The Dream Thief by Shana Abe Read Free Book Online

high,
teetering boxes passed him at a trot. Horses gleamed fat and glossy beneath the
oil lanterns, snorting plumes of frost. The crests on the coaches—on the doors,
on the hubs of the wheels—were painted in gaudy reds and greens and yellows,
vivid blues. By the time he could hear the orchestra playing, Zane’s saunter
was getting him to the comte’s dinner ball more quickly than any of the fine
nobles trapped in their carriages.
    He had meant to approach the
celebration the way he did all unknowns, in a circle, from behind, where he
could watch and judge from a prudent distance before stepping into commitment.
But half the city seemed to be headed there, and from three blocks away he
could see there would be no furtive arrival into this place; it was gated and
fenced in tall, serious spikes, and there were liveried guards at every corner.
    Very well.
    At the gatehouse he handed his
square of vellum to a footman, who accepted it stoically, bowing him up the
raked drive. The massive bronze-studded doors of the palace entrance were
already open. As he climbed their steps, a wave of heated air pushed past:
paprika and perspiration and the musky confusion of too many perfumes.
    Zane entered the atrium—more
footmen, blazing candles, a mosaic of high, stained-glass windows glowing azure
and saffron above. The music grew brighter, the heat more intense.
    He’d been in many of London’s
finest homes; he’d seen ballrooms by both candlelight and the useful darkness
of the new moon. One dead summer’s night as a boy, he’d even gotten as far as
the drawing room in the town residence of the Princess of Wales—only on a dare,
and only because deep down he hadn’t really believed that he could.
    The princess had lived in a
splendor of pink alabaster and baroque furniture. She drank tea from tiny
silver-trimmed cups; her linens were powder blue embroidered with real gold;
her hallboy snored. Zane had been thirteen, barefoot, a dark intruder who had
not touched a thing. He’d never thought to see a more make-believe place than
that, and it had only been the royal antechamber.
    But this comte, it seemed, had
outsplendored the princess. Here were columns of warm ocher marble inlaid with
turquoise and panels of citrine. Oil paintings of bearded men and doe-eyed
women draped in furs and velvet and crowns of jewels reached as high as the
second floor. Enormous vases of fresh flowers—orchids, in October—guided the
guests toward another set of doors; Zane slipped behind two lords and a trio of
ladies, close as a shadow as they crossed the threshold into the ballroom. When
the butler moved to announce them, he glided off, swallowed in an ocean of
satins and lace.
    For all the grandeur of the
chandeliers, it was darker in here than it should have been. Slices of
moonlight washed visibly through the far windows, gleaming pale along the
shoulders and wigs of the revelers crowded there. The orchestra labored away in
a box set high above the crush. They had their own branches of candles to play
by, an uneasy glow that cast shades of fiddles and horns and flutes against the
dark red ceiling.
    In the center of the ballroom, a
wide X of couples were performing the quadrille, slow and stately movements
that seemed at odds with the hectic prattle of the room. Someone laughed very
loudly in his ear; Zane angled away. He worked his way to a wall so there could
be no one behind him. He set himself to searching faces again, because he knew
what the drákon looked like, and he knew what his kind looked like, even
if he did not know the features of this comte.
    Bobbing into view was a short,
plump woman in a wig teased high with feathers and swaying droplets of
diamonds. She started, staring straight at him, hard and focused—his fingers
grazed the handle of his dirk—and then, abruptly, her face cleared. She broke into
a delighted smile.
    “My dear! There you are! There
you are indeed!”
    She spoke not French but English,
heavily accented