautiously to touch my shadow, but as soon as she’s found her feet, she darts away, skipping into the crowd with a mischievous air about her. Alastor’s and Tira’s shadows do the same, dancing off into the throng of bodies—both real and not.

“They don’t make it easy,” Alastor explains. “They’ll try to evade you.”

Already, the crowd is moving around us, everyone searching for a shadow to snag.

“What happens if we’re left without a partner at the end?” I ask hurriedly.

“Public humiliation. You get some kind of trick played on you,” Alastor says.

“That doesn’t sound like the kind of fun you’d want to have at a ball!” I snap, eyes darting around me in case a shadow wanders my way.

Alastor shrugs just before a large fae lord pushes between us.

I focus on the task at hand—I’ve really had enough public humiliation for one evening. A shadow dances past me, but it’s startlingly fast, and it’s gone before I can even reach my hand out.

Some of the nobles have already snagged partners and are spinning their shadowy companions around the dance floor. It’s obvious the fae’s quick reflexes give them an advantage over me here, and I discover I can’t pull the shadows toward me with orbital magic—they’re not solid enough for that.

I have to be more strategic. I spot a shadow spinning on its own near the corner of the crowd and approach it from behind a group of dancing fae so it doesn’t spot me…

with its nonexistent eyes. But whatever, it seems to be working.

I’m within a hands-breadth of grabbing the figure when a woman already with a partner dances right between us, scaring the shadow away.

“Oops, sorry, Your Highness,” she smiles, and it’s then I recognize her from the wreathing. She was one of the ones fawning over Lady Naia.

When it happens a second time—an elegant fae woman knocking into me just when I get close to a shadow—I know for sure I’m being sabotaged. Lady Naia wants to make sure the person left to be shamed at the end of this waltz is me.

The music picks up speed, and the fae dance faster.

It’s a bizarre sight from where I’m standing, with the shadows just as plentiful as the people, like the nobles are suddenly being swallowed up by pockets of darkness before appearing again from behind their partners.

It’s making me dizzy, and I move away toward the edge of the action, hoping to find a lone shadow lingering on the outskirts.

Then I spot it. The music and the magic haven’t just brought people’s shadows to life. They’re affecting the statues lining the room too. One of them, a majestic fae king, hasn’t strayed far from its home, spinning around the plinth of the king’s statue.

The music starts to reach a crescendo, and I suspect I don’t have long left. I’m trying to push through the last few layers of crowd to reach the statue when a familiar voice sounds beside me.

“Oh, Your Highness, don’t tell me you haven’t found a partner yet?”

I barely glance at Lady Naia’s smug face, keeping my eyes on the prize as she keeps yapping away.

“I’m sure you recognize mine—he’s unmistakable, isn’t he?”

I risk taking another look and realize she’s managed to catch Leon’s shadow. I’d recognize that profile anywhere. What worries me more, however, is that manic look glinting even brighter in Lady Naia’s blue eyes.

“I wonder what your humiliation should be, hmm?” she continues. She follows me toward the statue, but she’s too preoccupied with gloating to focus on what I’m doing. “As the host, I get to decide what it is. Won’t that be fun ?”

I turn to face her, backing up toward the plinth as I do so.

“I’m sure it would’ve been,” I say, just as the statue’s shadow comes dancing around the corner of its stand. I reach out and snatch it. “But perhaps another time.”

I hold onto the shadow for dear life, but the moment I have it in my hands, I find it doesn’t fight or try to run from me. It feels like nothing I’ve ever touched before—almost filmy in texture, and yet I get the impression that if I squeezed too hard it would dissolve between my fingers.

I don’t waste time enjoying Naia’s outraged expression, concentrating on getting back onto the dance floor before the music finishes. The statue’s shadow, still wearing its king’s crown, puts its hand to my back, and we sway gently just as the melody starts to fade.

I release a sigh of relief as the fae stop dancing and cheer to celebrate the end of the waltz.

Most of them are now eagerly looking around them—hoping, I guess, to be the one to catch someone without a partner.

After a few minutes of chatter and laughter, an older fae raises his hand to get everyone’s attention.

“It’s a happy ending, Lady Naia,” he calls across the dance floor. “It seems everyone has managed to find a partner.”

There’s another cheer, and many of the fae clap. I wonder what kind of court this is that hopes for public humiliation and then seems equally satisfied when everyone is saved from it.

Aside from my own victory, I’m relieved Tira apparently hasn’t been caught out either. She probably didn’t have Lady Naia’s friends chasing shadows away from her though. No, that honor was reserved just for me.

“We have a cheat!”

The crowd turns in the direction of the shout, then parts as Lady Naia strides toward me, her eyes burning with hate.