House of Salt and Sorrows(84)

That sneer. The tone of his voice, husky but holding back such a rank, entitled anger. It sounded so familiar. I suddenly remembered his thumb brushing my mouth, full of dark desire, and snapped to my senses.

Why had I forgotten that? Why had I forgotten everything? I wasn’t here to socialize and dance the night away. I was meant to be searching for information on who would want to harm my sisters.

“I’m not dancing with you.” I kept my voice strong and decisive and turned on my heel, looking over the buffet, steeling my mind for the task at hand.

Find a cup.

Pick a punch.

But even as I coached myself through such a simple process, my feet worked in open rebellion, itching to dance.

“Which punch, Annaleigh?” I muttered, grounding myself in the moment.

I finally chose the pink one. Dozens of iced strawberries floated on top. We hadn’t had any in months, since the cold weather set in, and this looked simply enchanting.

No. Not enchanting. Just punch.

Taking a large sip, I immediately spat it out. Something wasn’t right. There was a strong metallic taste, as if a dozen copper florettes were mixed in.

A strawberry seed stuck between my teeth, wedged deep enough that no amount of ladylike prodding with my tongue could dislodge it. I worked it free with a surreptitious swish of my fingernail.

I intended to flick it aside without a second thought, but it was much larger than a strawberry seed should have been. I brought it up for a closer inspection.

It was a fish scale.

I rubbed the silver speck between my fingers, puzzled. How on earth did a fish scale end up in a bowl of party punch? I turned to let a servant know about the contamination, then froze. The festive red floats I’d taken for strawberries weren’t fruit at all. Hacked-up bits of seafood bobbed in the punch, a veritable chum stew.

The punch was made of blood.

My stomach rolled over, threatening to toss up every bite of dinner I’d eaten. The cakes and the trays were gone, replaced with butchered carcasses of fish. A fluke here, a dorsal fin there. The yellow satin of the tablecloth was soaked red around these cuts of meat. Tentacles, long and ropy, flailed off the table, spiraling to the floor below.

My nostrils flared against the stench. This seafood had not been freshly caught. It was weeks old and had turned. So many people milled around, clearly unaffected. How did they keep dancing before such a massacre?

Then it hit me. Only I saw this. Only I smelled this. I was the only one who noticed any of this night’s horrors. Hundreds of people were here, but I was the only one to see this world for what it was.

How was that possible? How was any of this possible?

There is one way, a tiny, dark voice whispered in my mind.

I shook my head, as if warding off a buzzing mosquito.

None of this is real, it persisted. No one else sees it because it’s not really here to see. You’ve gone mad, my girl.

No. That wasn’t it. That wasn’t possible.

I wasn’t mad.

There had to be another explanation.

Does there?

Shaking my head, I scanned the room again, searching for Camille and the Graces. We were going. We were leaving this awful, evil place and then—

I let out a shriek only I could hear.

Where the cake had once been rested a large platter. A sea turtle—the biggest one I’d ever seen—was showcased on a bed of dead eels. His great shell had been hacked, slashed, and sliced. He had not died an easy death. Tears welled in my eyes.

I dared to creep closer to the proud beast. He was enormous and obviously quite old. Barnacles dotted his back, and his flippers were scored with battle scars. I reached out to trace one of the long lines, but my hand stopped as the turtle’s head shifted.

Was he alive? Surely nothing could have withstood the wounds racked across his body, but there it was again, the slightest spasm of his head. I rubbed his flipper, letting him know he was not alone. Even though he was in pain and scared and probably about to die, I wanted him to know someone loved him and was sorry.

The head flopped toward my touch, and I dared to dream I might save him. My sisters and I could snatch up the platter and race it back to Highmoor. I’d fill the solarium’s pond with salt water. He could live there until he recovered enough to return to the sea.

His head jerked again, and I leaned in. If he was about to open his eyes, I wanted to be the first thing he saw. The beak moved, and my heart jumped in anticipation.

The turtle’s eyelids burst open as a string of fat white maggots fell from the hole. They poured out of the poor loggerhead’s skull onto the platter. His body was full of them, ready to explode.

I turned away, certain I was about to be horribly sick, and ran into the leering dragon man. He caught hold of my elbows, keeping me from falling.

“Are you enjoying the refreshments?” he asked.

There was such a lightness in his voice, so completely at odds with what I’d just seen, it gave me hope the bloody mess was an illusion, just like the fountain. Turning back, I expected to see the cake and pretty punch bowls, but the gore was still there, spread across the tables in a sadistic buffet.

“I feel faint,” I confessed, my head swooning with the smoke. “Can you find my sisters or Fisher? Can you find Camille?”

My knees gave way, and he lowered me to the floor, his hand at the back of my neck. The room faded in and out of darkness. As the dragon man leaned over me, streaks of sweat ran down his face.