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Chapter Thirty-seven

Guinevere

As soon as Wensleydale and Guinevere reached the bottom of the stairs, they were swarmed by well-wishers.

Her betrothed reeled off the introductions with practiced ease.

Practiced, too, was the way Guinevere kept her smile in place and her lashes lowered demurely, murmuring the appropriate responses.

She lasted ten minutes, by her own count, before she started looking around for Oskar. He’d said he would be here.

Her gaze scoured the ballroom as Wensleydale led her through it.

It wasn’t as though Oskar was possible to miss.

He towered over most people. She knew that she had to believe what her eyes were telling her—that he wasn’t in this crowd—but her hope was a stubborn flame sputtering in the wind, rippling, shifting, refusing to be extinguished even as moment after moment passed with no sign of him.

A flute of champagne was deposited into her hand, her fingers automatically curling around its crystalline stem.

Perhaps it was Wensleydale who’d given it to her, or perhaps it had been one of the other lords.

There was a sameness to all of them—and to the ladies, too.

That sameness would come for her as well.

Once her novelty had worn off, she’d be indistinguishable from the rest of them, with her impeccable manners and her gowns that were always the height of fashion.

One of these days Wensleydale would return north, into the Empire, and he would take her with him, and she’d be on the Amber Road once more—but, if so, then in one carriage out of many, with packed lunches and servants to spread out the picnic blankets, with stopovers at luxury inns in the nice part of town.

Never again Labenda. Never again sitting around a fur trader’s campfire pelting someone with turnips. Never again Oskar, listening to her silly dreams of seeing Molaesmyr and summiting the Dunrock.

Guinevere took a sip of champagne. It had a pleasant, slightly tart flavor that vanished almost as soon as it hit her tongue. Someone asked her how she liked it.

“I prefer ale,” she absentmindedly remarked.

The people around her broke out into perfectly modulated laughter.

Because she was joking, of course. Ladies did not drink ale, or at the very least they didn’t like it better than champagne.

The future Lady Wensleydale had such a splendiferous sense of humor!

She cast another glance around the ballroom, feeling lost and alone. Where was Oskar?

At some point the harp music stopped, and, as an orchestra took over, Guinevere was introduced to the Opal of the Ocean.

The musician was the first person whom she’d regarded with genuine interest since setting foot in the ballroom.

According to the gossip that morning’s callers had so eagerly shared, Mia Lavera had been born to a pair of dockside workers.

A benevolent patron had nurtured her talents and gotten her to the point where she was in demand at upscale venues throughout the Coast.

Guinevere’s callers had so discreetly coughed behind their fluttering hand fans every time they mentioned the Opal’s patron.

Which meant that, whether it was true or not, the consensus among Nicodranian society was that the Opal had sold her favors to the highest bidder.

Guinevere suspected that attitudes here were similar to the Dwendalian Empire in that most nobles considered it only right that the Opal be compensated for the privilege of her brilliant company, but there would always be those who tittered simply because she’d dared claw her way to the upper crust.

Guinevere searched the infernal’s face for a flicker of anything she could claim kinship to— Hello, my fellow upstart, shall we be friends, down in our muck? But there was only enigmatic sophistication in those starlit eyes, and Guinevere was hard-pressed to assign blame.

Everyone in this world was surviving the best way they knew how.

“Thank you for sharing the gift of your music with us, Miss Lavera,” said Guinevere.

The Opal curtsied. “The pleasure was entirely mine, Miss Guinevere. Although it will be Lady Wensleydale soon, yes? Heartiest felicitations.”

Guinevere murmured her thanks again before Wensleydale ushered her off to a cluster of his friends. She felt the Opal’s gaze linger on the back of her neck a beat too long, but it quickly slipped her mind, because there was another round of introductions to focus on.

Where was Oskar? Why hadn’t he come?

At some point, she bent down to help a certain Lady Machemont fix the hem of her gown, which had tangled with the heel of her shoe.

When she straightened up, everyone in her immediate circle was staring at her, including Wensleydale.

Had she committed an unforgivable social gaffe?

With no small amount of apathy, she mentally rifled through all the discourses on etiquette that she’d memorized since she was a child.

She didn’t think that there’d been anything about how it was anathema to help another lady not fall flat on her face…

“Why, Miss Guinevere,” said Lord Reecca, “that is quite the intriguing necklace you are wearing!”

Her hand flew to her chest, where, yes, the silver-spangled skull of her totem had spilled out from the low-cut bodice. She didn’t look at it, but her fingers curved over feather and bone, tracing the thistle petals that a warden of the forest had brought forth.

“It doesn’t exactly match your magnificent gown,” ventured Lady Portgomery, “but it is a rather unique piece, for all that.”

Wensleydale recovered smoothly, shooting his friends a sly grin. “It seems I was in error, having provided the gown and not the jewels. I’ve every faith that my betrothed will provide me with ample opportunity to make up for my oversight.”

“As she should!” Lady Machemont declared. Without missing a beat, she turned to Guinevere and said in a stage whisper, “I shall give you the addresses of several renowned jewelers…”

More of that droll, decorous laughter, the kind that Guinevere would hear every day throughout a lifetime of balls like this, and brunches and high teas and croquet matches.

She didn’t say anything as she looked from one set of aristocratic features to the next and the next and the next, still clutching the sparrow skull, digging the tip of her finger into the black earth of its crevice.

Not a single one of these wealthy, privileged people realized that this wasn’t just a necklace, when even a ragtag bunch of bandits had known that it was a totem. High society was trapped in a cage of its own making.

Was she really going to lock herself in with them?

No.

The answer stole upon her like a bolt of lightning. It froze her where she stood; it lit her up from within with its stark, undeniable conviction.

This glittering, hollow realm—these insincere, pedigreed people, fabulously out of touch—this monotonous parade of properly regimented days and nights—this was not the life she wanted.

Her gaze fell on her parents several feet away, fawning over their conversation partners, drinking to disguise their nerves, oblivious to the thinly veiled contempt that would hound their every move from now on.

They looked so small, so harmless. As did everyone else in this room.

Her time on the Amber Road had cut them all down to size.

I can go, Guinevere thought. I can just leave. It was as simple as that, like unlocking a door she’d had the key to all along. Wensleydale had his historically significant Parure, and her mother and her father had their wits, their gumption, and each other. They were going to be fine.

I can go.

There was nothing stopping her but her own fears.

And she was afraid—but she was going to do it anyway. She was going to find Oskar and lay her heart at his feet, and together they would leave all of this behind.

Guinevere waited until a few of Wensleydale’s business partners had drifted over to him. “My lord,” she said smoothly, “I believe my nose is in dire need of powdering. Please excuse me.”

He waved her off with a distracted, indulgent nod, too embroiled in his discussion, too accepting of her ladylike docility to suspect her of any nefarious plans. It would have been insulting, if she’d cared about him one whit.

And that was the thing. She wanted to care about someone she was going to marry. She wanted passion, and adventure, and the freedom to just be.

That was all within her grasp. She just had to reach for it. She just had to listen to the song of her heart.

Guinevere made her way through the crowd, walking briskly, looking straight ahead. Ignoring all those who hailed her and their miffed noises when she didn’t stop to chat. She didn’t care. She was never going to see any of these people again.

The powder room was mercifully deserted. There was a window over the washbasin, and Guinevere stood on tiptoe to peer outside. No guards that she could spot. She had to do it now, before someone came in.