The mirror didn't reflect a scholarship student anymore. It showed a ghost in sapphire and silver, a Valois heiress forged in the grime of a foundry. The silver fox mask was cold against my skin, the diamonds under the eyes catching the light like frozen, defiant tears.
"You look like a revolution," a voice said from the doorway.
I turned slowly, the heavy silk of my gown whispering a warning against the floor. Dmitri leaned against the frame, dressed in unrelenting black, a simple visor of polished onyx obscuring the upper half of his face. It left his mouth visible , a cruel, beautiful curve that felt more intimate than if he'd been bare-faced.
"Is that what I am?" My voice was steady, a skill he'd drilled into me. "Or am I just a polished asset? A strategic investment finally ready for display?"
His eyes, visible through the narrow slits, narrowed. He pushed off the doorframe and crossed the room. The air grew dense, charged. He didn't stop until he was close enough for me to feel the heat radiating from him, to smell the sandalwood and cold night air on his clothes. His gloved hand rose, not to touch my face, but to trace the intricate silver embroidery over my heart. The touch was proprietary, a curator checking his masterpiece.
"You're a Valois," he said, his voice a low vibration that travelled from his fingertips into my bones. "Tonight, you remind them why that name used to make kings nervous." He offered his arm. It wasn't a request.
I placed my hand on his sleeve. The fabric felt like a chain mail.
The grand staircase of the transformed Cathedral looked down onto a sea of masks and whispers. As we appeared at the top, the sweeping waltz stuttered. A hundred faceless heads turned upward.
Dmitri's arm was iron beneath my hand. He wasn't looking at the crowd. His gaze was fixed on the north entrance, where Julien stood, unmasked, his face pale and stark as a bone against the dark wood. The betrayal in his eyes was a physical blow, even from across the room.
"He came to see you today," Dmitri murmured, his voice barely audible over the resumed music. His grip tightened, his fingers pressing into my wrist just shy of pain. "He showed you papers. Told you to run with him."
My breath caught. "He told me a truth you kept. Or a piece of it."
Dmitri's jaw tightened behind the mask. He leaned in, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. The warm puff of his breath sent a treacherous shiver through me, at war with the ice in my veins. "Julien deals in pretty lies of escape. I deal in the ugly truth of victory. And the truth is, you're here. With me."
We descended. The staircase felt endless. At the bottom, Lady Schuyler waited, a grotesque explosion of peacock feathers and malice. Her eyes, visible above her gilded mask, widened, then narrowed into venomous slits as she took in the dress, her dress, the one meant to humiliate, now reborn in the colors of a dead house and the obvious, obscene wealth of the Volkovs.
"Isabelle," she purred, the sweetness in her voice sour with fury. "I didn't recognize you. You've cleaned up… almost convincingly."
I took a single step forward, closing the distance until the silver threads of my skirt brushed her gaudy feathers. "And you, Lady Schuyler," I said, my voice carrying just enough, "look like you're trying desperately to distract from what's underneath."
A sharp, collective gasp cut through the music. Beside me, Dmitri let out a soft, dark sound that was almost a laugh.
"The first dance is mine," he announced, his voice slicing through the tension. It was a decree, not an invitation. His hand settled at the small of my back, a brand of possession, and he guided me into the swirling heart of the ballroom.
The world became a blur of light and color, anchored only by the hard pressure of his hand and the intensity of his gaze through the black visor. We moved with a terrible, practiced synchronicity. Then, his hand shifted, his thumb finding the strip of bare skin above my glove. The touch was deliberate, a reminder of the foundry, of the kiss.
"What did he tell you, Isabelle?" His voice was a low growl woven into the music. "What half-truth did the Golden boy use to try and steal what's mine?"
"He didn't lie about the scholarship, Dmitri." The words were a whisper as he dipped me, my hair sweeping the polished floor.
He pulled me back up sharply, our bodies colliding. For a fractured second, his mask of control slipped. I saw it, not guilt, but a raw, furious jealousy that his plan had been uncovered, that Julien had gotten to me first. That anyone else had laid a claim, however fragile, on my attention. It was instantly smothered, replaced by a colder, more terrifying calm.
"He thinks he's saving you from a monster," Dmitri said, his eyes flicking to where security was now quietly escorting a resisting Julien from the ballroom doors. The sight was a puncture in my chest. "But all he's done is ensure I'll never be lenient. He wants a conflict? I'll give him a war. But you…" He spun me, a controlled, violent motion. "…you will remain on my side of the line. Is that clear?"
The music ended with a final, dramatic chord. Dmitri didn't release me. Instead, he steered me firmly through the crowd, a path clearing before his silent, imperious will. We passed through the French doors and into the frozen silence of the balcony gardens.
The cold was a slap. Moonlight frosted the labyrinth of hedges, turning the world monochrome. Once shrouded by a curtain of willow branches, he turned me, pressing my back against the stone balustrade. The chill seeped through the silk.
"Say it," he commanded, his voice stripped of its ballroom polish, rough and exposed. "What's churning behind that mask? Say the words."
The hurt and fear finally broke through the discipline he'd taught me. I pulled the folded ledger page from my hidden pocket, my fingers numb. I didn't shove it at him. I held it up between us, a frail, paper shield. "You lied. You didn't bring me here to protect me. You brought me here to finish your father's business. To… to manage a loose end. I'm just a transaction to you. A way to win his approval."
He didn't look at the paper. His gaze stayed locked on mine, his breathing shallow. "My father," he said, the words tight, "doesn't want my approval. He wants obedience. He sees you as a problem to be erased. A ledger entry to be balanced."
"And you?" The question was a tear in my throat. "What do you see? A problem you can reshape? A 'rat' you can collar and call a queen?"
He moved so fast I flinched. He grabbed my wrist, the one holding the paper and forced my hand flat against his chest, over his heart. It was pounding, a frantic, ragged drumbeat against my palm that betrayed his icy composure.
"I see the only real thing in this entire godforsaken monument of lies!" he hissed, his control fraying at the edges. "Yes, the scholarship was a leverage! Yes, they wanted you buried and silent! But do you think I spent nights in that freezing foundry for him? Do you think I'm here, risking everything I've built, because of a business transaction?"
His other hand came up, his fingers threading into the hair at the nape of my neck, not gently, but with a desperate, possessive anchor. "He wanted you silenced. I wanted you. Here. Where I could see you. Mine. I will burn every record, bankrupt every syndicate, and watch this school crumble to ash before I let them take you from me. Not him. Not Julien. No one."
The confession was worse than a lie. It was a gilded cage, built from a jealousy so profound it had warped into a terrible, all-consuming need. It wasn't love; it was ownership, justified by a desire he'd mistaken for destiny. I was trapped between the hurt of his deceit and the terrifying pull of his absolute, flawed want.
He leaned his forehead against mine, the cool onyx of his mask touching the silver of mine. "Tonight is about survival," he murmured, his voice raw. "She will try to unmask you at midnight. To show them the 'rat' beneath the silk."
He pulled a small, cold silver key from his waistcoat and pressed it into my free hand, closing my fingers around it. "Do not let that mask fall until I tell you. We play her game. But we rewrite the ending."
The distant clock tower began to groan, the first ponderous chime of midnight shattering the quiet.
Inside, the music died. A thick, anticipatory silence bled from the ballroom. Through the glass, I saw Lady Schuyler step into the center of the floor, a vicious smile on her unveiled face.
"The hour of truth!" her voice carried, tinny and triumphant through the panes. "Let us see what lies beneath! Masks off!"
A rustle of movement. A sea of hands rising to faces. Dmitri's grip on my wrist tightened briefly, a final, wordless command.
I clutched the silver key, its teeth biting into my palm. The world narrowed to the doors, to the glittering crowd, to the woman now cutting through it, her eyes fixed on me with predatory glee.
The world held its breath.
One tug, and the girl they remembered would be erased forever.