Daughter of Smoke and Bone(89)

Claimed, she thought, but she said, “As good as. Now go. If Thiago sees you—”

“Thiago?” The angel recoiled at the name. “You’re betrothed to the Wolf?”

And at the moment he pronounced those words—the Wolf—arms came around Madrigal’s waist from behind and she gasped.

In an instant, she saw what would happen. Thiago would discover the angel, and he wouldn’t just kill him, he would make a spectacle of it. A seraph spy at the Warlord’s ball—such a thing had never happened! He would be tortured. He would be made to wish that he had never lived. It all flashed through her, and horror rose like bile in her throat. When she heard, close to her ear, a giggle, the relief almost left her limp.

It wasn’t Thiago, but Chiro. “There you are,” said her sister. “We lost you in the crush!”

Madrigal’s blood made a roaring in her ears, and Chiro glanced from her to the stranger, whose heat suddenly felt to Madrigal like a beacon. “Hello,” Chiro said, peering with curiosity at the horse mask, through which Madrigal could still make out the orange burn of his tiger’s eyes.

It hit her anew that he had come in such thin disguise into the den of the enemy for her, and she felt a queer constriction in her chest. For two years she had reflected on Bullfinch as a momentary madness, though it hadn’t felt like madness then, and it didn’t now, to wish this seraph to live—and she did wish it. She pulled herself together and turned to Chiro. Nwella was right behind her.

“Some friends you are,” she chided them. “To dress me like this and then abandon me to the Serpentine. I might have been mauled.”

“We thought you were behind us,” said Nwella, breathless from dancing.

“I was,” said Madrigal. “Far behind you.” She had turned her back on the angel without a second glance. She began to casually herd her friends away from him, using the motion of the crowd to put space between them.

“Who was that?” Chiro asked.

“Who?” asked Madrigal.

“In the horse mask, dancing with you.”

“I wasn’t dancing with anyone. Or perhaps you didn’t notice: No one would dance with me. I am a pariah.”

Scoffing, “A pariah! Hardly. More like a princess.” Chiro threw a skeptical look back, and Madrigal was wild to know what she saw. Was the angel looking after them, or had some sense of self-preservation kicked in and made him disappear?

“Have you seen Thiago yet?” Nwella asked. “Or rather, has he seen you?”

“No—” Madrigal started to say, but then Chiro burst out with, “There he is!” and she went cold.

There he was.

He was unmistakable, with the hewn-off wolf head atop his own, his grotesque version of a mask. Its fangs curved over his brow, its muzzle drawn back in a snarl. His snow-white hair was brushed and arranged over his shoulders, his vest ivory satin—so much white, white upon white, framing his strong, handsome face, which was bronzed by the sun, making his pale eyes seem ghostly.

He hadn’t seen her yet. The crowd parted around him, not even the drunkest of the revelers failing to recognize him and make way. The mob seemed to shrivel as he passed with his retinue, who were of true wolf aspect, and moved like a pack.

The meaning of this night caught up to Madrigal: her choice, her future.

“He’s magnificent,” breathed Nwella, clinging to Madrigal on one side. Madrigal had to agree, but she placed the credit for it with Brimstone, who had crafted that beautiful body, not with Thiago, who wore it with the arrogance of entitlement.

“He’s looking for you,” said Chiro, and Madrigal knew she was right. The general was unhurried, his pale eyes sweeping the crowd with the confidence of one who gets what he wants. Then his gaze came to rest on her. She felt impaled by it. Spooked, she took a step back.

“Let’s go dance,” she blurted, to the surprise of her friends.

“But—” Chiro said.

“Listen.” A new reel was starting up. “It’s the Furiant. My favorite.”

It was not her favorite, but it would do. Two lines of dancers were forming, men on one side, women on the other, and before Chiro and Nwella could say another word, Madrigal had spun to flee toward the women’s file, feeling Thiago’s gaze on the back of her neck like the touch of claws.

She wondered: What of other eyes?

The Furiant began with a light-footed promenade, Chiro and Nwella rushing to join in, and Madrigal went through the steps with grace and a smile, not missing a beat, but she was barely there. Her thoughts had flown outward, darting and dipping with the hummingbird-moths that flocked by the thousands to the lanterns hanging overhead, as she wondered, with a wild, timpani heart, where her angel had gone.





53





LOVE IS AN ELEMENT



In the patterns of the Furiant, no one bypassed Madrigal’s hand as they had in the Serpentine—it would have been too obvious a slight—but there was a formal stiffness in her partners as she passed from one to the next, some barely skimming her fingertips with their own when they were meant to be clasping hands.

Thiago had come up and stood watching. Everyone felt it, and the gaiety of the dance was tamped down. It was his effect, but it was her fault, Madrigal knew, for running from him and trying to hide here, as if it were possible to hide.