Chapter 4: Candle Smoke and the Spell That Backfired

Darkness in an enchanted ballroom is never simply darkness. It has weight, and a faint taste of cloves, and it presses against the skin like velvet that has opinions. The guests were murmuring somewhere to the left. The doors had sealed with a soft, final click. And the envoy had taken Elowen's hand and pulled her sideways through a curtain she had not noticed.

They stood in a narrow alcove behind the dais, pressed close, breathing the same small supply of air. "There is a concealment charm," he whispered. "My mother's. I have never used it with another person. It needs a flame and a true word and it will hide us from anyone looking with ordinary eyes." He produced a stub of white candle from his coat. "The Queen does not look with ordinary eyes."

Elowen would later admit that she should have asked what a true word meant. Instead she held the candle while he struck the spark, and when he said, very softly, "I trust you," the flame leaped up pale gold. Then she, caught in the spell's soft pull, heard herself answer, "I trust you too, and I am terrified of it." The candle flared. The smoke curled up in a ribbon, and wrapped around both their wrists.

It was not supposed to do that. She could tell by the way he went rigid. The charm hid them, certainly, for beyond the curtain a pair of guards passed without a glance. But the smoke did not dissolve. It tightened, warm as a held breath, and a faint thread of gold light ran between his pulse and hers. "It bound us," he said, appalled. "Elowen. I am so sorry. It was meant to hide us, not to..."

"Not to what?" She meant it as a challenge. It came out as something softer. Close as they were, she could feel his heartbeat through the thread, quick and uneven, and understood with a small dizzy shock that he could feel hers, too. Every flicker of nerve, every thing she had been careful not to show. He lowered his head until his mask touched her forehead, cool and smooth, and neither of them said a word.

Then the smoke pulsed once, like a lantern signaling to a ship, and from the far side of the ballroom the Queen's voice rose, clear and pleasant and carrying: "How curious. Someone in this room is using a very old charm. Guards, bring me the candle that is still burning." The gold thread between their wrists glowed brighter, and began, helplessly, to hum.

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