The Vale estate glittered like it was trying to blind the night.
Lanterns hung in rows along the drive. Music drifted through open windows—strings and soft drums, all practiced ease. Servants moved like shadows with trays of crystal.
Mireya stepped through the gates and didn't slow.
Her mask sat cool against her cheek. Ivory with a painted crack. Pretty, but damaged. Perfect.
Stellan walked beside her in dark velvet and a silver clasp. Hood down. Hair smoothed back. His posture had learned to behave.
It didn't look natural on him.
It looked dangerous.
Mireya felt the bond tug at the sight of him like that. Not nausea. Something tighter. She ignored it.
At the door, a doorman in a fox mask bowed. "Names?"
Mireya gave the false ones Tess had inked into the invitation with practiced precision. "Lady Corinne Avel."
Stellan didn't hesitate. "Lord Sable Hart."
Mireya didn't look at him.
Good. No tell.
The doorman waved them in.
Warmth hit first. Perfume and candlewax. The thick smell of roses stretched too far and turned sour at the edges.
Then sound.
A ballroom didn't speak. It breathed.
Laughter layered over music. Silk whispering. Shoes sliding across polished floor. Hundreds of tiny conversations stitched together into one hungry hum.
Mireya's Silence tightened instantly.
Not a full blanket.
A filter.
She stole the roar and left the threads.
Stellan's shoulders eased a fraction. He didn't like crowds. Mireya could taste it on the back of her tongue—dry and bitter.
He was hearing through her right now, and she controlled what he got.
She kept it that way.
They entered like they belonged. Mireya let her gaze skim faces and hands and spacing.
Masks everywhere. Gold birds. Painted tears. Wolf snouts. Sunbursts.
Nobles loved hiding when they were safe enough to confess.
A servant offered wine. Mireya waved it away. Stellan took a glass, then didn't drink. Just held it like a prop.
Good.
A man in a stag mask approached too quickly. He bowed too deep.
"Lady," he purred, voice thick with drink. "You're new."
Mireya let him talk. Men who talked gave away what they wanted.
She loosened her Silence just enough to let in one chosen sound.
His heartbeat.
Fast. Excited. Self-important.
Not a threat.
"Am I?" she asked, mild.
He leaned closer. "I'd remember a crack like that."
Mireya's smile didn't reach her eyes. "You sound certain."
"Oh, I am," he said.
Stellan shifted at her side. A small movement. A protective angle.
Mireya felt the bond flare—heat that wasn't hers, a taste like iron on Stellan's tongue.
Jealousy didn't taste romantic.
It tasted like aggression trying to behave.
Mireya didn't look at him. She didn't acknowledge it.
She kept her voice smooth. "Enjoy the night."
The stag-mask laughed and drifted away, already searching for softer prey.
Stellan leaned slightly toward Mireya. "You okay."
It wasn't a question. It was a warning. He'd heard her breath hitch.
Mireya's eyes stayed on the room. "I'm fine."
The bond flared again.
Pressure behind her eyes.
Stellan's mouth tightened. He tasted the lie like metal.
Mireya wanted to tell him to stop tasting her.
She didn't.
Instead she said, lower, "Don't do that."
Stellan's voice came blunt and quiet. "Then don't lie."
Mireya's jaw flexed under her mask. "Try."
Stellan made a small sound that could've been a laugh if he'd ever laughed properly.
Music shifted. The dance began to swell. Couples moved onto the floor in lazy circles.
Mireya stepped toward the edge of the crowd and let her Silence widen—just a fraction—so the room became manageable.
She picked sounds the way she picked locks.
A woman's whisper behind a fan.
A servant's murmured complaint.
A drunk lord bragging too loud.
Each thread, chosen. Each thread, useful.
Stellan followed, keeping half a step behind. He didn't like it.
Nobles passed him and didn't see him. Or they saw him and dismissed him. Either way, his jaw stayed tight.
Mireya let him.
She needed him angry enough to stay sharp, not angry enough to fight.
A cluster of nobles stood near a marble pillar. Their masks were tasteful. Their voices were soft.
Mireya drifted closer like she was simply admiring the chandeliers.
She loosened the Silence around her ears.
A woman said, "If the Prince signs, we're protected."
A man replied, "Protected? No. Untouchable."
Mireya's stomach tightened.
Stellan's hand flexed around his glass. He was tasting their words through her—metal tang every time someone lied, every time someone softened a cruelty with pretty language.
He leaned in, barely moving his lips. "They're talking about trials."
Mireya didn't answer. She didn't need to. She'd already heard it.
A laugh burst nearby. Too bright. A fox-mask lady leaned on Mireya's arm like they were friends.
"Oh, darling," the lady said, breath warm with wine. "You're wasted on the edge. Come dance."
Mireya smiled politely. "I don't dance."
The lady pouted. "Everyone dances."
She reached, fingers brushing Mireya's wrist.
Mireya stiffened at the touch. Instinct flared—Silence tightening like a blade.
Stellan reacted at the same time. Mireya felt it through the bond—his heat, his sudden urge to move.
He heard her heartbeat spike.
She tasted his want—sharp, hot, misplaced.
The bond surged with it, unpleasantly intimate.
The lady laughed, oblivious. "Oh, you're shy. How adorable."
Mireya pulled her wrist free. Smooth. Controlled. "Not shy."
Stellan's voice came low. "We should move."
Mireya didn't like being directed.
But she liked being touched by strangers even less.
They moved.
Through the hum. Past the dancers. Along the wall where servants slipped in and out with trays.
Mireya reached for another thread of sound—one she'd heard in palace corridors when people thought no one important was listening.
A servant muttered, "He wants it finished tonight."
Another whispered back, "It won't. Not unless the asset shows."
Mireya's throat went dry.
Asset.
Stellan's mouth tightened. He tasted the word like a coin pressed to the tongue.
Mireya kept walking, face calm behind her cracked mask.
She turned a corner into a quieter gallery where portraits stared down in oil-painted judgment. The sound here was thinner. Easier to sift.
Two men stood near a curtained doorway. Their masks were simple. Their posture wasn't.
Court-trained.
Mireya slowed, pretending to examine a painting.
She loosened her Silence until one clear thread slid through.
Not the music. Not the laughter.
Their voices.
"…Orrin's piece is ready," one murmured.
"The Prince doesn't care about Orrin's pride," the other replied. "He cares about results."
A pause.
Then the phrase, half-spoken like it was already an order.
"The Prince wants it bound."
Mireya's blood went cold.
Because she didn't need to ask what it was.
The bond flared hard—pressure, nausea, a hot spike of fear that tasted like metal in Stellan's mouth.
Stellan's head turned sharply. "What."
Mireya didn't answer.
She didn't trust her voice not to crack.
She tightened her Silence around them again, swallowing the rest of the conversation before it could cut deeper.
And in the sudden muffled quiet, the phrase echoed louder in her mind than any music.
The Prince wants it bound.