House of Salt and Sorrows(36)

“Where’s Fisher? Why isn’t he back?” Rosalie asked, pacing in front of the entrance as the minutes ticked by. “Someone should go in after him.” She glanced around the room, her eyes landing on each of us. “Shouldn’t we?”

An uncomfortable moment of silence passed. I stroked Verity’s curls, ashamed I wasn’t brave enough to volunteer.

“Fine, I’ll do it,” Rosalie said with a snarl and was through the opening before any of us could stop her.

Just like Fisher, she was there one moment and gone the next.

“Rosalie!” Ligeia screamed as she threw herself down the tunnel.

She disappeared in the wink of an eye, and Lenore howled. Camille caught her before she too could fling herself into the great unknown. Her cries of despair echoed through the shrine.

“It’s cold, it’s so cold,” Lenore moaned, her teeth chattering.

The triplets often claimed to be able to feel exactly what the others did, no matter how far apart they were. Most of the family scoffed it off as a childish game, but I remembered once, while I was teaching her scales in the Blue Room, Ligeia grabbed her hand, clutching a finger in surprise. Rosalie had gone fishing with Papa and overzealously gutted her first catch, slicing her pinkie.

Camille placed her wrist on Lenore’s forehead. “She feels fine.”

“Where are they?” Lenore continued to wail. “They need to come back right away. Something is wrong. I can feel it! Something is horribly—”

“What’s going on?” Rosalie cut in, skipping suddenly into existence, a wild grin plastered across her face. “You’re acting as though you’ve never seen a magic door before!”

Then Ligeia appeared, with Fisher on her heels. Both looked dazed and happy.

“Where have you been?” Lenore demanded, leaping up to pull her sisters into a panicked embrace. “I couldn’t feel you. It was so cold, like ice!”

“It was cold at first,” Ligeia acknowledged. “But it was also…so wondrous.”

“Where did you go?” Camille asked, edging toward the entrance. She looked as though she wanted to see for herself.

“We’ll show you. Tonight!” Rosalie said, beaming.

“Tonight?” I repeated.

She reached into her pocket, withdrew a stack of silver envelopes, and passed them out. “Yes! At the ball. We’ve all been invited.”

“Ball?” Camille flipped over her envelope and ran her fingers under the edge. She scanned the thick, creamy paper within. The edges winked with gilding. Her eyebrows jumped. “This is real?”

“As real as me standing here before you,” Fisher said, smiling widely. “It really worked! You said you wanted to find a beau, so when I walked through the door, I tried to think of an elegant ball—the music, the gowns, the dancing. When I opened my eyes, I was in the middle of a palace courtyard, the grandest I’ve ever seen, and they were preparing for a party.”

“And I got us invited!” Rosalie crowed, laughing at our dumbstruck faces. “Well, come on! We have to get ready! I do not intend to miss the first waltz!”





As the clock in the hall chimed eleven, I slipped on my fairy shoes. The leather still sparkled as if brand-new.

“They don’t really match, do they?” Camille asked, tilting her head to study the whole effect of my outfit.

“I don’t have anything else to wear. All my other shoes are boots,” I said, poking the slipper out from under my navy hem. “No one will see them, do you think?”

Camille pursed her lips. “I’m sure you’re right. And that dress is perfect for you. You can’t change that.”

I turned, looking in her bedroom mirror. We didn’t want Hanna to know we were sneaking out, so we were helping each other dress. The triplets were already down the hall, buttoning the Graces’ gowns and attaching their painted-cardboard wings.

Once back at Highmoor, we’d raced to the attic, raiding boxes of Mama’s old gowns. There were dozens to choose from. The Graces had found dresses from when Ava and Octavia were small and eagerly rifled through them, looking for their favorite colors.

When I’d unearthed the shimmering waterfall of satin from the trunk, I’d squealed at its elegance. Though it boasted a high, modest neckline in front, the back plunged to a deep V, exposing my skin and ensuring I would not be wearing a corset tonight. A forgotten galaxy of gold and silver stars, embroidered with beads and metallic thread, speckled the bodice and puddled down the trailing skirt, making me think of the first words of the invitation.

I snatched the card off the vanity and skimmed the embossed script again:

Flushed with starlight and moonlight drowned,

All the dreamers are castle-bound.

At midnight’s stroke, we will unwind,

Revealing fantasies soft or unkind.

Show me debauched nightmares or sunniest daydreams.

Come not as you are but as you wish to be seen.



“It’s a themed ball,” Camille had announced as we read and reread the invitations, parsing the rhymes for meaning. “Nightmares and Daydreams.”

Verity had frowned. “We have to go as something scary?”

My mind flashed to her sketchbook, and I swooped in, quickly allaying her fears. “No! Some people will, but look: ‘sunniest daydreams.’ We can go as something happy too.”