There’s a rustle behind me. It jolts me out of my faraway thoughts, and I stiffen on the perch. Careful not to wrinkle my dress, I crane my neck to look over my shoulder.

  A tall, slender figure emerges from the willow-tree branches.

  First, I notice the dishevelled state of his shirt. Unbuttoned at the top, a red cravat unfastened and lazily hooped around his exposed neck, and a pair of expensive-looking gloves poking out from the pocket of his breeches. There’s a dark stain on the tips of his slender fingers that looks suspiciously like dried blood.

  I notice the almond shape of his eyes, the length of his lashes that even give me pause for envy.

  Silver strolls over to me and lights a black cigarette with a match that he strikes down the trunk of the tree.

  I watch him cautiously. Don’t have the strength to flee him again. Don’t have the energy to play nicely, either.

  An icicle of unease spears me through the gut as he lazily advances on me. He plants his boot on the edge of the bench and, as he takes a long and deliberate inhale of his cigarette, watches me from the ashen vapours of smoke that cling to his beautiful face. It’s all sharp lines and full lips and deadly eyes cut into a perfect marble stone.

  Prince Poison made him beautiful, as all the Gods make their aniels. But there’s something otherworldly about Silver, something that stretches far beyond the usual dangerous beauty of an aniel. It’s in the way he wears eternity like a tailored coat, and the haunting edge of his eyes, the tedious taut line of his mouth, as if perpetually bored with all that goes on around him.

  If he told me he was a God himself, I would believe him.

  He must be ancient.

  Quartz grey eyes rake over me. His stare drips with disgust as he considers the faded black of my gown and, at the back of my dress, a hack ribbon fastened through the corset.

  Instinctively, I cross my arms over my chest as if to hide its outdated style from him.

  “Your dresses are always lacking,” he comments, and there’s an edge to his voice. “As the daughter of a mayor, one might think your attire should present itself more appropriately to your station.”

  So he kicked me out of the alcove just to follow me to the gardens, corner me, and mock my dresses?

  I fight the urge to roll my eyes. “I’m ill.”

  His eyebrow arches mockingly as he takes a long drag of his cigarette. As he speaks, smoke billows out from his rosy lips, “That is hardly a revelation.”

  I shift to face him. “I’m ill,” I echo, my tone a little too hard for speaking to the likes of him. “So my father doesn't think there is much worth in spending coin on my wardrobe when I might not wear it for very long.”

  “The other option is to allow you to prance around the Capital in that?” He lingers a disdainful look over my faded dress. Then his gaze latches onto the hem, where some of the threads are frayed. “I have seen brothel workers in better dresses than this one.”

  And this is my best gown.

  My mouth flattens into a grim line. “They probably earn more coin than I am allowed.”

  He hums a curt sound then pushes back from the bench. I watch him the way I would watch a prowling beast in the woods, one that is stalking me.

  Silver hikes his leg over the pew, then lowers himself to straddle it, facing me.

  My heart skips a beat. He’s too close—closer than any aniel should be to a vilas. Unless that aniel has malice on his mind.

  “What is your sickness?” he asks, looking bored as he flicks ash from his cigarette. The ash lands on a moon-white tuft of grass and instantly darkens the blades to a murky grey shade.

  “Undiagnosed,” I say, watching him closely.

  Don’t know why he’s out here with me, talking to me, asking about me and my dresses, but it sets off blaring alarms through my body. The dizzy spell is fading under the adrenaline that’s starting to pump through my veins.

  He hums again, this time less interested, and turns his gaze on the thin crowd on the other side of the willow tree. “You will die from it?”

  Faintly, I nod. He’s not looking my way, but I know he caught the gesture.

  The heavy drape of the willow tree darkens his eyes to a faint grey colour, not unlike the ash piling at the end of his cigarette.

  He asks, “When?”

  My dress rustles as I shrug. “Hard to say.”

  He swerves his suddenly lively eyes to me. “Try.”

  “I don’t know when,” I tell him and swallow back a lump in my throat. “My mother has it too, and she is still alive.” Barely, but still. “But the sickness is advancing faster in me than it did in her. So, maybe a few years, if that?”

  Whatever fascination he’s got with my situation, it’s enough to light up his eyes to match moonglobes. His thick, perfectly arched eyebrows wrinkle into a faint frown as he studies me.

  I shift on the perch, just to move that extra inch away from him. Silver’s hand snatches out and grabs my waist, pinning me in place.

  My breath hitches at the intimate touch.

  His grip loosens into a faint caress. “If you are so poorly, why come to the balls?”

  My jaw tightens. Not just from his prying—a pry I can’t deny him, since his status is above any aniel I know of—but from his hand still lightly resting on my waist. My heart, now flooded with life, pounds against my ribcage.

  “Confess the truth to me, Kee,” he warns darkly.

  Keela, I want to correct him. But of course, I don’t.

  I clamp the correction before I can utter it.

  I suck in a deep, shaky breath that rattles my lungs. “I come to the balls to maybe find a suitor.”

  The honesty burns my cheeks hot with flames. The flush spreads to my chest, all blotchy red and pale spots, and it surely looks a fright.

  His hand slips away from my waist. He returns his attention to his once-forgotten cigarette. As he inhales, he watches me coolly.

  “Why?” As he asks, the smoke that slips out from his mouth takes shape into the very letter he spoke.

  I marvel at it. Then it disperses almost as quickly as it came.

  “Why?” I echo and look at him.

  I blink, as if just coming out of a daze.

  Not a good sign. Sometimes, when I’m on the verge of a seizure, my mind gets away from me.

  I ache to finish off the rest of what’s in the phial. But I have to ration, just in case Father refuses to fund both remedies next week—which is a very big possibility. And I can’t always rely on Mother’s jewels to pawn. One day, she’ll be awake when I come for them, or worse, one day I’ll be found out.

  Flippant, he flicks the cigarette onto the grass and watches it die out. “Why do you prowl for a suitor?”

  Prowl. Not the word I would use. More like crave, dream of, yearn for. But never prowl. That’s for men and widows and aniels.

  “I dream of suitors,” I admit with a lame shrug. My gaze flicks down to my lap as the shame creeps back into me. “I dream of leaving this place.”

  “The Capital?” His lashes lower and cast dark shadows over his face. “Or the Gods?”

  I shake my head, eyes suddenly wide with fright. “No, no—not the Gods. Never the Gods. Just ... my family, my life.”

  His mouth twists into a cruel smile. “And run into a life of prettier dresses?”

  He’s mocking me, and it twists something inside my chest. But I’m used to it by now, all these years of being teased and outcasted and disliked. Still, time only numbs the sting, it doesn't vanquish it completely.

  I don’t offer any more on my answer. To tell too much to an aniel—I know better than that. They use everyone’s dreams and secrets against them in the most wicked of ways.

  I won’t be his victim.

  I clear my throat and push up from the pew. He doesn’t stand for me, he just watches me with unreadable eyes.

  “It’s been a pleasure, but I must return home.”

  Shadows lash around him. He looks menacing, sitting there in the dark of the willow tree.

  “You won’t find a suitor there,” he teases.

  I force a tight smile, then—as slowly and calmly as I can manage—walk away from the gardens. I feel the ice-cold cut of his stare on my back until I’m hidden away through bushes, where the carriages collect.

  And all the way home, I carry the weight of Silver on my heavy heart. No matter what I do now, I fear what has become.

  I fear I am now the target of a dangerous monster.

  5.

  In the door, there are no servants to greet me.

  Against the tall wall, there stands a chipped wood table. I check the crystal bowl on top of the table for any calling cards.

  Really, I expect the bowl to be empty, but there are two pieces of parchment tucked inside—and as I pluck them out, I’m baffled to see that they are both addressed to me.

  My face twists into a confused frown.

  I tuck the letters into my skirt pocket, then drag myself up the staircases to my room. First thing I do when the heavy wood door is shut behind me, is wrestle the gown off my body. The corset is trickiest, since it ties at the back, but I wear my strings and ribbons low-hanging so that, if I bend my arm just right, I can tug on them and the corset ties unravel. It’s not the proper way to fasten a corset by any means, but unlike Olivia, no servants come to help me undress for the night.

  Once I’m free of the confines of my dress, I leave it crumpled in a heap on the rug and step into a white slip, then wrap a dressing gown around my chilly body. The servants haven’t lit the hearth, so the night’s sea-chill seeps in through the cracks around the windows.

  I tackle the hearth myself for a good few minutes before I get a healthy fire devouring the kindling. After I throw on a log to burn through the night, I return to my dress. Can’t let it wrinkle for too long. It’s not like I have enough of them to be so careless with my best gown.

  The dress is tucked away in the wardrobe when I fish out the two letters from the pocket, then crawl into bed. The feather-stuffed duvet is thick and heavy on my legs as I inspect the letters.

  No senders listed on the back, just my name on the front. That means a messenger dropped them off sometime when I was at the ball. And as the letters are written in completely opposite handwriting, I would say two seperate messengers came, which befuddles me, since I receive maybe two calling cards in a year, and it’s usually a reminder to pay a debt I owe down in the Shadow Quarter or Lost Square.

  I flip open the first letter. It’s a scrap piece of paper with frayed edges, telling me that it’s at least costly parchment. But whoever wrote this to me, didn’t care enough about propriety to use a whole sheet of parchment.

  The scrap says little, other than one word, ‘Intrak’.

  My nose crinkles as I read the alien word.

  Intrak.

  It means nothing to me.

  Doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard before in passing. And since the letter—or scrap piece of parchment—says nothing other than my name, I have no clue what the word is supposed to mean. No calling card comes with it, no sender information.

  I hum a curt sound, then toss the scrap parchment to the side. It flitters off the bed and lands on the floor.

  The next letter is what I would expect, if I was to expect any letters. The parchment is whole and thick, and folded over thrice, and sealed with ruby-red wax.

  I take too much satisfaction in severing the wax seal.

  This letter baffles me even more than the first. Well, it’s not exactly a letter, but more of an appointment card.

  * * *

  Bartel’s Boutique.

  For all your ball gown, button, breeches and buckle needs.

  APPOINTMENT: MONDAY 9AM

  PRIVATE CONSULTATION

  ORDER: FITTED BALL GOWN AND DRESS

  INCLUSIONS: ALL THE FINISHINGS

  INVOICE: PAID IN ADVANCE

  * * *

  My heart unravels in my chest, all the way down to my watery tummy.

  Bartel’s Boutique is one of the high-end shops in the Emporium Quarter. It’s even rumoured to dress some of the aniels and favoured vilas up in the Palace of the Gods.

  And though the letter is addressed to me, I know it’s a mistake. No one I know personally can afford an appointment at Bartel’s Boutique. There must be another Keela somewhere in the Capital that this appointment is meant for, and somehow the messenger ended up on my porch with the letter.

  I decide that this other Keela is very lucky—enough to wrinkle my nose with envy at the thought of her.

  I place the thick parchment on my side-table and push it from my mind.

  By the time I fall asleep, I’ve forgotten all about the misdelivered letters.

  *

  Monday brings a leisure day, so no servants come to tend to me, dress me, or braid my hair. Nikah, the friendliest servant in the house and my sometimes-maid, brings in a tray of tea and sandwiches for my breakfast.

  The tray that she sets on the foot of my bed is in dire need of polishing.

  As Nikah tends to my chamberpot, I nibble on the edge of a cucumber and almond-butter sandwich. My hooded eyes, drooped from the early hour, slide to the letter discarded on the floor.

  I reach down with a grunt and snatch it up.

  I inspect it, all crinkled from my carelessness with it last night.

  ‘Intrak’ makes no more sense to me in the sunrise as it did at midnight.

  “Nikah,” I start. “Who delivered these letters for me?”

  She doesn't look up from her task. She refills the water dish and replaces the chamberpot, then sets out clean tissues and cloths.

  “Two messengers came,” she tells me. “One of them was a street-messenger.”

  Street messengers—the means to stay anonymous in this city.

  My mouth flattens into a thin line.

  The scrap parchment in my hand is the one I suspect to have come from an anonymous person, since there is no sender information written on the torn paper, and it’s just a simple word.

  I set it aside, on a crumpled pillow that I must have fought with sometime during my slumber. “Do you know what intrak means?”

  She looks at me with a frown on her dark face. “Intrak?”

  I nod, but her frown only deepens and she shakes her head. “Sorry, miss. I never heard of it.”

  I sigh softly. “Me either.” I pluck the second letter from the nightstand. “What about this letter?” I prod. “When did it come?”

  “A handsome messenger dropped it off after nightfall,” she says. “Fine coat, silk cravat, polished boots. He works for the boutiques, he said. I asked if he was sure he had the right place.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He was adamant it was for you. Described you well. Said about your sickness and your hair and you’re the daughter of the East Side Mayor.”

  My face wrinkles. So this letter wasn’t meant for another Keela. It is meant for me.

  Still, knowing that doesn't bring any excitement to me, only more confusion. I re-inspect the letter, but I find no clues as to why it was delivered to me. I can’t afford an appointment or even a ribbon from a place like Bartel’s Boutique. Yet the letter confirms that it’s been paid in advance.

  Fleetingly, Mikhael creeps into my thoughts.

  Did he send this for me?

  Did he book me into the costly boutique to apologise for what happened yesterday in the Merchant Market? But that’s a silly thought. Not even Mikhael can afford something as extravagant as this.

  I reread the letter.

  The appointment is for 9AM. With a short glance at the clock on the wall, I count two hours until I have to be there—if I choose to go, that is. Who knows what sort of mix-up I could be walking into.

  I don’t fancy standing around for hours while seamstresses flock around me, only to find out that the appointment is not meant for me and I have to find some way to foot the bill myself.

  Best just to leave it and not try my luck. Fortune isn’t my forte.

  I down my hot tea, then scarf a few sandwiches.

  “I’m going to the library,” I announce, then whip the duvet from my legs. The tarnished tray rattles as I shuffle out of bed.

  Nikah is left to tidy my bedroom once I sheath myself in a beige, lazy day-dress—without a corset and all the layers of skirt—whose hem is stained with the dark spots of muddy rain and sleeves slowly unravelling with loose pieces of thread.

  I fasten up the string bodice before heading down to Father’s humble library.

  The leather-bound books that are crammed onto the shelves all belong to my father. Most of them appear to be ledgers, dating back generations before he was mayor.

  I find a thesaurus tucked away on a particularly dusty shelf. As I pull it out, it leaves a clean line marking the heavy dust, and I have to shut my mouth to save myself from breathing any of it in. A coughing fit can send me spiralling into a poorly state if I’m not careful.

  The thesaurus comes in three books, I quickly learn. All the Gods are defined in the books, too. They come with descriptions and purposes and annotated stories about them, because the Gods are more than names, they are words, they are life and death, before and after, and everything in between. But among all the pages flooded with information, I don’t find a single word even similar to ‘intrak’.

  So it’s not a word, exactly. Whatever that scrap parchment is meant to tell me, it’s not a word. It could be a name, a title, a place. Something. But not something I’ll figure out in this library.

  Maybe I’ll need a sooner trip to the Lost Square than I expected.

  I give up in the library and make to head back to my room. Mondays are for light reading and naps and nibbling on my leftover stick of salted caramel.

  I’m passing through the lobby when Olivia comes rushing out of Father’s study. I pause and look back at her. I take in the blotchy flush of her face, her loose curls still dishevelled from sleep, and the nightgown wrapped around her slight frame.