Rosamund Hodge: Gilded Ashes

“Thank you, Mother,” I whisper, and for once I am not lying.

The laughter rustles in the leaves; I feel a touch against my cheek, and then she tilts my head up to look at one of the lowest branches, where a golden mask hangs by a red silk ribbon.

Carefully, I reach up and take the mask, then tie it over my face. It fits as perfectly as the corset, and like the corset it seems to mold me into another person. A lady. It is the most natural thing in the world to curtsy to the tree, just as I did when I was a little girl and we played court together.

From the other side of the house, I hear the clatter of wheels and horse hooves against the cobblestones.

“Thank you,” I say again, and then I go to meet my carriage.

The duke’s palace is different by night: pale, glimmering from the light of a thousand candles, it seems more like a dream or an enchantment than a house built of stone for mortal men.

The front courtyard, though, is a completely human bustle of attendants and carriages. As we draw to a halt, I see that they are checking invitations at the door, and for a moment I’m afraid that I’ll be turned away and Mother will be angry. But then my door is opened by a servant—white livery and a colorless face that will not stay in my memory a moment after I look away—and he has a creamy envelope in his gloved hand. He gives it to the footmen at the door, and they bow to me, and then I am inside.

The ballroom is more glorious than I dared imagine: a vast room of marble and gilt, decked out in cascades of vivid hothouse flowers in every color. Swirling through the room are ladies in dresses just as vivid, each one with a gentleman clad simply in black, like a shadow. All of them wear masks, jeweled or painted or gilt, dangling strings of beads or fluttering with feathers.

The music winds to a pause, and then I see him: Lord Anax, the only one in the room unmasked, bowing to the lady he danced with a moment before. His smile is polite and dead, nothing like the expressions I ever saw on his face.

Then he looks up, and his eyes meet mine.

I am masked. He cannot recognize me. I tell myself this as he strides toward me, but my heart still speeds up and my breath flutters against the cage bars of my corset.

He’s three steps away. Two. One. And then he bows to me and says, “Lady. Would you honor me with a dance?”

“Yes,” I say, trying to culture my voice into Koré’s polished tones. I am not Maia the serving girl; I am not my mother’s daughter; I am Koré Alastorides, and I am going to explain to the duke’s heir why he should marry me.

He takes my right hand and starts to raise it; for a moment I think he’s going to kiss it, and a pang shoots up my arm. Then he clasps it instead, draws me out to the center of the ballroom, and lays his other hand on my waist.

His touch is light, no more than a feather’s brush against the wall of my corset, but it still sends heat rushing to my face, and I wish—

Then the music starts, and there’s no room to wish or think anything. I have never been so grateful for all the times that Thea forced me to practice dancing with her, but usually I danced the boy’s part, and for a little while all I can do is force myself not to trample on his toes.

Eventually it gets easier. Eventually I realize that I have been staring at my feet and wasting time. I look up—and he’s watching me quietly, eyebrows slightly furrowed but without any trace of annoyance.

“I didn’t think you would come,” he says.

“My lord?” I say blankly.

“After what I did.” He looks over my shoulder, his face pale and resolute. “I thought I’d never see you again. I thought I’d never be able to apologize.” Then he looks down and meets my eyes. “I’m glad you came, Maia. And I’m so very sorry.”

“You,” I choke out. “How did you—I’m wearing a mask. ”

He grins. “Do you think I wouldn’t recognize your voice? Or your chin, or your eyes? Or do you think I wouldn’t notice you’re the only woman here with chapped hands?”

I look down and see my red, cracked hand clasped in his smooth, soft fingers. I feel like a cheap counterfeit.

He spins me out and back in a sudden twirl. “You know you’re the loveliest woman here,” he says.

Even in just a few days, I’ve forgotten how much he can see of me.

“Why did you want to apologize?” I ask quietly. Perhaps, if he’s feeling guilty, I can make him promise to marry Koré as reparation.

His smile vanishes. “For the last time we met. In the park. It was—inexcusable to seize you that way. When you had given me no permission and clearly had no desire, and needed to fear the power of my position besides.” His lips press together a moment and then he goes on, “I have been very selfish and very stupid all my life. But I promise you, I am starting to learn.”

“Oh,” I say. My head is spinning as I realize what that day must have looked like through his eyes, because despite how well he understands me, he has still never guessed my most important secret. Anax doesn’t notice my confusion; he plunges on, the words tumbling out as if they can’t be stopped.

“And once I realized how I’d wronged you, I realized how I’d wronged Lydia. All that time blaming her for my broken heart, because I didn’t want to admit that I had been so blindly selfish, I could kiss a girl without realizing that she loathed it. So I wrote to her yesterday. I told her the truth and I told her I was sorry. I told her that I hoped someday to earn her friendship again, but that she didn’t owe it to me.” He draws a breath. “I would like to have your friendship, too. Someday. If you will let me earn it back.”

And I know why I came here; I know what I must do. I must win him for Koré and leave him for his own safety. But he is looking so desolate and brave at once, I can’t stop myself.

“You do,” I say. “You have always had my friendship.”

“Thank you,” he says, his voice soft and unfathomably grateful, and I can’t stand it. I can’t stand that he is grateful to receive so little from me, and the words flow out of me without any trying, the same way my feet are dancing out the pattern of the music.

“You were very rude,” I say, “but I didn’t hate it when you kissed me. I didn’t hate it at all. I—” And then finally I manage to close my traitor mouth, but it’s too late. He’s looking at me with dawning wonder and delight, and he can see me. He knows.

“Maia,” he asks, “why did you come here tonight?”

I know what I should say. What I should do. But his fingers are wrapped about mine, his hand is on my waist, and the glittering music is swirling us around and around the room.

“I wanted to know,” I say, and my voice feels like it’s coming from miles away and the depths of my bones at once, “if you really loved me. The way you said when you asked me to marry you.”

“Then?” His mouth crooks. “No. Not really.”

“Oh?” I say.

“I didn’t love you,” he says. “At least, I didn’t know it. I thought you were—lovely, and honest, and the only wife I could possibly respect. But you were right, I didn’t love you. I just thought you were an escape. And then I lost you. These past four days, when I thought you gone forever? Every book I read, I wondered what you’d think of it. Every idea I had, I wanted to ask your opinion. Every breath I took, I listened for your breathing beside me. Then I knew what you meant to me, and what you could have been to me. And then I fell in love with you.”

He stops dancing and clasps both my hands.

“So yes. I love you, Maia, daughter of I care not whom. And I will say so as often as you like, to anyone you please.”