Illusions of Fate

The fuzzy, white electric lights in the room go out, leaving only the light from the adjoining room spilling into this one. I stand, stocking feet on gravel, and slide back into my shoes. “Pardon me, is this room closed now?”

Someone stands, silhouetted against the entrance, his shadow stretching all the way to my feet. I frown and set down my glass.

“Jessamin.” Finn quickly closes the distance between us and stands directly in front of me. His silly cane is, as always, clasped in one hand.

“So you’ve remembered my name.”

He grabs my arm, fingers squeezing as I try to pull away. “What are you doing here?”

“Perhaps I am unfamiliar with the strange customs of the gentry. Did you not mean for me to come when you sent the dress, the motor, and the invitation that begged my presence?”

He lets go of my arm and puts a hand over his face, his shoulders stooped as though bearing a great weight. It is so dim I can see only the barest expression on his face, but he looks defeated. “I sent none of those things.”

“What?” My heart pounds. That was not the answer I was expecting.

“It wasn’t me. We’ve been set up, and I can only pray that I played my part well enough for no damage to be done.”

“I don’t understand. Are you saying that the dress, the letter—they weren’t from you?”

“Of course not. I would never do that.”

I let out a sharp breath, wishing this didn’t cut through me with icy pain. I have no reason to stay, no further levels of shame and embarrassment to drop to. My night is complete.

I sweep out past him, ignoring the urgency with which he calls my name.

Back in the great room, I accept another card pressed into my palm with a smile as mechanized as the motor I rode here in. I stay on the outskirts, searching for a door other than the ones I came through, and am mostly ignored save a few curious souls.

I cannot puzzle this out.

If Finn did not send me the letter, invitation, dress, and motor, who did? It is a cruel joke, elegant and expensive in execution. Surely I have no enemies of this caliber. I just want to go home. My driver said another way to the hotel had been arranged, and the thought gives me pause.

Either it is part of the joke and there is no ride home, or some form of transportation will be waiting for me, possibly with answers as to how this whole nightmare of an evening happened.

I want to face neither of those options. It was Finn or it wasn’t, and the only person who can answer my questions is the same one I never want to see again.

I finally spy a side door and slip out. The night hits me with jealous greed, eager to steal away the memory of humid warmth, and for once I am glad of the shock of it.

“Fie on this whole country and everyone in it,” I declare, setting off across the grounds perpendicular to where the main road crosses in the front. If I can get back to the heart of the city, I’ll find a cabbie eventually.

“Fie on stupid men who see dark skin as an exotic temptation. Fie on these accursed shoes.” I kick them off into the grass, knowing I will regret it when I hit the street but simply not caring. “And fie on whoever sent them.”

A loud caw sounds behind me and I spin, nearly falling off balance. “Fie on birds, too!” A big, black one bobs up and down in the grass behind me, its eyes glowing reflectively in the dark night.

I rub my arms and walk a bit faster. “Fie on creepy glowing eyes, especially.”

Another caw, echoed from the other side behind me. Then another, and another, and finally I look over my shoulder to see dozens of pairs of glowing yellow eyes, all fixed on me.

As one, they lift into the air with a great rush of wings and I scream, throwing my arms over my head. I run forward, away from the birds, but they surround me, flying with a cacophony of wings and horrid, croaking cries. I see a break in their formation and run through it, trying to make it back to the conservatory. My feet pound against the grass, the demon birds right behind me, flying up to block me at every turn with sharp beaks and razor claws.

They are blacker than the night, a tunnel around me, herding me and giving me only one way to escape: into the darkness of the trees surrounding the lawn. As I give up on the beacon of light from the conservatory, the ground slips and slides beneath me, reality shifting. I turn to look over my shoulder one last time, running as fast as ever I have, when I slam into something.

Something with a set of teeth and eyes equally sharp.

Seven

I AM HOME, IN MY BED, MY NIGHTCLOTHES tangled around me so that I cannot move. My mother talks to me in the low, sibilant sounds of our language, though her voice is deep, too deep. Her words don’t comfort—their tone is chiding, accusatory, but my memory fails me and I cannot understand what she is saying as her fingers brush my forehead.

Her fingers turn into the touch of feathers and I scream, fighting upward out of the blackness. I’m in the conservatory, spinning, spinning, passed from partner to partner down an infinite line. I look up, begging to stop, to see that it’s Finn who holds me, his hands tight around my waist. Then he passes me to the next man—Finn again, always Finn, and none of them will look me in the eyes, none of them will answer my pleas to be released.