Chapter 726: The Widow of Flint

Zarvine’s guard rotations said the same thing three times over, so nobody in the household bothered to argue. Every route to the Reliquary and the unlit room ran straight through the middle of Ibaran’s Veil Ball.

“We walk in as mourners,” Vella said, holding up a heap of silk, “and you, sweetheart, will be Madam Flint.”

Hajin eyed the veil, a lace curtain thick enough to hide a small army from sight. The bustle behind it looked like a cushion that lost a long argument with a cannon.

“What in hell is a bustle even for?” he asked, flat as a plank.

“Fate, darling, and also me,” she said, patting his cheek.

Loccy dragged a tall bonnet down over her ears, humming a funeral hymn she was clearly inventing. She dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief, sniffing so loudly that every lamp in the guesthouse flickered.

“I’m Auntie Loccy, the bereaved aunt,” she announced, “I cry a lot and I’m very sad about it.”

‘Nobody on that floor will buy this, yet the whole plan hangs on it.’

Aria stood beside him draped in grey shawls, a brass ear-trumpet pinned to her collar. Her small panel dimmed to an old lamp’s flicker beside her face, which she plainly considered a deeply personal insult.

“WHAT,” Aria said flatly, “I AM A DEAF DOWAGER, SPEAK UP, YOUNG WIDOW, I CANNOT HEAR A THING.”

“You’re doing great, Aria, nobody would ever suspect,” Hajin whispered.

“I KNOW, I HAVE BEEN PRACTISING IN THE MIRROR SINCE NOON.”

“Where is Didi, anyway,” Juna grumbled, yanking at her hat, “she vanished an hour ago.”

“Princesses always arrive separately, it’s an old rule of royal grief, she’ll find us when she wants to be seen.”

Eirwen swept in last, gloved to the chin, a pointer stick tucked under her arm like a sabre. She wore her hair in a bun so strict that her eyebrows rode halfway up her forehead permanently.

“I am the governess of these unfortunate mourners,” she declared, “I shall tolerate no slouching from any widow.”

Alya followed in black mourning with her lance disguised as a parasol, glaring at any lord who looked twice.

Something round waddled out from behind the wardrobe, wearing nine tiers of frosting and a sprig of sugar roses. Two bright eyes peered out through a tiny gap in the icing, shining with a great and solemn pride.

“Daddy, I’m a cake,” Ash whispered, shaking the tiers.

“You’re a great cake, buddy, just don’t eat yourself,” he said, patting a pink layer.

At the second bell they stood before the ballroom doors, veils lowered, the gilded handles cold beneath their gloves. A thousand mourners drifted across a floor of polished jet, beneath chandeliers that dripped candles giving off no heat.

“Walk like you lost something precious, not like you’re about to start a fight,” Vella murmured behind her fan.

Chamberlain Orwick Dusk waited by the door with a tray of wine, wheezing an ode for each guest. When Hajin glided by, the old man froze mid-breath, then began to weep very openly at the lace.

“Such grief,” Orwick sobbed, “such drapery of sorrow, a veil like a midnight that has lost its mother.”

“Thank you, good sir,” Hajin said, in the deepest voice he owned.

Across the floor Loccy wailed, “My poor, poor brother-in-law,” into a stranger’s sleeve, three lords hurrying to pat her shoulder.

His voice cracked in the middle like a dropped plate, climbing into a squeak that turned lords around. Somewhere behind a potted fern, Vella made a noise like a boiling kettle, sliding slowly down a pillar.

“Tragically available,” a velvet lord murmured, bowing over his gloved hand, “you wear widowhood like a promise, madam.”

“Oh… how kind,” he squeaked, edging backward.

A second lord arrived, then a third, then a duchess who pinched his arm to test the muscle. He tried to say no in a voice below falsetto, every attempt coming out higher than the last.

“Madam, I truly must go and—” he said, trying to wriggle free.

“Nonsense, stay and be sad beside me,” the duchess said, hooking his elbow.

‘I beat a Grandmaster with one good hand and never sweated like this, damn it.’

Juna prowled close at his elbow in a mourning dress, her ears flattened beneath a veiled hat. A lord with a monocle slid his palm over the bustle, giving it a friendly little squeeze.

The growl that left her made the nearest candles shiver, her fingers curling for daggers that were not there.

“Juna, raised hands get unbirthed in this house,” he hissed, catching her wrist, “so put the claws away.”

“He grabbed your rear,” she snarled, rigid with rage, “let me bite one finger, only one.”

“You can bite him in the second act, I swear it.”

“You look good in that hat too, for the record,” he added, in a whisper.

“Shut up,” Juna whispered back, her ears turning red beneath the veil.

She subsided, still grumbling, while the monocle lord retreated with a nervous smile and a lingering look. From the corner came Vella’s voice, thick with delight, her lace fan fluttering like a happy bird.

“I’ll keep this memory forever, sweetheart,” she called, “I may have it carved in marble.”

“Blackmail is a crime in three kingdoms,” he muttered into the lace.

The crowd shifted, parting for someone with a hush that had nothing to do with the widow. A girl in a funeral gown descended the staircase, silver hair pinned up high, gold cracks faint.

She saw him, then stopped dead on the third step, her gloved hand gripping the banister.

For ten full seconds Didi stared at the widow, lips parted, as the ballroom emptied around them.

“You look… acceptable,” she said at last, in a strangled voice.

“High praise,” he said, winking through the lace.

Her face went scarlet, she spun sharply on her heel, then marched directly into a great marble pillar. The crack rang through half the ballroom, leaving her forehead pressed to the stone, refusing to turn around.

“I meant to do that,” Didi told the pillar, “do not speak of it.”

Juna glared at the pillar as if it insulted her family, then at the widow.

“I’d have walked into it harder,” she muttered, tugging her veil lower over her scowl.

Hajin swallowed one laugh, then a second, his shoulders shaking in a manner most unbecoming of a widow. Eirwen tapped his arm with her pointer, disapproval radiating from every single pin in her strict little bun.

“Straighten, Madam Flint,” she said severely, “a widow of means does not giggle at pillars.”

“I SMELL A SCANDAL,” Aria bellowed at his elbow, “SOMEBODY BRING ME PUNCH.”

Near the dessert table, Ash was gazing at a real cake with enormous, shameless, hungry longing. Hajin steered him away by one frosting tier, murmuring promises of snacks waiting in the carriage.

‘Clean entry, no alarms, not one broken table, maybe I really am good at this.’

Veiled musicians played a waltz so slow that the candles leaned toward it like sleepy flowers. Couples turned beneath them in perfect silence, every mask tilted a little toward the household’s corner.

He turned toward the dance floor to count exits, the lace snagging on a stranger’s cuff.

A warm hand with a tea-stained cuff unhooked the veil with great care, then let it fall. Hajin looked up and found silver-gold eyes smiling down at him from a plain, kindly, grandfatherly face.

“Forgive a clumsy old man, madam,” Ibaran said, offering his gloved palm, “may I have this dance, Madam Flint?”