The actors untie Mariusz from the chair and the big one gives a speech which makes everyone clap. Then they bow. Mariusz bows too, but he seems distracted. He talks to the actors quietly, and they disappear behind the stage and return with the forth member of their troop, a woman, and three lutes and drum. They begin to play music. Not the sort of music normally played at royal events, but Selician folk music. It starts people dancing. At the same time, the footmen bring out fresh trays of hot food and steaming jugs of mulled wine to the refreshment tables.

Mariusz plunges from the stage and goes directly for the food. I cross the room, weaving my way around dancers, and join him. He has a glass of mulled wine and a plate loaded high with little pastry knots.

"What are they?" I ask.

"Cabbage and mushroom," he says. "They're very good, but they scatter crumbs."

I look down at the white bodice of my dress and decide not to risk it. "I didn't know they would read the message I wrote on the pen case."

Mariusz chews carefully on a cabbage and mushroom pastry. "I think people liked hearing it."

"You didn't."

He puts another pastry in his mouth. When it is finished, he drinks his mulled wine. At last he says, "I think you did very well tonight. You spoke our language. You blushed — you look very charming when you blush. People liked you. And hearing that message, they might very well believe we are in love. So, I am pleased, Sasha."

But he doesn't look pleased. His eyes are tight, like he is trying to hold back irritation. Perhaps it is merely the spectacle and publicity that irritates him.

"Do you want to sit somewhere quietly and pretend to talk?" I ask.

He laughs, shattering the tightness of his expression. "Thank you, but no. Perhaps later. It is mostly friends here tonight. I will be friendly to them." His eyes are still shadowed by some hidden feeling. "Thank you for the present, Sasha. I will use it a lot."

We have not further opportunity to talk, because two of Mariusz's friends come up to us and start chattering, loudly. I think they are talking about the play. I drift away from them on the excuse of looking for something to eat. There is nothing that does not risk staining my gown, so I settle for a glass of mulled wine, which I take to an empty chair at the edge of the room to drink. The party tonight is less formal and stilted than typical royal events. I think most people really are here just to have fun. Barany is dancing his war dance, very badly as usual, though he still wears his shirt and coat and I don't think he is drunk — yet. He has quite an audience around him, cheering him on. Henryka is among them, laughing shyly behind her hand. Zofia is with her mother, yawning and looking like she wants bed. Duchess Maria is playing some sort of card game with her friends. Celina and Valery sit together on a sofa, drinking champagne. Valery is bitterly talking at length about something, but I don't believe Celina is listening. Her eyes are upon the handsome actor playing his lute. Perhaps that is why Valery looks so bitter. Konrad is dancing with a woman some years older than him, approaching middle age. Irena isn't here, or I might have some company. I wonder if Celina did not think to invite her or if she had some reason not to come. Perhaps Florian needed watching. She would have liked the play, I think.

I finish my drink and sit and watch the party. Every now and then, people approach me. Lord Tarnuv comes to wish me good health and good fortune in the new year. Two of Duchess Maria's friends come my way and test my Selician by complimenting my dress and inquiring after my health. Henryka comes to sit with me, though she has little conversation to offer. I suppose she thought I looked lonely. After a while, though, one of Barany's friends comes and asks her to dance and she shyly gets up and goes with him.

At midnight, Celina gets up onto the stage again and makes a short announcement, shouting over the crowd. Footmen open the doors onto the terrace and people pile through them. I join the crowd and go through to the hedge garden beyond. It is very cold and clear tonight, and I shiver in my short-sleeved gown. The sky lights up above us with a dull bang. I crane my head and watch as orange and pink and green clusters of fireworks explode from the palace roofs. The scent of smoke fills the garden.

I look through the crowds for Mariusz, wondering if he has tired of people yet. I can't see him, but I do see Valery, standing alone by a statue and drinking from his hip flask. He catches my eye and scowls. I am reminded, quite suddenly, of my cousin Viktoria, who used to roll her eyes at me behind Uncle Edmund's back.

I go over to him, smiling. "Aren't these fireworks beautiful?"

"Pah." He drinks from his flask. "It is an amusement for children."

"Then tonight, at least, you do not refuse to speak my language. I suppose you are lonely."

He gives me a dirty look. "I saw you sat alone all night."

"As did you."

"I had a friend to talk to."

I look around. "Where is she now?"

Valery takes another deep swig of his drink. His usual smug manner is blunted tonight by bitterness and self-pity. Perhaps that is why he is bothering to talk to me.

"Did you like the play?" I ask.

"No." He almost spits out the word. "I think it was stupid. Fairies and taxes! Romantic nonsense! And the actors were not very good. I did not laugh at their jokes. I did not laugh even once. And they cannot play well. Their music is very... very simple, very low. It is music for peasants. I do not know why anyone likes it."

It is not anyone he means, I think, but Celina.

He looks suspiciously at me. "Did you like it?"

"The play went on too long, I think. It was quite tedious by the end. And I thought the actors sense of humour was a little crude."

He nods. "Yes, yes I agree." He looks at me thoughtfully. "Do you want a drink?"

"What is it?"

"Absinthe, but I made it sweet."

"Thank you. If you have a cup."

He does. It slides off the bottom of the flask like a sock. He pours a generous measure and hands it to me. We drink in silence while the fireworks break above us. Outside in the winter chill, the burn of the spirit is more a gentle warming than a thorny blast, or perhaps the sugar Valery added softened its edge. When it is sweet, it tastes quite pleasant. The fireworks finish, and through the falling ash and scent of smoke, people start to head back indoors.

"Are you not going back in?" I ask Valery.

"No. It is boring in there. Will you go in? Will you sit at the wall and watch Mariusz?"

I can see that I have exhausted Valery's shallow stock of sympathy. I drain the last of my cup and give it back to him. "I will sit at the wall and watch the actors," I say sweetly. "They may have been crude, but they were all very handsome. I think it is not their music anyone likes."

Valery chokes on his drink. I leave him, feeling as though I have scored a point against him. Yet, like all the times I scored a point against Viktoria, my satisfaction is just a little uneasy. I am not sure that this is a game I should be playing.

Inside the ballroom, only the female member of the troupe is playing music now. The big actor and the boy are doing flips and cartwheels in the middle of the room, surrounded by an audience. I think the boy is showing off a bit. He lets the big actor throw him high into the air and then twists and tumbles back down to land light as a feather on his feet. The handsome actor has disappeared.

Mariusz is watching them too, looking very interested. He tries to mimic their cartwheels, only to end up flat on his face on the floor. Barany laughs, but until Mariusz starts laughing too, no one else dares. Mariusz gets to his feet and talks to the actors. They demonstrate the technique for him and give him instructions. His second attempt is better and he manages to land on his feet, even if it is more of a hand-hop than a cartwheel. Barany tries too, and fails earnestly and spectacularly.

I do not want it to look like I am watching Mariusz. I search for Zofia and Henryka, but they have disappeared too, probably to bed. Duchess Maria is still talking with her friends. I don't want to interrupt them.

I don't think I will be missed if I leave. Mariusz is too entertained by acrobatics to need rescuing.

People are still dancing, so I make my way around the edge of the ballroom for the door. The footman opens it for me and I pass quickly through the room beyond and into the marble and gilt entrance hall, which is the quickest way up to our rooms.

Prince Konrad sits quietly on the marble stairs, reading a book by the light of a candle.

I stop still as he looks up.

"Princess Alexandra?" He sounds surprised to see me. "I have retreated to my usual safe company, you see."

"Yes, I see. I was just going to bed."

He gets to his feet. "Let me walk you to your room."

"No. There is no need."

"But there is. It is dark upstairs. I will light the way for you."

As he speaks, the absinthe, as Mariusz warned, comes at me from behind. The spiral staircase on which Konrad stands spins. It seems to spin around him. A vivid instinct tells me not to go with him. I feel like Red Riding Hood, staring into the wolf's bright eyes.

"I have forgotten something. I have to speak to Duchess Maria." I turn, stumbling rather, and go back into the anteroom. I can take the back stairs to the first floor.

But Konrad is following me. I have no choice but to go back into the ballroom. Mariusz is now doing fluent cartwheels. He seems to have at least four legs. I squint through the multiplied crowd of guests. Their faces are blurred. I try to remember what the dowager duchess was wearing.

Konrad touches my arm. "Your highness? Are you well?"

Blue. She was wearing a blue like a kingfisher's wings. I spot the blue of her gown across the room. She is beyond a maze of dancing quartets. What did the maze say earlier tonight? Don't look back?

I keep my gaze forward as I cut through the dancers. It is easier than looking at them. Their movements make my stomach do unpleasant acrobatics. I step on someone's toe, and an elbow lands at my waist. I mutter blind apologies. At last I reach Duchess Maria. Her blurred face watches me. I suddenly think of my own mother. And where is Konrad?

"Mariusz is getting rather good at..." I do not know the word in French. "The acrobatics?"

"Yes. He has always been athletic." Her voice clinks with disapproval. "Do take a seat, Alexandra."

I cannot sit down. I know if I try I will end up on the floor, as spectacular and earnest a failure as Barany. I turn around. I cannot tell where Konrad is in the blurred, moving crowd.

"I think I need some air," I say. "Excuse me."

But I cannot tell which of the curtained rectangles on the wall are windows and which are the doors to the terrace. I walk helplessly the length of the wall and end up in the corner of the room. I stand here, trying to quell the sudden rising of my stomach. A man's soft voice rises over the hum of music and chatter and dancing feet and laughter. I think it is Konrad's, but I cannot see well enough through my haze to see where he is.

A man materialises out of the wall next to me. I stare at him. He is much too tall to be Konrad, and his blurred face is too broad.

"Excuse me, your highness."

He clicks his heels and walks past me. A footman. And he did not materialise out of the wall. He has left the servants' door, disguised as part of the panelling, slightly ajar.

I slide through it into a welcome darkness. Here, I cannot see at all. I feel for the wall. If I follow it, I must soon come to a kitchen where I can beg a maid for a basin.

I come instead to stairs and fall up them. Their cold damp wood is comforting and solid beneath my hands. I kneel and breathe.

Footsteps sound from behind me in the blackness. I know it is Konrad. He will be bringing his candle to light my way.

I crawl up the stairs. The footsteps keep pace behind me. I get to my feet and run. The stairs turn endlessly around and up. I can find no exit from them, nothing but more stairs. I start to believe that my tower room lies at the end of them. It was all a dream. I never left.

The stairs stop.

My legs are shaking and my sweet absinthe breath comes in rags. I feel through the dark and find the cold steel of a doorknob. I turn it and push and stumble out onto the palace roof.

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2025-01-19: Bit of an announcement... I'm going to be changing the rating of this story from not mature to mature before I post the next chapter. It starts to explore some darker themes and Wattpad is quite strict with its mature content rating. It feels weird to me, because this book is heavily inspired by some YA books I read and loved as kid, so I don't think it's mature, just... dark. But Wattpad is a different beast, so there you go. If you're a regular reader and you have mature content set to non-visible, this might make the story look like it's disappeared, I suppose? Not really sure. But, anyway, there will be a rating change soon.