Chapter Sixteen: A Masquerade of Mystery

I didn't let Meliswe glue jewels to her mask, but our masks did sport an array of semiprecious gems when the coach deposited us at the grounds of the masquerade. I'd used more woodsong to grow the wood around the gems and we could pry those same gems back out again when we planted the masks in the garden after the masquerade. That was the deal with woodsong - you treated the plants that you grew with respect and, in return, plants would heed your song in the future and your power would grow. I'm fairly confident that we were the only people on the Ancient Green that night who had living masks. And some people would not leave the ancient green that night with living anything.

There were about four hundred people in attendance, most (but not all) of them fae, and most (but not all) of them recognizable. For that matter, I'm sure I'd done a lousy job with disguising myself. I had my mask, of course, and my hair was dyed to an opalescent shimmer of greens, pinks, yellows, and blues. But the bottom of my face was uncovered, and few people in the world can be mistaken in figure or in face for the Princess Laeanna. One of the only people who might be is Queen Alathea, and she didn't even attempt to disguise the crown upon her head, so there aren't a whole lot of other fae nobles who I could have been. And, without question, no fae who looks like me is close companion to a fae who looks like Meliswe, whose human eighth gives her dimensions of curve that no pureblooded fae possesses. So we were about as disguised as a thoroughbred in a pigpen.

The masquerade was held out on the Ancient Green to the south of Vernal City and a half-hour's ride from the palace. It was a sprawling place that had once been a temple but was now owned by the royal family. There was a gentle hill at the center with an open marble building at the top, which had been set up as a kitchen and command center for the event. The smells of spices and exotic foods billowed out and down the hill, out into the darkening evening, and made the whole area smell so appealing that my stomach wouldn't quit grumbling. Meliswe kept teasing me about it.

"I do not have a soldier's stomach," I replied. "I used to be able to eat five times what I can now." Then Meliswe's stomach growled - much louder than mine had. "See, that's what a real appetite sounds like."

"I've got a human stomach to handle my human proportions," Meliswe allowed. "It looks like things are starting over there."

Surrounding the 'acropolis' were courtyards with little gardens, burbling fountains, and age-worn statues that were otherwise in excellent repair. The central courtyard was set up with banquet tables and an area for dancing. It was surrounded by eight great statues, including statues of the five kings and queens of the Vernal realm. Vernal had been around for thousands of years, but fae are so long-lived that they'd only had two kings and two queens before Queen Alathea. My mother had become queen three centuries ago at a 'mere' two hundred thirty years old, and this evening she was standing beneath her own statue and milling about with the other guests. To look at her, unchanged by the centuries, the statue could have been carved yesterday.

Meliswe and I weren't among the last to arrive, but there were already over a hundred guests present - mostly but not all fae nobles and aristocrats. We milled about, waiting for the prince to give his spiel before the banquet. There was plenty of good wine, lots of hors d'oeuvres of rare meats, flaky breads, and savory foreign cheeses, and more than a handful of folk who recognized me, including my mother.

"At some later time, my sweet, you and I will have to discuss what 'in disguise' means," she said, picking at the stretchy, translucent fabric of my sleeve. "Incidentally, who did you get to tailor that?"

"Favirella," I said.

"She does very good work. But not very understated work." She yawned. "I hope Velda starts the banquet soon - it's practically my bedtime."

Meliswe and I took our own go at guessing who different people were, partly as an exercise for me to remember who was who in court. And if you've ever tried to remember who three hundred seventy-three people of note are from only a whisper and a gesture from your lover as you yawn in court, it's even harder in lantern-light when everybody has masks. Still, I managed to get almost half, which I figure is pretty good. Then Meliswe spotted something or someone that made her freeze up and pull me behind a hedge.

"What in limbo was that about?" I asked.

Her mask wiggled back and forth as her nose twitched - she was trying to come up with an excuse. And, when she saw that I knew this, she sighed. "Nothing. It's fine."

I peeked back around the hedge and saw that it was not fine. One of the recent arrivals, the one hanging off of Earl Baeswhe's arm, had an almost identical dress to mine. I squinted and then gasped when I realized who it was. I turned back to Meliswe.

"Why does your sister have the same dress as me?"

She just blinked, too confused to speak, so I stormed over without any backup (though my guards had been told to keep an eye on me from a discreet distance). The young earl nudged Myrwaeli, who turned toward me and gasped just as I got within melee range. I had my fists balled up and probably looked like I was fixing for a cat fight, though it hadn't even occurred to me. I was just beyond angry for girly fashion reasons that I would've found absurd a few months ago.

"Did you steal my gown design?" Myrwaeli hissed.

I was so taken aback that my hands shot up to clutch at my chest. "What? No! Did you steal mine?"

"I designed this myself and I've got the sketches to prove it. Do you?"

"Well, not here, obviously," I said. "But yes. Meliswe and I designed it."

"Um… ladies, both of you have beautiful gowns," Earl Baeswhe said. He was broad for a fae and generically handsome.

"You butt out of this," Myrwaeli huffed. "I should have known. She did this just to spite me - I hope you see now what a snake the girl is."

"She is not!" I said, and now I really was inching closer to coming to blows with the girl. Nobody spoke about my Meliswe like that. "I had plenty of input… see the translucent fade and the stretchier material… I…" I laughed.

"What? What is it?"

"All of my personal touches make my dress a bit different from yours… not better, but different," I laughed. Though, for the record, mine was definitely more elegant and more risqué. "You and your sister have exactly the same sense of style."

"We're nothing alike!"

"It's not a bad thing!" I said. "If you weren't a lady of the fae, you could make a decent living designing gowns. It's beautiful - if I didn't think so, do you think I'd have commissioned one almost exactly like it?"

Myrwaeli wiggled her nose in a perfectly Meliswe way. "No, I guess not," she said. "Um. I really like your mask."

"Thanks! That one was all me… and so was Meliswe's so, you know, feel free to bug her about that."

Call me Laeanna the Peacemaker, I guess, because I'd somehow turned that near social calamity into the greatest overture to friendship that had ever passed between Myrwaeli and Laeanna. Officers are all basically the same, and I've got good horse sense on how to butter them up. I returned to Meliswe, who was both shocked that no punches had been thrown and relieved that nobody was in hot soup. Soon afterward, Prince Velda gave a speech to open the banquet, inviting the guests to their respective tables, each of which also featured one or two merchants from Wyrmsreach whose products might interest us.

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Meliswe and I got stuck at the table with the merchants specializing in fabrics and threads - I guess because Laeanna was into needlepoint. Honestly, I didn't have much interest in textiles, and I'd have given anything to be at the table where Vittoro was boozing it up with the Wisten armorers and weaponsmiths. That's where the really fascinating conversation was happening. Here Meliswe and I were sitting next to the Earless of the Black Fields, who couldn't stop asking about quantity discounts on dyes. I must have rolled my eyes or sighed, because Meliswe nudged me and, when I looked in her direction, she tugged at the fabric of my gown with a knowing look. Leave it to me to ignore the obvious - of course I had an interest in textiles. An ongoing one, in fact.

"Tell me, Bhyrra, was it?" I said.

"Yes, that's right, princess… er… miss," the half-dancer said… not nearly as creepy as full-blooded dancers, fortunately. All of the guests were supposed to be anonymous, even if I wasn't pulling off anonymity well.

"Mister Bhyrra, I recently had this gown commissioned, and I'm very happy with it."

"It's very lovely, miss," the merchant agreed.

"Very lovely, but not very sturdy. I made a little rip in the fabric with a fingernail yesterday and needed an emergency mending. Tell me, what would you do to improve the durability of the fabric without sacrificing its other qualities?"

He slid spectacles over his beady brown eyes and took a good look, running the fabric between long, spindly fingers. "Hmm… soft, stretchable, and reasonably see-through. That's very interesting. Well, I'll start by inflating your national pride, miss: the fae have the finest alchemists in the world, bar none, and make the finest dyes in the world, bar none… apologies to Madam Cruzhe." The dye-trader to his right didn't seem too pleased by this divulgence. "Our claim is that we can make good products in bulk, not better products. Madam Cruzhe can supply very good dye in ten times the quantity at a third the price per unit that you'd pay for your local dyes, and much, much cheaper than the world-best fae dyes…"

"That's about right," Cruzhe admitted. "We're merchants, not bespoke artisans."

"Oh…" I said. That was a bit disappointing.

Bhyrra beamed, showing off his little pearly half-dancer teeth. "That said, I've got a translucent fabric very similar to this one, and it takes to alchemy like no other fiber I've seen before. With some of my chiffonet, your world-best alchemists could make a fabric that looked and felt like this but was a lot more durable in case you actually got into a dust-up."

He was referring to my run-in with Myrwaeli, I imagine. "You saw that?" I'm glad my blush was mostly-hidden.

"I think everybody saw that," Cruzhe tittered - she was a sylvast, which made sense, since dyes were mostly plant juices and the part-plant sylvast had a natural affinity for them. "I've got my alchemist somewhere not so far off if you'd like input on what we can do on our end… hm… I don't see her. It may be she's been relegated to the servantry feast. Have you tried the aarduck? Finest in the world…"

My attention was already wandering with thoughts of miracle fabrics. Something with the strength of chain mail and the feel of… chiffonet he'd called the stuff. It was like the chiffon on Abigail's best dress back home, but softer and stretchier. And if I could make it stronger… Meliswe squeezed my hand to bring me back into the moment, and then she gestured toward Velda up at the main table. My mother was making her farewells and, as she did, I spotted the prince downing a small red phial of something, and not for the first time that evening. A medicine? Or was he poisoning all of us? It seemed unlikely - his merchants were eating and drinking the same stuff we were, and it wouldn't even permanently kill all the fae. It would just bring the wrath of the fae nations down on whoever was stupid enough to try it… I was being paranoid.

Meliswe tugged my hand. "Let's dance."

The feast part of the masquerade was winding down and guests were making their way out to the ballroom area. A six-piece band played for us, a pleasant style of music half-way between European waltzes and the sitar music of an Indian guru, the scales and harmonies beautiful but quite different from usual Western music, though the tempo was something you could dance to. Little paper lanterns were strung all along the area and into the garden beyond, swinging back and forth in the cool night breeze. I wished I'd brought my shawl with me, but I hadn't wanted to be burdened with it all evening. If Dill was nearby, she could have fetched it, but the upper servantry were all enjoying their own feast and I didn't want to disturb her enjoyment, so I'd endure the barely-cool air of a springtime evening. I spotted Myrwaeli sneaking off into the big hedge maze with Earl Baeswhe and, if I had to guess, Meliswe's sister would be married to an earl before too long.

"I'll lead," I said, and we swept out onto the dance floor.

We'd both practiced at both parts, though Meliswe had practiced a lot less at lead. It wasn't uncommon for two women to dance at these functions, but man-woman pairings were a lot more common. Nobody at the masquerade except a handful of the prince's people were dancing the appropriate dances to the music, but there were plenty of fae dances that were close enough not to be embarrassing. For the punchy number that was playing, we danced a Calypso-style dance with half-spins and clapping - my part and Meliswe's were almost the same except for our hand placement.

"May I cut in?" a gentleman said, and Meliswe acquiesced, spinning off with the man's dance partner and leaving me with him! What in Gaia's name was happening?

"Um… good evening," I said, glancing about for Meliswe as covertly as I could.

"It's a beautiful evening, miss… you're a wonderful dancer…"

I wasn't a wonderful dancer, but between Laeanna's muscle memory and a few days of focused practice, I was plenty competent at nine or ten most common dance styles. I imagine I'd also have been pretty handy at line dancing if the band started playing a hoedown jig. I tried to place the man… tall but slender, with a slightly cleft chin and pale blue eyes… it was King Fostolas, my fae father!

"Dad?" I said. No wonder Meliswe had given me the slip - he was probably about the only man in the place who could have split us.

"It's been far too long since we did this, my spring tulip. Do you remember how I used to call you that?"

"I'd forgotten," I said. Or, more accurately, I'd never known it. "But I like it. I'm glad we're not fighting anymore."

"Me, too. One more circuit and I promise I'll give you back to your friend. I'm heading back for Hibernal tomorrow and I'll need my rest. I can't just party all night and spring out of bed the next morning like I could when I was a prince. But you enjoy yourself tonight, okay?" He kissed my forehead, or at least my mask right over my forehead.

"I will, dad. And you rest your old bones. I don't want you sailing to Elysheim anytime soon."

We stopped at the front of the dance floor and looked for our respective partners. I didn't see Meliswe, but I did see something strange: a spindly man who looked a hell of a lot like a dancer stalking off into the hedge maze. I must have visibly tensed up, because Fostolas's dancing partner put her hand on my shoulder.

"She just went off to the loo, miss. I'm sure she'll be back soon."

I walked over to the nearest table, palmed a carving knife as covertly as I could, and crept into the maze after the dancer. Now I'm sure you're saying that this was incredibly foolish, and you're not wrong. But I had two brimming glasses of sparkling wine in me and a tiny bit of anger prodding me to foolish bravery. My guards were apparently taking shifts with Fostolas's men in watching their royal charges, and so nobody was paying sole attention to me, and I slipped off into the maze unnoticed. Or so it seemed.

I wanted to sneak in unnoticed by my guards. A bunch of armored guards tromping around the hedge would only scare the assassin off. So I thought: I, Princess Laeanna, will uncover the assassin and get to the bottom of the whole crooked plot.

Past the first few turns of the maze, there was no lighting beyond the shimmering nebulae of the sky, barely enough for my sharp fae eyes to see by. If I was an oncaran like Master Dhyr, I'd have been better off, and if I was a human like I'd once been, I'd have been as blind as a bat. I could see, but it was a grainy, washed-out sort of vision. I crept along, listening carefully for anybody walking along the grassy path or brushing against the hedge. I'd have needed to be seven feet tall to see over it, which I was well short of. Based on the height of the average human woman, I was about five foot five - tall for a fae woman, but not especially so. I considered buzzing up to get a look from above, but the buzz of my wingbeats would attract attention and I wasn't really sure I'd be able to see much from up there, either.

Actually… flying up sounded like a better and better idea. With a start, I realized I was lost. I unfurled my wings and was one second away from taking off into the night when I saw a figure stalk by at the end of the pathway… and it wasn't the dancer. It was Prince Velda! I tucked my wings back in and jogged forward, gripping the carving knife with one hand and holding my jewelry with the other to keep it from clattering around. I glanced to my right and spotted the prince taking a turn into another branch of the maze, so I rushed down… and found that there were two paths, not one. Which one had he gone down?

I picked a path at random and pursued it, soon finding myself walking around a spiral passage until I got to the center, at which point I found… a ten foot by ten foot square of green with a little fountain in the middle. And lying next to the fountain was an injured woman. A dying woman… she'd been stabbed right in the chest. I rushed over to her and lifted up her mask - it was Myrwaeli!

"Medic!" I shouted - I doubt anybody back at the masquerade heard me over the music, and many of them wouldn't even know what a medic was. "Medic! I… I'll get help," I said.

Myrwaeli's eyes fluttered. "Y… you," she whispered, and then her eyes rolled back and she died.