Page 21 of Prince of Masks (Hearts of Bluestone #2)

I look at him, but then I realise he and Mr Vasile are in conversation, backstepping from the doorway where servants are trying to push trolleys of teapots and sandwiches onto the terrace.

“Oh, it hardly matters,” Father is saying, a murmur but a shout, a balancing act to keep his voice loud enough that Mr Vasile can hear it over the noise of the terrace, but low enough to not invite anyone into their conversation.

I am invited apparently, as Father finds me, and rests his hand on my shoulder, a gentle reassuring squeeze as though he senses my unease out here.

“The Five Covens and their debutantes this year are irrelevant. Oliver and Serena are loyal to each another. I assure you, Marco, there will be no changes with their arrangement.”

I lean into Father’s hold and watch Mr Vasile’s tense face tighten for a moment before he looks over his shoulder at Dez and Isabella.

Ah.

I understand.

He’s worried Oliver will flake on the engagement at the last minute, like his own son did to his fiancé.

“They love each other,” I say, and lure Mr Vasile’s blank stare to me. “Oliver dotes on her. You should see the tizzy he gets himself into when they are apart over the holidays.”

Father smiles down at me, a look of approval.

Mr Vasile considers me for a beat, then nods, firm. “Yes. Yes, he is quite fond of her, isn’t he.” It isn’t a question, no matter the words he used. He returns his focus to me before adding, as though he is reassuring me, “You might have luck with the Five Covens this season.”

My smile is firm, somewhere close to a grimace.

The Five Covens come together at the Debutante Balls, every single year. The covens are the groups made up of the most powerful elite aristos families, allied, from all over the world.

Marriages are prioritised between the Five Covens before they are outsourced to other elite aristos families, then lastly, the gentry.

None of the elite aristos chose me.

So now I’m up for grabs by the gentry.

The families here on this terrace make up the Coven of Europe: The Barlows, Cravens, Sinclairs, Vasiles—and the Stroms who aren’t here, but they are in the coven.

Zola Barlow comes from the Coven of Africa.

If I was a coven, I would be Antarctica.

I almost smile at my own quip, and then I quickly decide the cold is making me delirious because I’m really not that funny.

Father pats me once on the shoulder—and I understand it instantly for what it is.

A dismissal.

“Why don’t you go find Serena,” he tells me. “You are too close to the rain.”

He isn’t wrong.

Pushed to the barrier of the terrace, the drizzle is getting all over my coat’s shoulder and frosting my cheek raw.

I push up onto my toes and scan the heads and faces of the families crammed onto the long, narrow terrace.

I search for her—for only a heartbeat before her gaze lures mine in, and I see that she’s looking at me already.

Her hand lifts, her fingers glide in a slight wave.

She scoots along the edge of the terrace, between the stone banister and the crowd. The softness of her flimsy cream coat billows around her like a cape as she moves for me.

I would meet her halfway, but now Mrs Barlow comes up the stairs and cuts me off.

Serena doesn’t mind, she moves for me still, and her smile remains, small, lofty, sincere.

On her path to me, Oliver cuts in with a grin that I’m sure has made many swoon over the years. But Serena is polished silver, a sword, and she looks at him from beneath her long lashes.

He swoops down to ghost a kiss over her cheek—then he glides by her.

Serena’s upper lip twitches, slightly. A crack in a mask she’s crafted, sculpted, perfected over the years in our world. Then, in a blink, the crack is gone.

I squeeze by the loitering Mrs Barlow to meet Serena at the top of the stairs—and the moment we come together, her hands are quick to grab me by the shoulders.

Her slender fingers are ridiculously strong.

I fleetingly suspect her bones are made of metal.

She performs the faux kisses on both my cheeks, but her mouth moves slightly with murmured, grinned words—and addresses a question I had in my mind.

“The Stroms aren’t coming,” her breath is so close to me that I can feel the warmth tickling my chilled cheek. “Wait until you hear what Dray did.”

She draws back, and the gleam in her grey eyes, like lightning striking moody clouds, isn’t lost on me.

I almost ask, what did he do ?

What could he have done?

Dray can do—and has done—plenty to me. But to Asta? His betrothed, his equal, his friend?

Before the words can form on my tongue, Landon comes swaggering up the stairs, sheathed in his muddy rugby gear, striped blue and white, and there’s a particularly grim scrape that is torn along his cheek.

Still, his grin is effortless.

It isn’t aimed at me.

Oliver slips out from behind my mother, who’s hogging space with Amelia, and I have this itching urge rising up in me, the urge to shove everyone off the terrace and away from me.

I don’t.

Landon’s shoulder brushes mine as he slaps his hand down on my brother’s. Their handshake is the oddest kind, the one of casual, informal friendship and a sort of almost arm-wrestle between them.

I resist the urge to roll my eyes at them.

Instead, I turn my cheek to them, and not a heartbeat later, blue diamonds flicker out the corner of my eyes.

Dray comes up the stone stairs from the gardens, his steps calm and paced, unrushed.

Like Landon, he’s wrapped firmly in blue and white striped gear. Mud is speckled over his sandy hair, painted down the side of his neck, coating his hands and boots.

A mist of drizzle glistens his sunkissed face, glossed over a particularly harsh scrape on his jaw.

Our gazes latch for a moment.

Then—

I frown.

Because Dray inclines his head, a slight greeting he doesn’t have to perform since no parents are watching us.

I blink once, twice, then make a face at him.

Metal-like fingers cut into my shoulders, tight enough that I wince.

I swerve to glare at Serena’s lively face. “What?”

She’s undeterred by my hissing tone.

“Asta has lost her mind,” she whispers, hot and rushed, her eyes burning with life. “She’s sworn it all off, the whole season. Of course her father won’t let her miss the debutante season, but can you imagine—”

“Dears.”

I look up.

Behind Serena, Amelia reaches out her flimsy, jewel-crusted hand in a limp gesture, a come-here-now .

We do.

Amelia makes us do the rounds.

Well, makes me do the rounds, while Serena is my shadow. She’s been here since yesterday, apparently, so why she’s forcing herself into these little pockets of uncomfortable conversation with the likes of Mr and Mrs Barlow and Harold and Dez is a niggle in my mind.

Amelia is the warmest of the lot on the terrace towards me. Her smiles are sincere, and she says to Mrs Barlow how darling I look today, and so I guess I am visibly losing some of that weight she’s been harping on about.

Whatever Serena wants to tell me, it excites her enough that she follows me through the trenches, until Amelia winds us over to the end of the terrace, where there is a tray of teas and sandwiches waiting.

I am huddled with Mother, Amelia and Serena not far from the swing bench I adored a decade ago, and where the air seems thicker, fuller somehow.

Serena hooks her arm around mine and tilts into me.

Mother leans against the stone barrier, one hand cupping a teacup, the other pinching the edge of a biscuit.

Amelia hands me a teacup sturdy on a saucer. “The Stroms won’t be coming. To say that meeting was tense is something of an understatement.”

I sip the tea, aware of the nudge Serena gives me.

Amelia poured just the right amount of milk in the tea, it’s a lovely brown, but the steam wafting up into my face tells me to wait.

Amelia dips a buttery biscuit into her own tea. “Edward is in a twist about it.”

I nurse my cup. “But why is Mr Strom in a twist?”

I have half a mind to go find Oliver and kick him on the shins. If it wasn’t for him sulking around the whole morning with tonics and rest, I would be caught up already, I would know this gossip.

I must know this gossip.

A clocking sound lures in my gaze.

I look over my shoulder as Landon, Dray, Dez and Grey head down the steps for the gardens. The clomp of their metal fanged boots on stone narrows my eyes.

Before I can look away, Dray lifts his head, damp hair brushing over his brow.

He finds me, fast.

And he just looks, his steps slow down the stairs.

I turn my cheek to him. “What did Dray do to Asta?”

Amelia parts her lips to respond, but Mother clears her throat—and that silences her, fast.

That quiet settles over us as a servant carries a tray of freshly brewed tea, a full pitcher of black coffee, and some small cakes. That silence keeps as the servant tends to the trolley.

I wait.

Bouncing on the balls of my heels, I fight the urge to scream, what happened, what did Dray do, someone tell me now !

But I have to wait.

The servant is of low rank, and so the hush remains as he fixes the fresh bites onto the cake stand.

Whatever it was, it sent Mr Strom into a breakdown, and they won’t be attending our tradition of Rugby Sunday. To anyone outside of the coven, that might not sound like a big deal.

But it is.

Not all aristos are invited to this annual event, not all elites are welcomed.

We—the families gathered here on this terrace—are what we consider extended family. These alliances run deeper than any others outside of the circle. Every year, the Coven of Europe come together on this terrace.

That’s a big fucking deal to turn one’s nose up at.

Edward Strom has basically gone and told Amelia Sinclair, the hostess, to go fuck herself.

There will be repercussions for that.

I loosen a whooshed breath of impatience and look over at the muddy field.

I watch the four silhouettes on the grounds, the once lush field now torn apart. Their renewed game of rugby kicks off, even in the drizzle.

Air brushes over my shoulder, the servant slipping away. Not a moment after, Amelia’s rushed whisper comes—

“Dray broke off the engagement.”

A jolt strikes me, lightning through my suddenly lurching insides.

I swerve my stunned gaze between the bemused faces angled at me, small smiles that dare twist into grins and laughter. So maybe I took a moment to really understand what Amelia said.

He broke off the engagement…

But those words have sunk now.

And I look like a stunned goldfish. “He did what?”

Mother is the one who says, “Dray annulled his engagement to Asta, as of just two days ago.”

Serena elbows me.

I blink at her, and her answer is a look, a this-is-what-I-was-talking-about sort of look, pointed and all-knowing.

Amelia adds, “And Edward is in such a mood about it that he’s declared himself absent for the rest of the season. Our season,” Amelia clarifies. “He made a point in that meeting—I could hear it down the corridor—that he won’t be attending any of our gatherings outside of the Debutante Ball.”

I find no words in me. But I have a sudden understanding of Mr Vasile’s voiced fears.

I cup my cooled tea. It’s warm enough to soothe my palms, but the sensation is dull and distant.

My focus is entirely on the shock of it all.

I can’t keep the surprise from hitching my voice or arching my brows, pinned higher on my forehead. They might never drop. “He and Asta are perfect for each other. Why would he annul?”

When I say perfect for each other, I might mean that they are equal beasts and their ugly natures are well suited.

“And so last minute,” Serena mulls.

I nod, wide-eyed.

The last minute nature of it all is chaotic.

The available aristos aren’t of the greatest variety. Most eligible debutantes and bachelors are betrothed already.

Not many options when it comes to replacing a betrothed of years.

Even for the likes of Dray, it will be a challenging process to chase a debutante he prefers.

Of course, he can always out- bid her contract.

Most fathers will annul engagements already in place in favour of someone like Dray Sinclair.

But Asta…

Oh— fuck .

Eric.

My heart slingshots through me.

No.

No, no.

I can’t let that panic settle.

I stomp down the thought before it can take root.

I’ll worry about it later, when I’m not surrounded by wolves in silk.

“Who knows what men get in their heads sometimes,” Mother sighs and looks out at the rugby game just as Oliver tackles Dray into a puddle of brown rainwater.

I grimace.

That tackle looked a little personal, a little harsh.

I didn’t know Oliver intended to play today.

“Dray has another in mind,” Amelia says it as though she is assuring us. “He pursues her now.”

It isn’t Dray I’m worried about.

Not that I’m worried for Asta, but… I get it.

I’m on a shitty boat of ill suitors and no engagement, and she just climbed aboard.

Now I’ll have even less chance of securing a good husband with someone like Asta available.

“I trust my son,” Amelia concedes with a firm nod, a false read of my queasy look.

“Dray does what is best and only after careful, patient consideration. This was not done in haste. It has been in the works for some months now, and—well, it is what will be, and so we cannot fuss over tangled threads.”

I pray for her.

Whoever his victim is, she has my sympathies.

Maybe Asta had a lucky escape.

No, that’s not right.

As much as I would like it to be, Dray is a villain in my life, not Asta’s.

As far as I am aware, he treated her as an equal, he never infringed on the same freedoms he took for himself—gambling, dating or sleeping with others, autonomy —and he indulged her whims with fancies and jewels, as a suitor should.

I doubt he would turn wicked after their wedding day. The root of his viciousness with me is hatred for what I am.