“Mam!” Ermie hollered, as if he had a hope of being heard in the tumult. “Mam, you blasted creature!”
“Ermie!” came a call from the depths, and they struck out again, leaving the outer rings of the family behind, weaving through the throng. Finally, breathless, Tesara clutching at her drooping mask after she freed her hand from Ermie’s determined grip, they fetched up at the feet of Mam, around whom the world revolved.
Tesara hadn’t known what to expect. The woman, who had the same round face and red nose as her son, neither looked monstrous nor common, as Tesara’s upbringing had expected. She sat in a very ordinary chair, surrounded by empty space that she protected with a well-wielded stick and three snapping dogs, of the breed Tesara recognized as Quin dragon dogs.
“Mam!” Ermie panted. “Mira is here.”
“Madam Fleurenze,” Mira said. She stepped forward, hand outstretched. The dogs barked furiously and Mira deftly swept them aside with one slippered foot.
Unexpectedly, Mrs Fleurenze laughed and reached up for Mirandine’s hand and gave it a hearty shake. “That’s right, just kick my dogs,” she said with apparently no rancor at all. “I do, often enough. They make a terrible clatter, and I can’t housebreak ’em at all. Don’t know why I bought them, but the man said they were all the thing. Want one?”
“Not at all,” Mirandine said. “I can’t abide dogs. May I present my friends? Jone Saint Frey and Tesara Mederos.”
Jone bowed correctly over Mrs Fleurenze’s hand. He knelt and held out his hand to one of the dogs. It growled suspiciously, but he stayed still, and soon the dog deigned to have his ears ruffled.
“Making up to me, boy?” Mrs Fleurenze said.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, ma’am,” he said. “I find dogs like me.”
She fixed her eye on Tesara, who curtseyed. “How do you do, Mrs Fleurenze?” she said politely.
“Well enough. Don’t like quality, but you ain’t that, are you?”
“Not for a very long time,” Tesara agreed. Mrs Fleurenze snorted a laugh.
“Well, don’t think you’ll get any shine from us. Ermie will marry for the family, not a snoot.”
That stung, Tesara thought, as well it was meant to. Even a family such as the Fleurenze’s would not like to be allied to House Mederos.
“I have no designs on your son, Mrs Fleurenze,” Tesara said, but at that point Mrs Fleurenze had banged her stick on the floor, setting the dogs to barking anew. She began clamoring for someone else, and with that, the party withdrew, released from their audience.
“Now we shall dance!” Ermie said. He grabbed them all and they plunged back into the crowd.
I am going to kill Mirandine for this, Tesara thought.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The crowd that spilled out of the Fleurenze mansion was lively, drunk, young, and rowdy. Yvienne watched from across the street in the shadows. She could easily slip in among them. She was masked, after all, and though she didn’t wear finery, in a crowd that disordered she doubted anyone would notice. She could cut a few purses and be gone before anyone even noticed her. But Tesara was in there. If her sister saw her, even masked, she knew she might not go unrecognized. Instead, Yvienne turned toward the Maiden of Dawn public house a block away.
She had seen the carriages disgorging passengers as she watched. They were young too, but of a quality she recognized. These revelers were her peers. She watched as many of them turned to look at the wild party across the street, and was too far away to hear their conversation, but in twos and threes, they all ventured inside the pub.
The wealthy were slumming.
Yvienne felt a surge of excitement, a bolt of lightning from her brain to her belly. Forget the Fleurenzes and their guests. Her prey was right here.
She drew down her cap and pulled up her kerchief so only her eyes showed, and she moved in.
The party was in full swing. The band played frenetically, adding to the din until Tesara couldn’t even detect anything resembling music – it was all discordant cacophony. She had lost Mirandine and Jone what felt like hours earlier, and was on the verge of walking out in disgust and going home when a familiar person caught her eye.
“Mathilde?” Tesara said out loud. If it were her, the housemaid wore a simple dress and domino, and her mask covered only her eyes and nose. What Tesara recognized was the curve of her shapely mouth and her chin. That and her height bore a strong resemblance to the formidable housemaid.
Tesara felt a twinge of discomfort. She didn’t want to be at a party with her housemaid. Even if the family no longer occupied the same station as they had once before, even if none of that mattered anymore, she felt uneasy about Mathilde knowing that much about the family. She already knows I go out, Tesara thought. I don’t want her to know I’m here. Mathilde would be obligated to tell her parents if they asked.
The maybe-Mathilde scanned the crowd as if she were looking for someone. Tesara shrank back behind a large, ornate pillar, wishing she wore a domino over her pink gown, which Mathilde had brushed and pressed that very morning. Now she could see the woman completely, and she knew it was the housemaid. Mathilde turned to talk to someone, a stocky man in a laughably loud mask.
A wild mask loomed at her, all glaring eyes and teeth. “Boo!” the young man screamed. Tesara jumped and shrieked. A flash of light blinded her, and when she could see again, blinking away the afterimage, the young man was still there, wobbling uncertainly. The residual tingling in Tesara’s fingers revealed what had happened. The boy’s prank had caused her to go off.
“Are… are you all right?” she asked the boy. He just stared as if he had not heard her, and
