The Invitation

I tipped the vial until the blood reached its neck, then waited for my hand to stop shaking.

There was enough.

Turning the glass would not create any more, and I had already held it against the candle twice, hoping the second measurement might be kinder.

The little skin-coloured cap lay open on my dressing table. I filled its shallow pocket, pressed the edges together and fitted it over my left forefinger.

Sarah used to do this part. Even after I learnt, she stayed beside me with a cloth, ready to catch anything I spilt. I had kept the cloth after her death, although washing it had reduced her initials to a few uneven blue stitches.

I wrapped the vial in it and slipped it into the pouch on my garter.

At the door, my reflection turned with me. High lace concealed the movement at my throat; the whalebone beneath my ribs would discourage a deep breath. I practised a slight nod and watched my face settle into the expression people expected of Lady Lucy Hale.

Nobody offered to kiss a woman who appeared likely to object.

Outside, the carriage wheels sank through wet coal dust. A lamplighter was working his way along the iron railings, leaving small orange flames behind him, while two boys argued over the space beneath a butcher’s awning. One carried a bucket of animal blood. I watched him cover it before the rain could dilute its contents.

At the north bridge, our carriage stopped behind a delivery cart. The docks lay beyond the warehouses, close enough that I could see the cranes through the mist.

I had walked there last week and been refused passage before I could ask what it cost. I waited by the water afterwards, pretending to watch the boats while I tried to think of someone else to ask.

The harbour gates required a clan permit, and Uncle Owen kept ours in his study. I had money sewn into my petticoat and a borrowed atlas hidden beneath my mattress. So far, neither had proved particularly useful.

The palace stood above the city with its chapel spire lost in the shroud. Rain gathered in the mouths of stone beasts above the entrance steps, dripping onto anyone who passed beneath them. I waited under the archway while a clerk changed the needle in the brass instrument beside him.

“Your hand, my lady.”

I removed my glove finger by finger, keeping the cap turned away from the gaslight. The instrument’s shallow cradle was cold against my fingertip.

The needle descended.

I felt the pressure through the false skin, counted to three and kept my eyes on the clerk’s collar. A loose thread had caught beneath his chin.

Inside the glass housing, the blood moved through a silver coil before the indicator turned towards HALE.

“Welcome.”

I put my glove on before answering. Around me, guests climbed the staircase without looking back at the machine. Several were already discussing the supper.

They had no reason to wonder what happened to the samples afterwards.

The ballroom was crowded enough to make crossing it difficult. Black silk brushed against red velvet, and the chandeliers cast an orange glow on the women’s pearls.

Between the windows, narrow mirrors reflected the room in pieces; I checked them as I passed, locating the doors before anyone could occupy my attention.

A footman near the refreshments had spilt hot blood over his glove. He was trying to blot it against his coat without upsetting the glasses on his tray.

“Your glove needs changing,” I told him.

“My lady, I have been instructed—”

“Set those down. There is cold water in the linen room.”

He glanced towards the steward. I remained beside the tray until he went, then moved away before he could return and thank me.

“Leave that to the servants.”

I turned towards the voice and saw Uncle Owen stepping out of the crowd, wearing the same mismatched cufflinks he wore to Sarah’s funeral. He had complained about the delay to luncheon afterwards.

“Of course,” I replied.

“You have kept us waiting.”

I had arrived eleven minutes before the time on my invitation, but correcting him would prolong the conversation, so I lowered my head instead.

Across his shoulder, a man in a dark trench coat stood beside an open panel in the wall. An attendant held a lantern while he examined something inside, and when he spoke, the room went silent.

Damien Voss.

His family maintained the palace machinery. I recognised him from council receptions, where he usually stood near the people my uncle preferred to ignore. Owen watched him until the panel was closed.

“Remain where I can find you, Lucy.”

He went towards the musicians without waiting for an answer. I took a glass from a passing tray and held it between both hands, giving them something to do.

The first bell sounded at quarter to eleven, and conversations began to thin as my uncle stepped onto the musicians’ platform.

“Before tonight’s renewal of the registers, every member of the noble houses will need to submit a new blood sample.”

An attendant wheeled a second instrument through the ballroom doors. This one had a leather-lined cradle long enough to hold a forearm.

“A precaution against borrowed blood,” Owen continued. “The wrist, if you please. No exemptions.”

I looked down at the glove stretched over my false fingertip.

Borrowed blood.

The doors closed before anybody reached them. A woman near me complained about her bracelets; her husband was already unfastening one. I set my untouched glass on the nearest table.

There would be no opportunity to refill the cap and no purpose in doing so. I needed a door the guests were not supposed to use.

A maid carrying empty bottles disappeared behind a tapestry. I waited until two gentlemen stepped between my uncle and me, then followed her.

In the passage, I asked where I might have a torn hem repaired. She pointed left, but once she had gone, I turned right.

The service stairs were narrow, with a strip of brass worn bright down the middle. I gathered my skirt above my ankles and descended without letting the buckles of my shoes strike the steps. Behind me, somebody opened the tapestry door.

“Lady Hale?”

I went down another flight.

At the bottom, a gas jet burned beside a door set into older stone. There was no handle, only a round iron plate. I pulled off my glove to feel for a catch. The false fingertip came away with it and got caught in the lining.

The plate moved beneath my bare palm.

I held still. Through the stone came a succession of clicks, each one further away than the last. A faint glow appeared around the door.

“Take your hand away.”

I looked over my shoulder. Damien Voss stood at the foot of the stairs. I withdrew my hand, but the door continued to open. He watched it for a moment before coming towards me.

“You should return to the ballroom,” I said.

He caught my wrist before I could put the glove back on. His fingers were cold; his thumb found the soft place beneath my hand and stayed there.

I had spent twenty-one years preventing this small, undignified examination.

“Does your uncle know?” he asked.

I could not think of an answer that would improve my position.

“No.”

His thumb remained over my pulse while he considered it.