Eleven o'clock was one hour away. I decided to use that hour to watch.
Nora and I moved slowly around the edge of the ballroom, as if we were enjoying the party. I drank only from a jug that I had seen the servant pour from. Then I found a quiet place near a pillar, where I could see the tables and the dance floor at once.
The refreshment tables were long and beautiful. White cloth, silver plates, towers of sugared fruit, and rows of crystal glasses filled with red and gold drinks. Servants in black and white uniforms moved among the guests with trays.
A beautiful place for a murder, I thought. A hundred cups. A thousand hands.
"My lady," Nora whispered, eyeing a tower of sugared as tall as a child. "Are the plums on the list of suspects?"
"Everything is on the list," I whispered back. "Even the plums."
I watched for what felt like a very long time. Slowly, I began to see patterns.
The servants carried trays in a circle, from the kitchen door to the tables, to the guests and back. They never stopped. Each tray carried twelve glasses, and they were never allowed to carry more. The head butler counted them at the kitchen door.
Then I saw one glass that did not go around.
At the far end of the long table, near the fountain, Marcus Dane, in his mask, took a glass of golden wine from a passing tray. He sipped it, smiled, and set it down. Then Lord Pryce, still in his plain black mask, walked past him. For a single , their eyes met. Lord Pryce gave a small nod. Marcus Dane gave another.
It meant nothing. And it meant everything.
"My lady," Nora whispered. She my sleeve. "Look there. At the kitchen door."
A line of servants came through it with trays. And at the end of the line, a girl in a plain gray dress carried a single glass on a small silver plate. She was young, about my age, with a neat gray cap pulled low over her forehead. In the dim light, her face was only a pale shape.
She did not look at anyone. She walked quickly through the crowd, between the dancers, like a drop of water running through grass.
Something stirred in my memory, cold and half-formed, like a fish in a dark pond. A girl in gray. A silver plate. A glass held out to me, in another life, with a polite, empty smile.
But the girl was already gone, swallowed by a hundred bright masks. And a hand touched my arm.
I turned sharply. It was Vivienne, in her violet mask, with her chest rising and falling very fast.
"Elise," she whispered. "I have news. I wanted to tell you right away, as I promised."
"Good girl," I breathed. "What is it?"
"He came to me tonight, at the start of the ball. Lord Pryce, I mean. He said —" She swallowed, and her whole body trembled. "He said that I was to bring you to the east balcony at eleven. He said the Prince wishes to propose. He said that I was to see that you were *alone* there. Alone, Elise. For one hour."
"For one hour?" I said. "A proposal does not take an hour."
"That is what I thought." She gripped my hand. "He told me not to tell you. But I promised. I did not know what to do."
Her , in the room, was the bravest thing I had ever seen.