Romie must have come to this same event last year. It didn’t come as a surprise that she’d been noticed by the Order so soon after starting at Aldryn. Emory wondered how many parties like this Romie had gone to over that first term. All those nights she would sneak out of their room without a word. All those lies she’d tell whenever Emory asked where she’d been. It had all been for this.
She couldn’t help feeling envious. This was the kind of world she’d always dreamed of having access to, the kind Romie effortlessly fit into. Back at Threnody, Romie had always made sure Emory was included in everything she was. We’re a package deal, she would say. Where I go, she goes. No one ever denied her. And while Emory was glad to be included, she knew people only did so to please Romie. They made polite conversation with her out of respect or duty, but it was Romie they fawned over, Romie who dazzled them. Emory was an afterthought, a wallflower easily overlooked.
Now she was in the thick of it. Still not as a first choice, but here of her own choosing, at least.
“Are the new candidates here, then?” she asked, blood boiling at the thought of Dovermere’s next potential victims.
Virgil took a big gulp of his drink. With a trace of uncharacteristic melancholy, he said, “After the last fiasco at the caves, we decided to withhold initiations this year, lie low for a while.”
Thank the Tides. One less thing to worry about tonight. “So they decided to throw this soiree anyway because…?”
“The Tidal Council—they’re the heads of our order—were adamant we select new candidates regardless of what happened last year. Tradition and all. But Keiran managed to convince them otherwise. This was their way of compromising. And to honor those who’ve passed.”
The Tidal Council was likely whose opinion she needed to sway tonight, she realized. As if reading her thoughts, Virgil winked at her and said, “They’ll go feral over you. Their unexpected newest addition.”
“Careful what you say, Virgil,” Lizaveta seethed, suddenly at their side along with Keiran and Nisha. “She might bear our mark, but she’s not one of us yet.”
“You’re certainly in a mood tonight, Liza,” Virgil quipped. He knocked back his drink. “I think more of these are in order, yes?”
He winked at Emory again before looping his arms through both Lizaveta’s and Nisha’s, whisking them away to one of the tables laden with food and drinks.
Left alone with Keiran, she felt her nerves come back. She was acutely aware of his eyes on her but couldn’t make herself meet them, taking a closer look at the people around her instead. They seemed to range widely in age, older than the average student, though it was hard to tell with all of them donning masks. Alumni, no doubt; members of the Selenic Order from years and decades past. There was an air of importance to them, a thrum of power; they looked for all the world like they were the Tides themselves.
Keiran moved closer to her—much too close. With a glass of amber liquor in his hand, he pointed subtly to a stout man wearing Bruma’s face, whispering in her ear, “That there is Raine Avis, the most sought-after Seer among politicians from all over the world.”
The man laughed loudly with a statuesque woman who wore a Quies mask. “And that’s Vivianne Delaune,” Keiran said, his breath making the fine hairs on her neck lift, “a prolific Memorist who’s developed ways to sense memories in objects. She works with the highest-ranking Regulators and crime units in Trevel.”
With a hand on her elbow, he turned her gently to the other side of the room, where an older woman sat on a divan, her cloud of silver hair perfectly framing her Anima mask.
“Leonie Thornby,” Keiran murmured. “A Wordsmith artist of the highest caliber.”
“Thornby?”
Emory twisted to look at him, all too aware of how close they stood.
A corner of his mouth lifted. “A great-aunt of mine. I’m afraid I’m what you might call a legacy within the Order.” He directed her attention back to Leonie. “I’ve always been in awe of her. Her work is divine; she’s composed songs that have brought upon storms and made rivers run to her rhythms like the universe is her own orchestra. In fact, the instruments you hear playing tonight are her doing. She’s the one who came up with the idea to have these play in Crescens library.”
Emory looked at the woman with fresh awe. Magic like that was the kind she’d only ever dreamed to aspire to. It reminded her of Romie, who’d always been in a league of her own, even at Threnody Prep. The Dreamers there had a long-standing tradition of making a sport out of who could go furthest in the sleepscape—which, according to Romie, appeared endless and became harder to navigate the further that Dreamers traveled. Romie had made it further than Dreamers older and more experienced than her when she was only thirteen. By sixteen, she had found she could take things out of dreams—shimmering illusions that disintegrated to dust soon after she woke, but an achievement nonetheless, for few Dreamers could do such a thing.
Romie would have fit right in here, Emory thought. It was no wonder she’d been selected as an initiate. Her gaze traveled to where Virgil, Nisha, and Lizaveta stood at a table, joined by a girl wearing a Bruma mask who had to be Ife Nuru. She wore a long-sleeved dress of shimmering black material, her braids arranged in a crown atop her head.
“Are all of you legacies?” Emory asked.
Keiran followed her line of sight. “Lizaveta and Virgil are. Javier, too—you haven’t met him yet, he’s probably hiding here somewhere with Louis. They can’t seem to get their hands off each other.”
She didn’t miss the way his own hand brushed hers as he lifted his glass to his lips, his eyes intent on her as he drank. She fought her blush and asked, “Louis—Clairmont?”
Keiran nodded. “He, Ife, and Nisha were selected based off merit alone. Ife’s a brilliant Seer, Nisha is more skilled than any Sower I’ve ever met, and Louis is a much better Healer than what his drunken skills at the bonfires might suggest, I assure you.”
Emory threw him a sidelong glance. “And Farran? What was he?”
“Farran was everything,” he said quietly. “Both a legacy and a total force to be reckoned with. His Reaper skills were unrivaled. Much like Romie with her Dreaming.”
“Was she a legacy too?”
“No. I don’t know how she found out about the Order in the first place.” A private smile touched his lips. “She wasn’t even on my radar until she barged into my dreams one night and practically held me hostage there until I agreed to give her a shot at initiation.”
Emory laughed. It sounded so very much like Romie—when she wanted something, she went after it, even if it meant harassing people in their dreams to get it.
Keiran’s hazel eyes fell on her laughing mouth, looking for all the world like he might want to bottle the sound. She didn’t miss the way he tracked a shaft of her unbound hair as it fell forward on her bare shoulder, shimmering golden in the candlelight. His hand twitched as if he yearned to run his fingers through it.
She swallowed. Hard.
“I’m glad you decided to come, Ains,” Keiran said.
Emory was grateful for the mask hiding her blush. She was here for a reason; she wouldn’t let herself be seduced by him and his charm and his silly nicknames.
“You didn’t seem so glad earlier.”
“You just caught me by surprise. I hadn’t told the others about you yet.”
“Clearly.”
She caught Lizaveta glaring at them from across the room. She quickly turned back to the group she was speaking with, red painted mouth widening into a sultry laugh at something one of them said. She looked like a queen holding court, like Anima herself with her ever-waxing magnetism and youth.
“Some of you aren’t too keen to have me here,” Emory said sullenly.
“Liza’s very particular about who she lets in.”
“Cult members only, huh?” Around them, the music swelled in a familiar melody, something Romie used to hum constantly in their dorm. She frowned, thinking of Baz. “Does the Selenic Order have anything to do with Song of the Drowned Gods, by any chance?”