“I do,” he says quietly, stepping closer, and his dark eyes are looking straight into mine.
“You can’t,” I whisper, and that’s when he kisses me.
There’s a moment when I don’t feel anything. It’s been years since I felt any touch besides Stepmother’s slaps and Mother’s ghostly caresses, and now suddenly there are strong hands gripping my shoulders and a mouth crushed over my own. It’s too foreign; I can’t understand the sensation enough to feel it, can’t even breathe.
But he keeps kissing me, and though this is the first time, it feels like recovering a long-forgotten memory. My body seems to say, Yes, this, and then I’m kissing him back as if I were born to be in his arms. I never realized how tightly guilt and fear had been wound about me until this moment, when they unwind into the air and fly away, leaving me with nothing but this guileless delight.
Nothing.
My secrets, my lies. The fragile safety of my family. Everything I worked so hard to create, he’s going to tear it all away.
Suddenly his arms are a prison and I can’t bear the touch of his lips a moment longer. I wrench myself free.
He reaches after me. “Maia—”
I slap his hand away. “No,” I gasp. “Marry my mistress. Or don’t, if you like. But I—I never want to see you again.”
And then I run.
“He won’t take any more letters,” I tell Koré that evening. “He’s too busy. But he’ll look for you at the ball. I believe you have a chance.”
For the first time, lying to her feels like ashes in my mouth.
Everything is exactly the same. Cook the breakfast. Wash the dishes. Bake the bread. Sweep the floor. Mend the clothes. Smile for Mother and fade into the wallpaper for Stepmother.
Nothing is the same. My smiles and my silent submission both feel like a heavy porcelain mask; my face is always tugging against them, trying to take another expression. Trying to speak the truth.
I’ll learn to wear that mask effortlessly again, just as I’ll learn to stop remembering every single word he ever said, every look he ever gave me. But for now, I remember every moment of him. Most of all, I remember when I pushed him back, and his dark eyes were wide in baffled hurt. He had offered to defy his father, his peers, and all good sense to marry me. And I threw him away.
Surely, if the gods have any mercy, he will hate me now. He will choose another wife and be happy.
The day of the ball, Stepmother is up with the dawn to give me orders. I don’t think she knows why; certainly her orders make no sense. First I must cook an extra-large breakfast, and then she tells me to abandon it on the stove because there’s no time. She wants the entire house cleaned, as if Lord Anax were coming to tea tomorrow. She sends me to the garden to fetch armfuls of flowers for the family shrine, where Father’s portrait sits next to the household gods.
Abruptly, while jabbing a finger and telling me to move the vase a little more to the left, stupid child, she drops to her knees and squeezes her eyes shut in prayer. Her eyebrows clench together; her lips hang softly open. For a moment, despite the pinched lines of her face, despite everything I know about her, she looks lovely. I think, Perhaps she felt about Father the way I feel about Lord Anax.
My stomach twists and I turn away, because we are nothing, nothing alike and never will be. I will die first.
And then there are the actual preparations for the ball. The dresses are already chosen, mended, and embroidered. The masks—commissioned at ferocious expense—sit wrapped in tissue paper. Thea can’t stop unwrapping hers and running her fingers over the swirling, golden surface. Otherwise she’s more subdued today; she keeps looking at me and drawing a breath to speak, then stopping. I think she feels guilty that I must stay home, but for once, what I tell my mother is true: I’m glad I’m not going. If I go, I’ll see Lord Anax, and then . . . maybe he’ll hate me and I won’t be able to stop myself, I’ll weep and destroy him. Or maybe he will still love me and I won’t be able to stop myself, I’ll say yes and destroy him just the same.
I won’t give in to him and I won’t hurt him. I will die first.
I seem to think that a lot lately.
Koré doesn’t appear all day, which is nothing new. She’s spent the last two days locked up in her room, probably writing out everything she wants to say to Lord Anax.
But then it’s evening and it’s time to dress. I lace Thea into her gown—butter-soft, pale green silk sewn with iridescent beads, and for once she doesn’t look like a smudged watercolor of her older sister but like a pretty young woman in her own right.
“Where is Koré?” Stepmother demands. She’s been watching the whole process; I don’t think she trusts me. “That stupid girl has been lazing about in her room all day.”
I’m pinning up Thea’s hair, so I can feel the tiny hunching of her shoulders. “I’m sure she’s just practicing her dance steps, Mother,” she murmurs.
“She should know them already. I’ve spent enough time teaching her. For any daughter of our house, that ought to be enough.” Her voice drops to a grumble. “For the honor of our house.”
“I’ll go fetch her,” I say quickly, sliding the final pin into Thea’s hair. If Stepmother’s talking about the honor of our house, it’s bad. “Just a moment, my lady.” I bob a curtsy and flee.
I have to knock three times before Koré answers. She must have been napping: she’s fully dressed, but her hair is a mess and there’s a pillow crease on her cheek.
“Yes, what is it?” she asks.
“Your mother wants you,” I say. “It’s time to dress for the ball.”
“Of course.” Koré’s lips tighten—they are colorless, though her cheeks are flushed—then she pushes past me, coughing.
When we get back to Thea’s room, Stepmother is pacing back and forth. She lets out a bitter laugh when she sees us.
“At last you deign to grace us with your presence.” Her voice is sugar and acid.
“I was . . .” says Koré, her face gone ghastly pale. She blinks rapidly. “I was only . . .”
Then she collapses, eyes rolling up. Thea and I are on her instantly. We drag her to the bed and loosen her corset. In only a few moments, she rouses.
“Mother?” she says faintly.
Stepmother stands a step away, her eyes wide, her mouth opening and twisting and closing, as if a hundred speeches are fighting each other to get out. She looks as mad as my nurse.