Glitterdust's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Glitterdust had six days to finish a dress, a mask, and a plan. The masquerade at court would gather every noble she needed for her salon, and missing it would set her back half a year. She was not yet open. She had no patrons. She had a list of names pinned above her workbench and a lease she could not pay past spring. The ball was the shortcut, and the shortcut was narrow. She sewed her own mask because she trusted no one else to make it quiet enough. Pale silk, gold thread, fine grit from the south worked into the weave so it caught light only when she turned her head. A loud mask drew eyes. She did not want eyes. She wanted a corner, a glass of wine, and three hours of watching. By the fifth night her fingers bled at the cuticles. She kept sewing. The ball stood beyond a crystal gate raised at the palace drive, twice her height, mirrored panels throwing the desert sun back in stripes. Guests slowed to be seen passing through it. Glitterdust slowed too, because slowing was the cost of entry, and because the duke she had been studying for two months stood just inside. He wore a brass mask studded with colored stones, a thing so bright it pulled the eye off his mouth. She understood the choice at once. He did not want to be read tonight. Neither did she. She took her corner. She watched him work the room for an hour. He touched elbows, laughed at the right beats, never drank. Then a woman with red hair cut across his path and did not stop for him. Cherry Min'tea. Glitterdust knew the name from gossip; the prince's incident, the fae noble's humiliation. Cherry passed within a foot of the duke. The duke turned to follow her with his eyes, and for one second his smile dropped. Just dropped. No replacement. A flat face under the jeweled brass. Then the smile returned and he moved on. Glitterdust set her glass down. She had finally seen him when he thought no one was watching. She spent the rest of the night collecting the easier prizes. She secured three private appointments and a standing invitation from a marquess who liked to be told he was clever. By dawn her list had ink through six names. The ball had paid. But she walked home thinking about the dropped smile, not the appointments. The duke had a face he did not show, and Cherry Min'tea had pulled it out of him without trying. Glitterdust needed both of them now, and she did not yet know how to want two people who would not want to be wanted together.