She handed the wineskin to me again.
I took another swallow, and my urge to run faded as the liquid heat from the wine coursed through my limbs. There was a faint buzzing in my skull like a swarm of lazy bees. Nyx was right. Escape, after all, would be awfully hard work. And I could certainly use a little less work and a little more fun in my life.
A little more sisterhood and a little less sister.
? ? ?
It’s said that if you look hard enough, you could find any kind of indulgence in Rome. And that, in most cases, you didn’t even have to look very hard. There was no admittance to the Domus Corvinus that night unless you were wearing a mask. Those who hadn’t brought their own—and who, exactly, had brought their own? Elka wondered aloud—were obliged to choose one from a basket held by one of the pretty girls standing at the gated entrance of the estate grounds.
“I don’t understand why everyone has to wear one of these,” I said.
One of the girls holding a basket leaned in close to my ear.
“Because stuffy old men wrapped in purple-striped togas in the senate don’t approve of such gatherings,” she whispered. “They outlawed the Bacchanales decades ago, and Domus Corvinus parties are the closest thing you’ll find to those!” Then she kissed my cheek, her perfume making my head spin. “Isn’t that deliciously wicked?”
Some masks were made of linen strips wrapped over wire frames and stiffened with paste, and others were made of leather, molded into grotesque or fanciful shapes. They were all painted and decorated with jewels and beads or peacock feathers. Some were gilded or finished with silver, and some were even attached to elaborate wigs dyed in bright hues.
Nyx chose one adorned with a fan of peacock plumes. Lydia protested that she’d been about to choose that one, but she had to settle for one designed to look like a mosaic. I wasn’t about to tell her that it made her look rather reptilian. Elka slipped on a mask festooned with downy feathers that made her look like an owl.
I’d only ever seen masks like that worn by the actors who performed between matches at the games. Something about normal folk donning them to disguise themselves in a crowd made me uneasy. The anonymity the masks granted the revelers felt almost dangerous.
“Oh, stop dawdling!” Nyx complained. “Just pick one. We’re going to miss all the fun!”
I shook off the moment of apprehension and plunged my hand into the basket, snatching up the first mask my fingertips brushed—a pretty thing with layers of delicate green and gold leaves fanning outward like a sunburst. I settled it on my face, and the girl tied the ribbons behind my head.
“That suits you, little fox!” Elka said, her mouth turned up in a crooked grin beneath the cloud of feathers she wore. “You look like one of the alfr—a woodland sprite come from the sacred groves to dance!” Then she giggled.
I’d never heard Elka giggle before.
I turned to Nyx. “What was in that wine?” I demanded.
“Just a bit of mandragora,” she said, shrugging.
The minute she said it, I felt my own head start to spin like the wheels on an upended chariot. Mandrake? That was something the druiddyn used back home—a powerful intoxicant to help them fall into divining trances. And how casually Nyx had just brushed it aside. At the look on my face, she sighed impatiently.
“Everyone takes it at a party like this,” she said, a sharp edge creeping into her voice. “Or poppy wine. Sometimes both. Don’t be so provincial!”
The insult stung, but I wasn’t about to let Nyx know it. And so, like an idiot, I snatched the wineskin from her and poured a stream of the liquid down my throat. When I handed the skin back, I tried to ignore the fact that my lips were tingling.
We climbed the path, and by the time we got to the house, Elka and I were both giggling. Arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders, we tripped through the wide front doors of the palatial house and into a vast vaulted entry hall. And I suddenly understood why it was called Domus Corvinus.
Raven House.
It hadn’t even occurred to me when Nyx had first said the name. But then I saw the enormous black-marble statue of a bird perched, wings spread wide, atop a pedestal in the middle of the atrium. I stared at it in astonishment. The sculpture was so lifelike that I half expected to hear the rustling of its wings. For a moment, my mind reeled back to the crow that had been nailed to my door, and I felt a rush of dread. I shook my head, hard.