The dress my sister had made for me was nearly innocent in its simplicity. Yards and yards of fine white muslin had made a floating, ethereal gown, while K?the had somehow fashioned a brocade cape into the shape of folded angel wings, which grew from my shoulder blades and cascaded to the floor. She had braided gold into a crown about my head for a halo, and I carried a lyre to complete the picture. The four of us stared at each other through our dominos, our faces made strange and unfamiliar by our masks.
Tonight would be our formal introduction to Viennese high society. The invitations we all carried marked us as Count Procházka’s peers, and to say we were all a little nervous was to understate our anxiety. K?the and I had had no real exposure to the well-heeled members of town; we were innkeeper’s daughters. Our only exposure to money was whatever coin we had managed to keep in our coffers. Fran?ois had grown up among the wealthy, but he, too, had never been one of them. The color of his skin forever marked him as an outsider to the noble class, even if he had learned their manners and ways.
I looked to Josef, but he was ignoring us. He betrayed little, his expression schooled to careful indifference. It was a greater mask than the one perched upon his face, and I hated how he never took it off, not anymore.
K?the gasped. “Look!” she said breathlessly, pointing out the window. “Procházka House!”
We all leaned outside for a better look as we pulled up the drive. Past the ivy-wound wrought-iron gates was an old manor built of gray stone, dark wood, and diamond-paned glass. It had the look of an abbey, or a castle, tall pointed arches forming the peaks and gables of its roofs. A fountain played in the courtyard, where a fishtailed woman sat and played with water flowing from the rocks. It did not resemble any of the great houses or palaces we had passed on our way here; it looked far older, built in a different century, a different world.
A footman opened the carriage door for us as we pulled in front of the entryway. He was rather small for a footman, and there was something of a shriveled and disheveled look about him. His wig was mussed and askew, bits of white hair flying away into a puff of cloud about his head. He was old, much older than any of the other footmen I had seen around town.
“Thank you,” I said as he helped me down.
The footman returned my smile, and I tried not to recoil. His teeth were yellowed and sharp, and in the flickering torchlight, his sallow skin seemed tinged with green. “Welcome to Procházka House, Fr?ulein,” he said. “Home of madmen and dreamers. I hope you enjoy your stay with us.” He pulled a flower from seemingly nowhere and presented it to me with a flourish. “I think you will.”
I took the flower from his crabbed fingers. It was a common poppy. “Thank you,” I said shakily.
“Wear it,” he said. “For faith.”
Faith? It seemed an odd reason, but I tucked the bloom behind my ear to humor him. I noticed then that a few of the guests arriving for the ball were wearing scarlet flowers pinned to their lapels and gowns, bright spots of crimson blooming like splashes of blood against their black-and-white costumes. The footman bowed and I hurried to follow the rest of my family to the house, eager to extricate myself from the situation.
Madmen and dreamers. I stood in line with K?the, Josef, Fran?ois, and the other guests waiting to be received by the hosts. Behind our masks, we were all anonymous, but the press of partygoers clad in only black and white heightened the sense of surreality. It was not a parade of fantastic monsters or beautiful creatures. We were all scraps of light and darkness, and standing among them in the fading twilight made me feel as though we would all disappear at any moment.
Your patron is said to be rather eccentric, and prone to . . . strange proclivities.
Dread clenched my stomach with icy fingers. We were nearly at the door.
“Ready?” K?the asked, squeezing my hand. The blue of her eyes was intense amidst the sea of black and white. Her nervousness was edged with excitement, while mine was limned with fear. I tried to draw strength from my sister’s gaiety, her sunshine humor, relying on them to burn away my shadows of doubt.
I smiled and returned her squeeze. I handed our invitations to the footman at the door and stepped inside, crossing the threshold from twilight into darkness. Something gritty was ground underfoot, and it was only when I glanced at my shoes that I noticed the small, white, crystalline grains.
Salt.
*
I didn’t know what I was expecting. Gargoyles leering at me from cramped corners, perhaps, or derelict and decrepit furniture, the glamor of decay laid over rooms and caverns as vast as the Underground. Instead, we were greeted by an enormous marble entryway, the inside of Procházka House more like the great halls and galleries of Sch?nbrunn Palace and other fashionable Viennese residences. The interior was so at odds with its gothic exterior that I wondered if we had entered the wrong house by mistake.
A grand staircase led up to a second floor, the ballroom doors thrown open. Beneath the curve of the stairs, a tunnel disappeared into shadow. Above us, I could hear the faint strains of a minuet above the susurrus of a crowd, the muffled shuffling of footsteps treading the boards. At the top of the staircase, a stone crest was mounted, showing the expanded arms of the Procházka family. A poppy was embraced by vines at the center of a quartered shield, the top left filled with a burg atop a hill, the bottom right with a melusine on a rock, her fishtail trailing in the waters of a lake, very much like the fountain outside. Above the shield, carved into marble, was their motto: HOSTIS VENIT FLORES DISCEDUNT.
A servant came by and made to collect our things as we waited with the other guests to enter the ballroom upstairs. We relinquished our cloaks and heavier garments, but Josef shook his head, holding his violin case closer to him like a child. Or a shield. I had brought my folio of music and my brother his instrument in case we were called upon to perform for the Count.
“Don’t you want to dance?” K?the asked.
“No,” Josef said petulantly. “I do not want to dance.”
“We’re here as his guests, Josef, not his hired musicians.” She rolled her eyes. “Try and enjoy yourself, will you?”
Our brother gave an exasperated sigh and stalked off, disappearing into the crowd. Fran?ois and I exchanged glances. He closed his eyes and gave a slight shake of his head. I grimaced. It was going to be a long night and we hadn’t even entered the ballroom.
We were crowded in on all sides by partygoers. The uncomfortable proximity of so many anonymous strangers was beginning to get the better of me and I flinched and twitched at the slightest touch like a skittish thing. The last time I had attended a ball, I had been surrounded by goblins and changelings, but these black-and-white-clad guests were no less frightening. In many ways, Vienna was a place far stranger and more dangerous than the Underground. I broke out into a sweat, despite the gooseflesh pimpling my skin.