POV Jane Doe.

So here I am, arm-in-arm with Lady Witherspoone, the Duchess of Dysentery herself, nodding along as she prattles on about the joys of starvation. "Oh yes, there's nothing quite like the feeling of your stomach eating itself," I simper, laying it on thick. "Truly, the most exquisite agony!"

Inside, I'm rolling my eyes so hard they practically do a 360 in my skull. This desiccated old bat is nuttier than squirrel turds, but hey, you gotta play the game, right? And if that means tongue-bathing the asscheeks of Avernus's elite, well, sign me up for the brown-nosing Olympics.

Just as I'm contemplating gnawing off my own arm for an excuse to escape, Lady Witherspoone lets out a little titter of excitement. "Oh, Baron Bilehelm!" she trills, waving over a portly gentleman who looks like he's been pickled in his own gastric juices. "Do come and meet my delightful new companion!"

The Baron oozes over, his jaundiced eyes raking over me like a slug on a lettuce leaf. "Enchanted," he wheezes, brushing his wormy lips against my knuckles. I suppress a shudder, pasting on my most vacuous grin.

"The pleasure's all mine, Your Putridness," I coo. "I was just telling Lady Witherspoone how fascinated I am by the legendary ailments of Fevermire. The creativity, the artistry! You Plague-Popes truly are the Picassos of Pestilence."

Baron Bilehelm preens like a maggot-ridden peacock, his chest puffing with pride. "Ah, an aficionado of the finer afflictions! How delightful! Why, just last century, I myself developed a most exquisite strain of necrotizing fasciitis. The screams, dear girl, were positively operatic!"

I make appropriately admiring noises, even as my gorge rises. These Fevermire freaks get their jollies in the sickest of ways. But before I can inquire further about the Baron's pet projects, a lean, rat-faced man in moldering robes slithers up and whispers something in Lady Witherspoone's ear.

Her eyes gleam with a greedy, eager light and she titters behind one skeletal hand. "Oh my, such scintillating news! I really must attend to this at once." She turns to me, her death's-head grin stretching wide. "My dear, I've so enjoyed our little tête-à-tête. You simply must come to my manse for dinner sometime. I'll have the chef prepare a special menu, just for you!"

I blink, momentarily thrown. Dinner? In Wansurn, the literal kingdom of starvation? Is this some kind of sick joke? But I quickly recover, dipping into a curtsy so low I'm practically kissin' carpet.

"You honor me, my lady," I gush. "I can think of no greater pleasure than to dine at your exquisite table."

Lady Witherspoone preens, her yellowed teeth flashing in a death's-head grin. "Oh, you are a treasure! I'll have my people contact your people to make the arrangements. Until then, my sweet!"

And with that, she swans off in a swirl of tattered skirts, leaving me alone with Baron Bilehelm. I turn to him, my smile still fixed firmly in place. "Now, where were we, Your Putridness? Ah yes, the delicate art of designing deformity!"

The Baron chuckles wetly, a sound like boots squelching through mud. "Ah, the young and their enthusiasm! It warms the very cockles of my necrotic heart. But come, let me introduce you to some old friends of mine. I think you'll find them most simpatico!"

He leads me through the crowd, his grip on my arm cold and clammy through the sleeve of my gown. We approach a striking couple clad head to toe in blood-red leather, their exposed skin cross-crossed with scars. Carnagen, if I have to guess - these two radiate violence like a bad smell.

"Baroness Goreshriek, Lord Mutilador!" Bilehelm booms. "Allow me to present the charming Miss Jane Doe. She's new to our little circle, but already showing such promise!"

The Baroness rakes me with a gaze like a rusted razor, her lips curling in a feline smile. "Fresh meat," she purrs. "How delightful. And with such a pretty face, too. Tell me, little dove, have you ever held a beating heart in your hands? Felt it stutter and fail as you squeezed?"

I widen my eyes, all innocent shock. "Why, no, my lady," I breathe. "But it sounds positively...thrilling."

Lord Mutilador throws his head back and laughs, the sound like bones snapping. "Oh, I like this one, Bilehelm! She's got a appetite for destruction, I can tell. Stick with us, little one, and we'll show you sights that will make your blood sing!"

I shiver delicately, hoping it will pass for a frisson of anticipation rather than the cold chill of dread. These Carnagen crazies are a whole 'nother level of brutal, but I can't afford to alienate them. Not if I want to claw my way to the top of the corpse pile.

A waiter drifts by, his tray laden with glowing amber drinks that smell like honey and radiate a soft golden light. I snag one, swirling it contemplatively as I listen to the Baroness wax poetic about her favorite torture techniques.

Across the room, I catch Raphael glaring daggers at me, his perfect face twisted in an expression of impotent fury. I blow him a cheeky kiss before turning back to my new friends, all coy smiles and breathless enthusiasm. Let him choke on it, the sanctimonious prick.

As the conversation progresses, I find myself becoming more and more uneasy. The casual way the Carnagen couple speaks of atrocity, the unholy light in their eyes as they describe acts of unimaginable cruelty...it's chilling, even to a jaded bitch like me. But still, I nod and smile, making all the right noises of fascination and awe.

The Baron, however, seems utterly enthralled. He hangs on their every word, his tongue darting out to lick at lips gone dry with eagerness. "Oh, you delightful degenerates," he groans. "It's been an age since I've been so viscerally stimulated! But alas, all this talk has left me quite parched. You there, girl - are you going to quaff that drink, or just admire its aesthetic qualities all evening?"

I start, glancing down at the glass in my hand. In truth, the thought of actually imbibing anything in this place makes my stomach churn. But the Baron is eyeing it with undisguised avarice, practically drooling at the prospect of a refreshing tipple.

Inspiration strikes like a bolt from the blue. I smile my most winsome smile and hold out the glass to him. "Oh, how thoughtless of me, Your Putridness! Please, take it with my compliments. I insist!"

The Baron snatches it from my hand with indecent eagerness, his rheumy eyes alight. "Don't mind if I do, m'dear! Mighty kind of you, mighty kind indeed." He raises the glass in a mocking toast before tipping it back and draining it in three great, greedy gulps.

I watch him, a curious feeling of detachment stealing over me. It's as if I'm observing the scene from outside my own body, a passenger in my own skin. The Baron smacks his lips, sighing with satisfaction...and then his eyes fly wide, his face contorting in a rictus of shock and agony.

The glass slips from his slack fingers, shattering on the marble floor. A great, wracking shudder goes through him and then, as if in slow motion, he crumples to the ground, blood frothing from his lips and his eyes bulging from their sockets.

For a moment, a perfect, crystalline moment, the ballroom is silent as the grave. And then, like a dam breaking, all hell breaks loose.

There's screaming, wailing, a great seething press of bodies as donors and dignitaries alike surge forward to gawk and gabble. I stand frozen, my mind a perfect blank, as the Baron twitches and convulses at my feet, pink foam oozing from his gaping mouth.

Charges scream and push, desperate to get away from the grisly spectacle. I stand rooted to the spot, my mind reeling, trying to make sense of the impossible scene before me.

Poison.

The word ripples through the crowd like a dark omen, carrying with it a weight of dread and accusation. But how can it be? The Baron is an immortal, a god in his own right.

What could possibly merk such a being?

"Who could have done such a thing?" a woman cries, her voice shrill with horror.

"The girl," comes the reply, heavy with meaning. "The strange charge. She was the last to speak with him, the last to touch his glass..."

All eyes turn to me, their gazes sharp and condemning. I feel the weight of their suspicion like a physical thing, pressing down on me until I can scarcely breathe.

"No," I whisper, shaking my head in desperate denial. "No, I didn't...I wouldn't..."

But even as the words leave my lips, I know they won't believe me. Why should they? I'm a nobody, an outsider, a convenient scapegoat for their fear and rage.

A strong hand clamps down on my shoulder, spinning me around. Raphael, his face a thundercloud of fury and something that looks terrifyingly like fear.

"We need to go," he hisses, his voice low and urgent. "Now, Jane."

But I can't move, can't tear my eyes away from the macabre spectacle of the Baron's final, shuddering breaths. This can't be happening. It defies all logic, all understanding of the natural order. How can an immortal die? And more importantly, why am I being blamed for it?

Raphael's grip tightens on my arm, his fingers digging into my flesh with bruising force. "Jane, we have to move. Now, before they..."

But before Raphael can finish his warning, a sudden, deafening silence falls over the ballroom. It's as if someone has sucked all the sound out of the room, leaving only a vacuum of eerie, breathless anticipation.

The crowd parts like the Red Sea, a ripple of movement that starts at the edges and spreads inward, until a clear path is formed. And there, striding down that path with the grace of a predator, is a figure that makes my blood run cold.

He's tall and lean, clad in a suit of deepest midnight that seems to drink in the light. His movements are fluid and powerful, each step a study in coiled menace. And his face...his face is hidden behind a mask of gleaming gold, a cruel, beautiful thing that glints like a knife in the dim, flickering light.

The crowd shrinks back from him as he passes, their faces pale with a mixture of awe and abject terror. Whoever this man is, he commands respect...and fear. The kind of fear that comes from knowing you're in the presence of something ancient and powerful and utterly, utterly ruthless.

He comes to a stop before us, his head cocked to one side like a bird of prey considering a particularly juicy morsel. I can feel the weight of his gaze on me, heavy and searing even through the impassive golden mask.

Raphael's grip on my arm tightens, his body going tense as a coiled spring. He opens his mouth, a warning or a challenge on his lips...

But before he can utter a word, the world tilts wildly around us, darkness rushing in from all sides like a devouring tide. It swallows the ballroom, the crowd, the very air itself, until there's nothing left but an endless expanse of shadow, thick and heavy as velvet.

I blink, my heart pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs. Where am I? What has happened to Raphael, to the Baron, to the accusing crowd?

And then I see him. The masked man, standing before me like a figure cut from the fabric of night itself. He's close, so close I can feel the chill emanating from his body, the whisper of his breath against my skin.

"Hello, Jane," he says, his voice a dark, velvet purr that seems to resonate in my very bones. "I've been waiting for you."

I stumble back, my heart hammering in my chest like a frightened rabbit. Every instinct screams at me to run, to put as much distance between myself and this terrifying, mesmerizing stranger as possible.

"Raphael!" I cry, my voice high and thin with panic. "Raphael, where are you?"

But there's no answer, no sign of my gatekeeper or the glittering ballroom. There's only the darkness, the shadows that press in on me from all sides, and the implacable figure of the masked man.