Chapter 18: Say It Again

Pearl Hall had never been so full.

Three hundred shifters stood under the lamps in silk and scales and feathers, with glasses in their hands.

Lorcan stood against the far wall in a black coat, with his sleeves buttoned and a guard on either side.

He looked at me once across the floor.

I looked back, and then Tristram took my elbow.

"Courage," he murmured, so pleasantly that nobody could have heard the threat in it.

Ottoline sat on her low throne in silver.

She had her hand out to him before we had crossed the white floor, and she smiled as I had never seen her smile.

"My dear Tristram."

"My lady. Miss Harlowe has a gift for you."

"A reading?" The Regent's pale eyes softened. "How kind."

The hall went quiet.

I stood in front of her, and the number hung between the throne and the man at my side, clear and white.

Ninety-seven.

I thought of the net-mender, and the cold way she had walked off.

I thought of Bess, chewing hinge pins in a cellar.

"My lady," I said. "I owe you an apology."

"Child?"

"The number I gave you in this hall wasn't a reading. I didn't know it at the time. I do now."

"What are you doing?" Tristram said, very low.

"It was a sentence," I said to the court. "I said it, and I made it true. Everything you've felt for this man in a fortnight, I put there."

A ripple went around the room.

Ottoline's smile stayed where it was.

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