Chapter 6: What the Hall Saw

The autumn ball was the biggest night of the Royal Council's year, and my father insisted I go.

"You've hidden in someone else's house for sixteen years," he said. "Tonight you walk in through the front door."

My birth mother had altered a dress for me in one afternoon.

It was dark blue, plain at the neck, with long sleeves.

When I came down the staircase on my father's arm, the hall was already full of candles and lords.

Heads turned all the way across the floor.

I looked for the King and found him at the far end, standing alone beside a pillar.

He was already looking at me.

He didn't smile and he didn't come over. He gave me one short nod, and I felt it in my knees.

I looked away first.

The first hour went by in introductions.

My father presented me to lords I'd never heard of, and every one of them said the same thing.

"Ashdown. Of course. You have your mother's eyes."

I had never had anybody's eyes before.

I was laughing at something my father said when I saw Odette.

She stood alone by the wine table in a red dress that had cost somebody a lot of money.

She was looking straight at me.

Her glass was empty. She filled it again.

Kendrick was across the room with a cluster of border officers. He had his back to her.

He hadn't spoken to her since the dinner.

I knew that because three different people had whispered it to me in the last hour.

Odette set down the bottle and crossed the floor.

"Luna Winslow," she said, loudly enough for the nearest circle to turn. "Or is it Miss Ashdown now? I can't keep up."

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