Six

I STAND GAPING AT HIM, HIS REFUSAL TO acknowledge my existence like a sharp stone in my throat.

I know this pain, this raw ache—it’s what always precedes crying. I glance to either side, desperate for an exit. I’ll run out, flee, pretend tonight never happened, and then . . .

I clench my jaw and narrow my eyes. I am no wilting Alben, I am a fierce and strong Melenese woman. And I am not the victim of any cruel jokes. Spirits below, I will make certain he knows I am not to be toyed with.

I march directly over and take the small space left between two of his admirers. He tries to avoid my gaze, suddenly intent on whatever the tallest peacock has to say.

“Good evening, Finn.” I smile brightly. “What a marvelous building this is.”

He finally looks at me, dragging his eyes as though it takes physical effort. “I’m sorry, have we met?”

I will not be embarrassed. I will not. I grasp hold of the anger flaring ever higher in my chest as a lifeline. “I believe we have.”

“You’re mistaken,” says the shortest peacock, her brown hair adorned with a massively jeweled headband. “This is Lord Ackerly of North Aston.”

I raise my eyebrows, not looking away from Finn. “A lord? How nice for you.”

“Yes, quite. Good evening.” He turns back to the tallest peacock, but the last peacock, in a clinging slip of charcoal gray, cannot resist.

“How pretty you are,” she says with a cloying smile. “You must feel so at home here in this horrid, muggy heat with all of these wild plants. You look like one yourself!”

The worst part is, she’s right. I did feel at home when I walked in, but I know how far I am from it now. Lifting my chin, I return her smile with a pointed one of my own. “Why thank you, I do feel comfortable here, just as you must feel perfectly suited to this city of cold, gray rocks.”

Her eyes grow bigger than I’d have imagined possible. I look triumphantly at Finn, who is trying his hardest not to see me. Fine then. “So nice to meet you all. I think I should prefer a dance. Lord Ackerly, ladies.” I bob my head at them and turn on my heel.

A shadow looms behind mine and I turn, expecting Finn to have followed me, a sharp word already on the tip of my tongue. I frown, confused. He hasn’t moved, but in some trick of the light from so many electric torches, his shadow stretches farther than the women’s, mingling with my own. He looks down as though he notices it, too, and his face is as white as a ghost.

Ghost-faced spirit cursers. It’s a nasty phrase in Melenese, filled with hissing noises. Mama spanked me the one time I used it in front of her. That’s what Kelen always called them. Kelen, whom I should be laughing with right now instead of pretending at finery I despise.

Ghost-faced spirit cursers. I hold the words on my tongue, relishing their feel as I march into the crowd, determined to stay the entire evening so that Finn sees me dancing and enjoying myself and knows he hasn’t won. Whatever his game is with the strangeness in the hotel, then the dress and the invitation, I have not gotten this far to be beaten by simple humiliation.

Sweeping my filmy shawl over one shoulder, I smile as though I am the queen Ma’ati said I looked like. And, to my surprise, it works.

First one man, then another, then another, asks me to dance. I am twirled and curtsied around the length and width of the room. Mama would be so proud to see the lessons I threw fits about attending paying off so well. I laugh and make charming remarks. Why yes, I do love tropical flowers, why no, not everyone from Melei is as fair of skin as I am and in fact I envy them their darker shade, why yes, I am here to further my studies.

My partners are all charmed by my “exotic beauty.” I do not feel exotic. I feel strange and small and false, but I smile and smile and smile.

This building is a wonder. Not even the cold night can get through the glass, fogged with steam. Everything glows in a bright haze of progress, and I think I understand why Albion assumes it does the rest of the world a favor by installing itself and its standards wherever it lands. If they can bring the hot, green glory of Melei here, why can they not bring the rigid structure and social “progress” of Albion there?

One man, in his late teens with ginger hair and clever eyes, asks me to dance several times. I can tell he is pleased with his own deviance, happy to be the focal point of the room when I am on his arm. I don’t like being used that way, but he is pleasant and a good conversationalist.

“And how do you find the school?” he asks.

“Well, seeing as it’s always in the same location, it’s never very difficult to find.”

He laughs, delighted, and I can’t help but really smile. “Are all women from your island this charming?”

“Far more so, sir. That’s why they sent me here. I was a blight on the whole village.”

“I cannot imagine you being a blight on anything.”

Another man, this one older but indistinguishable from the last three with his well-trimmed mustache and slick-combed hair, taps my shoulder to cut in. I would rather turn them both down—I am out of breath and near dizzy from the heat and the spinning.

“If I may?” the older gentleman asks. My ginger-haired suitor looks disappointed and oddly worried. But he nods.

The new man smiles at me and I have the briefest impression of sharp teeth and sharper eyes, though when I shake my head to clear it his teeth are perfectly normal and there’s nothing remarkable about his face.

“I’m afraid I have to steal her away now,” a soft voice says next to me. I turn to find a woman I’ve never met, young and fair with reddish curls, her dress shimmering silver. “My brother, Ernest, has been monopolizing her. He can be quite selfish that way. If you’ll excuse us, gentlemen, I’ve promised to show her the outer rooms and at this rate the sun will rise before she makes it off the dance floor.”