A Thief of Nightshade(73)
“What’s wrong?”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “The lessening again. I can’t remember my brother’s name. I know I have a brother, but ... that’s all I know.”
“We don’t have to do this,” he said suddenly. “We don’t have to go to the masquerade like this. We can wait until after it’s over and sneak in.”
“It’s too late to turn back now. The only way to reach him is for me to try and wake him up. I have to trust that he’ll remember me somehow. The masquerade is an excuse for me to steal him away for a few moments. I won’t have long ... I know that. It’s okay, Ian. I know the risks. I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”
If she didn’t know better, Aubrey would have sworn she saw guilt in Ian’s eyes.
“Took you long enough. Lipsey, go on ahead of us and keep an eye on Aubrey.”
Aislinn stepped out from behind a tree and scared Given. She frowned.
“How did you know I’d follow you?”
“You don’t strike me as the sit-on-your-hands kind of girl. Besides, that armor you wore in Koldavere wasn’t borrowed. It fit you too well.”
Her face flushed at this and Aislinn grinned.
“Well, come on. We’ve got work to do.” Given reached into the pouch at her side and pulled out the vial Ian had given her earlier. “Here, drink this.”
“How are we going to get in there?
Shades aren’t allowed. Neither of us has wings. Can you work a glamour?”
She bit her lower lip. “Maybe. I can try to, anyway. I can’t say how long it’ll last, though. I definitely couldn’t have worked one on Aubrey. Is there any magic in you at all? I heard you say that Jullian could do spells, but you can’t? Did I understand that right?”
“I tried and stuff happened ... just never what I’d intended to happen.”
“Okay, well, that’ll have to be magic enough for me to work with.”
He drank the potion and found himself gripping the tree for support as the world around him spun once again. “I hate this part.”
“You’ll stick out like a sore thumb in those clothes. I’ll have to work something up to deal with that as well.” She started several spells, but by the second line of each one, she’d stop and start over with something else. Finally, after the fifth one, she followed it all of the way through and by the time she’d finished, they both appeared as Fae.
“They aren’t real,” Given said.
Aislinn didn’t realize he was gritting his teeth until she said something. “I know that,” he snapped. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“You really should think about dealing with those anger issues of yours.”
“I don’t have anger issues!”
Given smirked. “What was that? I couldn’t hear you ... you were yelling too loudly.”
Aislinn cursed beneath his breath, then spun on his heels. “Come on, we’re wasting time. And I don’t have issues.”
Given rushed to catch up to him.
“You look nice.”
He hadn’t heard a compliment in so long ... nearly a decade; to hear one now seemed surreal. “Thanks, so do you.
Minus the wings.”
“Fair enough. Here, hang your coat over your arm like this.” She pulled his coat off his shoulders and slung it over his metallic arm. “Sorry I couldn’t cover it with the glamour.”
He shrugged. “I’m getting kind of used to it, actually. It’s turned up fairly useful.” Flexing his fingers, he thought about his earlier conversation with Oberon. “Fairly useful indeed.”
Chapter Twenty-
Seven
AUBREY FELT LIKE HER HEART HAD
BROKEN apart and shattered into a thousand pieces, all of them cutting her in ways she wouldn’t have dreamed.
Jullian.
He leaned against a pillar with unforced mirth in his expression. His easy laugh told her that he was truly enjoying this night. He held a fluted glass in his hands and sipped from it dark amber liquid that glistened like it had been spiked with glitter. He wore white, just as she’d seen in her visions, his sleeves ruffled at the ends; his shirt complimented by an embroidered cream vest that was edged in golden thread. A hoodless cloak hung at his back, its edges billowing as the night air filtered into the masquerade. A white fox fur lay draped across his broad shoulders.
Ian took her right hand and wrapped his arm around her as he whisked them into the dance.
“Are you sure about this?” Ian asked.
“I have to get his attention. Unless you have a better way of getting him to ask me to dance. You could distract the Queen by asking her to dance.”
Ian shook his head.
“I don’t blame you. Okay, here goes nothing. If things go wrong,” Aubrey waited until she had Ian’s eye contact to finish, “thank you for everything.”
Ian exhaled and clutched her hand to his chest, but didn’t respond.
Aubrey had never been terribly good at anything, though some said she could sing well. But if she had to say what she most enjoyed, it would be dancing. She’d taken ballet all through her childhood and for a few years as a teenager but soon the call of extracurricular activities and then college overshadowed her interest and it had faded. Now, with the wild, unchecked beauty of the Winter Court, the night’s otherworldly event unfolding before her with dreamlike creatures, and resplendent scenery that even the best set designers couldn’t have conjured, she remembered why she’d loved it so very much.