AS MAX APPROACHED VAN DER VEN’S brown-bricked London home on Grandage View, wearing an auburn cloak over a tight brown tunic, he smiled wistfully, remembering the first time Lily Giralt had dressed him up for an extravagant operation. Back then his old friend had dressed him up like a woman so he could infiltrate the brothel where she worked. This time, with her connections, she’d rustled up some robes to fit Bellerose’s medieval theme.
“I don’t have enough time to teach you how to dance a court quadrille, so simply do your best to follow along with the others,” the red-haired girl had told him and Cherice before leaving their apartment in St Giles. “Just please don’t mess things up by making fools of yourselves.”
“Same to you,” Max had told her, in a whisper only she could hear.
And she’d understood.
Lily was a longtime friend of theirs. She was no stranger to lending a hand whenever Max and his friends found themselves in rather hairy situations. A part of him had felt guilty bringing Lily into Hiva’s orbit, exposing her to danger, but she was never one to shy away from it.
That day at the brothel Iris had been with him. Between the two of them, he hadn’t been able to decide who had worn the lovelier dress.
His cheeks flushed as he remembered kissing her that night in that sensually lit room, both of them fighting with their crinolines.
“What’s that smile for?” asked Cherice. The girl was, surprisingly to Max, a vision herself. Lily had done her makeup: blush on her chubby cheeks, soft black eye shadow. Her pumpkin-colored hair had been primped and adorned with marigolds.
Lily had given her a pink silk dress and a red cape made of fur, which was tied around her neck with a gold chain. Not real silk, or real fur, or real gold. But this was a costume party, after all, and according to Lily, Cherice was meant to be the Isolde to Max’s Tristan—that is, if people bothered to guess. As for Hiva—
“He’s a bard.”
Max hid his smirk behind a hand as the doors to Van der Ven’s home opened for them.
It was a costume party. Hiva had no need to hide the weeds in his hair. It made his violet robe and Tudor cap somehow more authentic. If it was not humanity’s final year, it would certainly be its strangest.
A blue Persian rug welcomed their leather boots into the drawing room. The servant who would let them into the ballroom was too mesmerized by Hiva’s beauty to even ask for his invitation. But he handed them their masks. That was what mattered most. Max had a solid plan to distract Adam when the time came, but before then, they needed to hide their faces from him.
A set of grand double doors opened into the ballroom, which was lit with beautiful electric lamps and chandeliers. Men and women were already swirling across the wooden dance floor in expensive robes and gold-embroidered cloaks. Real gold this time, by the looks of it. Off to the right, musicians kept to the medieval theme, playing sprightly music on the stage next to the Grecian columns. Two arched wooden doors stood at opposite ends of the room for servants to come in and out of with trays of wine. Red-and-gold drapes fell to the floor, though most of the walls were left bare of drapery, probably to show off the silver-plated tapestries and the Gothic ironwork, among other opulent furnishings. It was a colorful, decadent display of wealth that made Max feel as small as he had when he, Chadwick, and the others had waited outside gatherings like these in the winter cold, hoping for a pocket to pick.
“I feel ridiculous,” Cherice hissed at Max, struggling with her black leggings. After leaning back to spy on Hiva—who stood on Max’s other side, watching the revelry with disinterest—she nudged Max in the ribs. “And you’re entirely sure this is going to work?”
Max nodded and pointed at the main attraction at the front of the ballroom.
How fitting that she would place herself on a throne. Bellerose. And, of course, in a rejection of her own theme, she’d made herself up to look wholly unique from the rest of her guests. Something about her reminded Max of a Venetian princess. Her dress was embroidered with gold, silver, and reds, with a peach satin train and an underskirt of a light yellow brocade. And Max only even knew these terms because of Lily, though even Lily would have found the emerald gems on her Venetian cap a touch too much. Unlike the other guests, Bellerose did not cover her face. She wanted the others to see her in her throne, her red curls spilling over her diamond-covered neck. Bellerose watched her guests dancing the quadrille as if she presided over their very lives. A queen in the making.
It was then that Bellerose’s sharp eyes caught his. Max’s breath hitched, his hand stiffly gripping his curved red mask, which only covered half his face. But when the madame’s red lips curved into a smile, his body relaxed.
Good. This was good. This was very good.
As Madame Bellerose’s gaze slid to the musicians, Max turned to Hiva next to him. “Have you ever been to a party before, in your millions of years alive?”
Hiva watched the festivities with an uninterested expression. “In every civilization and in every generation, the elites have always found nonsensical ways to amuse themselves.”
“ ‘Nonsensical’ is the word,” Cherice muttered under her breath, before coughing innocently into her white-gloved hand.
“What did you do for fun in those days, anyway?” Max was curious. “Did you ever have fun? You know—” And he waved his hands, as if painting some kind of picture in the air of what “fun” was supposed to look like.
Hiva looked away. He was silent for a time. “During the ancient days of the Naacal, I played with them in the flower fields,” he finally told them. “I played with them when sister wasn’t watching. They gave me… joy.”
Max and Cherice exchanged glances as Hiva seemed to drift away right in front of them. His voice died in this throat. His golden eyes faded.
Max cleared his throat. “Well, anyway—like I said, talk to these people. Learn their stories. Their hopes. Their dreams. Who knows, you might find that this world isn’t the den of sin you think it is. You might find some mercy in that crystal heart of yours. Iris did.”
Hiva’s body stiffened, and his lips stretched into a sneer. “The ‘Iris’ that you knew, perhaps,” he said, but he walked into the dancing crowd nonetheless.
“I guess everyone has a trigger, huh?” Cherice put her hands on her hips. “So? What now? What about us?”
Max bowed to her and offered his hand. “Shall we dance?”
Cherice’s whole face exploded into a kaleidoscope of red shades. Max laughed. Just like when they were kids. She shook her head ferociously but gave him her hand anyway. He took it and whisked her off her feet. Bellerose’s signal had told him the plan was in motion. Now all they needed to do was wait for the changing of the guards. Might as well dance until then.
Lily should have taught them the quadrille. Neither he nor Cherice could keep up with the flow of upper-class guests, who seemed to seamlessly glide upon the floor. With Cherice’s little hands clasped in his, they knocked knees and stepped on each other’s toes. Cherice banged her head against his chest—which meant the heels Lily had given her had lifted her a couple of inches, because usually the crown of her head barely reached the top of his stomach.
“Hey, Maxey, do you really think Hiva’s actually going to learn something profound at a stuck-up, hoity-toity event like this?” Cherice asked, watching her feet to make sure she didn’t step on his boots again. “I mean, it would be nice and all if he had a change of heart about destroying humanity after having a nice dance with some philanthropically minded, orphan-rescuing nun, but I don’t think you’ll find that type here.”
Max scoffed. “This place? Please—look at all the peacock feathers on their masks. They’re clearly all assholes. Hiva won’t change his mind. But that’s not what this is about.”
“Then this is another elaborately planned ambush?” Cherice narrowed her green eyes. “Because the first time worked so well….”
Max lifted Cherice’s chin so he could look in her eyes. “It’ll work this time, Cherice. We’ve got Mary, Henry, and Lucille. We’ve got our friends. And we’ve got our little secret weapon, about to make her appearance.” He looked up at Bellerose.
“But what if—”
“No what-ifs,” Max whispered with a stern note of finality. “No going back. We do this here and now.”
Cherice bit her lip and turned away from him, relenting with a little nod. “Here and now.”
Damn it. Max hadn’t meant to snap at her. To break the somber mood, he spun her around a few times, almost lifting her off her tiny feet. After she adjusted one of the marigolds that had fallen askew in her hair, she looked up at him and broke out into laughter.
“Good to see you beginning to enjoy yourself,” Max said with a wry smile, gazing around him and winking at the few elites annoyed by their clumsy display. It was then that he realized that he was enjoying himself too. For the first time since he’d disappeared from Iris’s side that dark day in Club Uriel, he was actually enjoying himself.
Perhaps Max had thought this too soon. His jaw clenched as he saw, out of the corner of his eye, Adam Temple speaking to a group of men by the grand piano, behind which a masked man played his own perfect accompaniment to the musicians. In his long black tuxedo, Adam was one of the few who hadn’t dressed up according to the ball’s ridiculous dress code. He spoke with a full glass of wine in his hand, his black hair as raggedy as Max remembered it, and for a moment, Max felt a wave of heat rush to his head.
That man. That bloody man had used his love for his sister against him and manipulated him into betraying his friends. That sick, death-obsessed monster.
“Maxey,” Cherice whispered, but he barely heard it above the ringing in his ears.
What would have happened if Max had never fallen into Adam’s trap? What new path would have opened up for him, if he had chosen Iris’s side during the Tournament of Freaks instead of his? Since he’d taken Temple’s bait, he’d made one mistake after another until he could no longer differentiate between right and wrong.
Closing his eyes, Max remembered the time he’d spent in that casket. The torture that had been inflicted on him on the pirate ship. The torture he’d inflicted upon others.
“Maxey!” Cherice hissed, and finally she pulled her right hand out of his. He hadn’t even realized he’d been crushing it in anger. Biting her lip, she rubbed her delicate, tiny fingers.
“I-I’m so sorry,” he apologized hurriedly, standing awkwardly in front of her.
“It’s okay. I get it,” she said before offering her hands again. “I see him too.”
As tears budded in his eyes, he gripped Cherice and held her tightly against his chest. And strangely, she didn’t protest. She didn’t so much as draw a breath. She melted into his arms, her fingers in his.
“You know, I always wanted to do something like this.” Cherice cuddled up against his chest like a puppy. “When we were kids, I mean. I kind of always wanted to have a real dance.”
“Are you saying a drunken Irish jig isn’t a ‘real’ dance?”
Cherice’s angry pout was a little adorable. She narrowed her eyes and huffed. “A dance, you idiot. A real dance. A… a ballroom dance. A close dance, you know?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.”
“Do you?”
Max wasn’t used to seeing vulnerability in her expression. Not in the fiery Cherice, who made a living cheating men twice her size and half her wits out of their ill-earned money. As if sensing his discomfort, she quickly lowered her gaze but tightened her grip on his hands.
“A lot has happened in the past few months. I feel like I can’t even process everything.” Cherice shook her head. “I thought you were dead, Maxey.”
“And celebrated, did you?”
“Don’t even joke about that!”
She had almost shouted it. A few men and women, dressed as if they’d walked out of an Arthurian tale, glared at her for a few seconds before realizing that staring was considered rude and going back to their quadrille.
“Sorry,” Max muttered under his breath.
Cherice was silent for a moment. “I thought you were dead, and I wanted to die too.” Her voice was ghost-quiet. “I hated everyone. Temple. That stupid Enlightenment Committee. Iris.”
Max’s stomach flopped. He didn’t say a word.
“Or maybe I hated her before then. Just a little. When I thought you were in love with her.” The flowers trembled in Cherice’s hair as she shook her head quickly. “I know, I know. It’s pathetic, isn’t it? You can go ahead and call me a jealous child.”
“It’s not pathetic….” Max’s hands loosened their grip around Cherice’s. “I didn’t love her, Cherice. And as for you…”
She waited expectantly, and the tiny light of hope in her expression broke his heart. It was rather easy playing stupid after you’d done it for several years. Cherice had been following him around since childhood, always struggling to keep up with the boys whenever they climbed up trees and ran from bakeries with stolen loaves of bread. She pushed herself until she could run faster than the lot of them, yet Max could still always feel her behind him somehow, watching silently—always a little late, always a beat behind. He’d know she was there. But he’d never look back. Those were the rules. It had become familiar and therefore comforting. He’d never wanted to think about how much her unrequited love had hurt her for all those years.
The rules tended to change when lives were at risk. Hearts tended to open at the brink of the world’s end. But not for Max. Not after everything he’d done. The blood on his hands.
“I didn’t deserve Iris, and I don’t deserve you,” he said, and with an awkward tremble of his lips, added, “Let’s just dance.”
He felt Cherice’s shoulders droop.
“Meater,” she said under her breath with a little laugh, before directing her gaze once more to the dance floor.
They danced in silence.
Until…
“Heads-up.” Max flicked his head toward the front of the room. Bellerose had risen from her throne and, with a haughty expression of disdain toward her own guests, slinked off through the door on the left. By the time the musicians had started a new song, she’d returned with her face covered in a harlequin red-and-pink mask, bejeweled with diamonds only a touch smaller than the ones draped around her neck. As if she’d only stepped out to the powder room, she sat back down upon her extravagant seat, with few guests any wiser as to what had truly happened.
“It’s done. Lucille’s made the switch,” Cherice whispered. “What now?”
If, according to Mary, Adam’s big plan was to trick Van der Ven, then he was smart to use Lucille’s shape-shifter abilities. She made a good Bellerose.
But that prat had no idea he was being double-crossed. Soon he’d learn what Max had in store for him.
“Now we wait. Lord Temple’s about to become very distracted.” Max smirked.
A few moments later, and it happened. The sound of glass crashing against the hardwood floor. Everyone turned toward the corner of the ballroom to Adam Temple, who looked like he’d seen a ghost.
“Excuse me,” Adam said, and barely managed a gentlemanly bow before rushing out of the room. Several servants rushed to clean up the mess—
Including a tall, tan, brown-haired boy who looked like Fables.
No, it couldn’t be. That git hadn’t been invited. Max couldn’t get a good look at the boy’s face before he disappeared with the other servants through the door, but he was almost certain it couldn’t have been him.
He didn’t have time to dwell on it, for Hiva soon approached him, accompanied by an old man Max didn’t recognize at first. The man was another one too proud to wear bedazzled tunics and robes. His gray hair, wispy at the crown of his head, pooled at the back of his neck, nearly covering his large ears. The creases in his skin deepened as he frowned, though he didn’t look particularly angry. It was as if this man never smiled even during festivities, where smiling was a requirement. His white collar was up, revealing a simple black tie he didn’t bother to adjust as he stepped out in front of Hiva, his arms folded behind his back.
It took Max a moment to realize.
No. It couldn’t be. Max froze to the spot. His fingers clenched into fists.
The old man gazed at him through wizened eyes before introducing himself. “William Ewart Gladstone.”
Cherice let out a yelp before covering her mouth and looking up at Max for some kind of instruction on what to do. But Max’s mind had gone blank. He’d told Hiva to mingle, and the god had come back with the leader of the bloody country. Just what the hell was going on?
“These are the friends I told you about,” said Hiva, waving his hands toward Max and Cherice. “If I am to make a decision, it is best that you include them.”
Max balked while Cherice scrunched up her nose. Friends?
“What decision?” Max demanded, still too dumbfounded to grasp what was happening.
“One fit for a man capable of laying waste to a music hall with a mere thought.”
He knew. Max and Cherice exchanged glances.
“Come with me,” said Gladstone. “Let us find a quiet place to talk. There I’ll tell you what I told him.” Flicking his head toward Hiva—carefully, of course, with the weak neck he had—he began making his way past the dancing crowds.
“Why?” Max demanded after him. “What could you possibly want from us?”
Gladstone looked over his shoulder. “I’m recruiting.”