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Chapter 11

August

It turned out last-minute tuxedos were hard to come by.

August finally managed to borrow one from a tailor on Flint Street, on the proviso that the Bullhorn run an advertisement for the tailor, which was a promise he would deal with when he handed Mr.Vargene his article about the Veritaz Ceremony. He’d make sure to double up on pictures of the Holtzfalls’ decadence to butter his editor up for that ask.

Guests had started to arrive at the Holtzfall mansion as dusk gloamed across the city. Even among the blasé rich, there was a buzz of excitement. It had been centuries since mortals and immortals walked together in the woods. But tonight, they had all gathered to wait for darkness to fall and the Huldrekall to emerge from the woods and begin the Veritaz.

And August would be there to capture it all on camera.

As well as the drinking and dancing and general wealthy debauchery that followed.

He tugged at the sleeves of his borrowed jacket as he waited outside the bustling pen of journalists and photographers. All too aware that the knights flanking the door were eyeing him with increasing suspicion the longer he lingered. Honora was bound to arrive soon. The sun was fading fast.

One overpriced car after the next pulled up to the front of the house, spilling out women in grand dresses and men in finely tailored tuxedos. The cars were streaked with rain, but the sky around the Holtzfall mansion was clear.

There really wasn’t anything magic and money couldn’t buy, even good weather. August might not be the one shouting for radical reform alongside others at the Bullhorn , but even he couldn’t help wondering if maybe this charm might’ve been better used to stop the flooding of the tenement buildings near the docks instead of for a garden party.

“Good evening, sir.” August recognized the carefully calculated tone from behind him. Just polite enough, in case August turned out to be somebody, but tinged with the fair certainty that he was most likely not.

August pretended not to hear, making a show of adjusting his cuffs. He didn’t have any cuff links.

“Sir.” The voice came again, as this time the man it belonged to stepped into view. August found himself eye to chest with the Holtzfall sigil of a figure wielding an ax, stitched onto an elegant gray doublet. Weren’t giants supposed to have died out a hundred years ago? “May I help you?”

“Oh, not at all,” August said. “Kind of you to offer though, my good man.” He almost slapped the knight jovially on the arm, then thought better of pushing his luck.

The knight’s brow furrowed, seeming momentarily baffled. “Sir,” he said again, “most people usually go straight into the party when they arrive.”

“Hmm.” August nodded, as if the knight were sharing an interesting fact. “Is that right?”

The knight waited again for August to offer some sort of excuse for why he had been standing in front of the mansion for nearly half an hour now. But August didn’t volunteer one. He was aware that he was rapidly running out of smart answers.

“Oh, well, I—” He stuck his hands in his pockets, as if hunting for his invitation. Too late, he realized the gesture had pulled back his jacket to reveal the small dented camera around his neck. The knight’s demeanor changed instantly.

Damn. He was made.

“All right.” The knight’s firm hand dropped onto August’s shoulder. “Time for you to go, journalist.”

“No, no. See—” August forced a laugh as if this was all some big misunderstanding, though the knight was already marching August toward the boundaries of the weather magic, preparing to toss him out into the rain. “I’ve got a date.”

“Oh, yeah.” The knight looked skeptical, still moving toward the border of the charm where the rain was lashing. “With whom?”

“With me.” Her words worked like a spell. Instantly, the knight released August, dropping into a deep bow.

“Well, at least you’re in time to save my tux.” August made a show of brushing off his lapels. “You know, I’ve got to return this by midnight or else—” Whatever he was going to say died on his tongue as he turned.

Honora Holtzfall was silhouetted in the last of the day’s burnished sun. For the past half hour, August had seen women arrive in every dress imaginable. They came wearing thousands of peacock feathers, they came drenched in gold or wrapped in hurricanes of tulle. He’d imagined Honora Holtzfall would be wearing the finest finery of them all. Instead she was wearing a plain white slip that clung to her indecently. He barely had a beat to take her in before every other journalist waiting behind the barriers noticed her. All at once, the cameras started to go as they shouted questions at her. Flashbulbs went off like fireworks, engulfing Honora as she made her way toward him.

Honora Holtzfall ignored every single shouting photographer. She just kept walking, the flashes seeming to cling to her, and as August squinted against the onslaught of cameras, he thought he could see her transforming. She sailed through the army of press, until suddenly she was standing in front of him in a dress made of light.

She looked as if she had just broken through an incandescent veil and emerged with tendrils of it clinging to her. As she moved, the dress shuddered through every opalescent color light could be, from sunrise gold to sunset pink, a constant dancing prismatic color spectrum with every swish of her skirt. The dress trailed behind her like she was walking in her own spotlight.

August felt his hand twitch, aching to reach out for the ribbon of light along Honora’s bare shoulders, except he was worried that she might break apart, too beautiful to be real.

“That tuxedo is hardly worth saving.” Honora’s eyes brushed him swiftly. He tried to find his footing again.

“Well, I was going to splash out at Rikhaus”—he buttoned the jacket up over the camera again—“but then I remembered that unlike you, I don’t get by on appearances.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“Don’t worry,” she said, her sparring smile making her even more beautiful, “I own a mirror.”

August was aware of cameras watching them curiously. Obviously wondering why Honora Holtzfall was talking to a stranger in an ill-fitting tux. Honora seemed oblivious to all of it.

“I would love to stand here accepting praise all evening, but I do need to get inside before sunset.”

“Shall we?” August bowed sardonically, offering his arm. And suddenly Honora Holtzfall’s bare skin was brushing the fabric of his suit, making the hairs rise on the back of his neck.

“We might as well.”

And just like that, August Wolffe, the son of a thief and a laundress, journalist at a disreputable paper, walked into the world of the Holtzfalls.