Burning Glass (Burning Glass #1)(66)

“Are you all right?” Valko asked, catching me upright again.

“Yes.” My breathless voice, however, revealed I was not. “But I suppose I’m not as clever a student at dancing as I’d hoped to be. Even with a master for a teacher.”

He held me closer and twirled me around with more tenderness, more vigor. Nicolai’s panic, which had stuck inside me, grew stronger. Nausea gripped my stomach—my own ailment for not eating all day.

It took me a moment to locate Feliks again. He’d moved closer to the doors. His piercing blue eyes surveyed the ballroom, especially the quadrants containing Anton and Nicolai. At last, with a flex of his fists, he turned on his heel and abruptly left.

At that moment, Nicolai yawned. He gave a short bow to his friends, ambled around the edge of the room, and exited after Feliks.

It was happening. Whatever plan they were enacting, it was happening right now. And they were doing it together. Yuri had already left; he’d never reentered after disappearing a second time with Pia.

My heart thrummed with anticipation. I looked past Valko’s shoulder to Anton. I tensed as I waited for him to follow the others. In brief flickers, I watched him as I spun in the waltz, finding careful moments to glance away from the emperor. A long minute passed in which the prince continued conversing with the pompous lady.

Leave, I silently pleaded with Anton as I revolved again. I needed to be right about this. I needed Anton to realize how clever I was and think me capable of joining his league. I would join him, that I knew. His cause had to be noble. I would believe nothing less of him. Perhaps it could be the means of giving him the glory his birthright could not.

When I thought I might burst, when I entertained a maddening thought of grabbing the prince’s hand and yanking him from the room myself, he finished speaking to the woman. In another three flashes of my vision, their conversation ended naturally. She gave the last word, curtsied, and initiated the farewell. After Anton parted from the woman, I studied him through a new series of stolen glances. He stopped at a banquet table, took a sip of aqua vitae—adding to the illusion he was in no rush at all. And then—at last—he walked out of the room.

My mouth went dry. My legs shook violently. The dizzying turns of the waltz seized me. I dug my hand into Valko’s shoulder. I would not faint. Not now.

“I was wrong, My Lord,” I said, fighting for breath. “I’m not all right. I’m afraid I’m not accustomed to the demands of this dance.” In truth, I was as ill as I needed him to believe, though I couldn’t determine if the mounting sickness came of starvation, my own anxiety, someone else’s energy, or if it was part of the darkness I strove to hold at bay.

Valko brought us to an immediate halt, which only made my head spin worse. “Do you need something to drink?”

“No, no, only some air.” Worried he might follow, I added, “I have a tonic—in my room.”

“I’ll send a servant.”

“No, the solitude will do me good. The weight of so many auras is difficult to endure. A little distance and a moment’s peace will make my recovery all the speedier.” How quickly the words came to my tongue, despite my light-headedness. “I’ll return soon, My Lord.” I curtsied and dashed out of the ballroom before he could talk me into staying. Surely I was the only Riaznian to ever abandon him without his dismissal, but if I didn’t go now, I would lose Anton’s trail.

Outside the doors were a handful of guards. The rest were within. The spacious lobby beyond was empty and dim with only a few lit candle stands. I studied the many branching corridors and cursed Anton for being so fast.

“Did you see which way the prince went?” I asked the guards. “The emperor wishes a word with him.” It was a stupid lie; my faint head was getting the better of me. Valko would send a servant to fetch Anton, not his sovereign Auraseer. But at the moment I couldn’t think of a better excuse.

If the guards thought me strange, they didn’t show it. Neither could I sense it from their auras, though mine was too clouded to judge them properly. The darkness inside me seemed to pulse with its own heartbeat. It grew more and more urgent with every passing moment.

A Riaznian guard furrowed his black brows in concentration. “That way?” He pointed to the right.

“No,” his neighbor replied. “It was Count Rostav who went that way.”

They went in separate directions?

One of the Esten guards, blond-haired with droopy green eyes, chuckled under his breath at the Riaznians. “Do you know where the prince went?” I asked him.

“Oui.” He smiled crookedly.

I gritted my teeth with impatience. “Will you tell me?”

He swept a gaze over my body that made me feel naked. From his penetrating eyes to Floquart’s pointed comments, it was clear Auraseers in Estengarde held no respect whatsoever. “Le dauphin négligé took that corridor.” He nodded to the one farthest left.

I didn’t bolt straightaway. The guard’s name for Anton made my feet stick to the floor. “Le dauphin négligé,” I repeated. “What does that mean?”

He licked his lips, his grin catching the other corner of his mouth. “The neglected crown prince,” he answered past his thick accent.

I frowned. “Neglected?”

The guard nodded. “So we called him in my village.”