Music still played when Lily burst in the dancing floor, but it reached her through layers of distortion, as if she heard it through murky water. The dancers weren’t graceful but desperate in their twirling, moving with an urgency that stank of fear over the merry-making. She didn’t feel the need to join them as she shoved her way through.

Someone jostled her. She thought someone grabbed for her. There was color and faeries and swirling cloth, and she couldn’t be sure of the direction she was running anymore. She gathered her skirts and ran anyway.

She’d reach a wall. She’d see the tables or the musicians. She’d escape the dance floor and find—

There it was. An opening in the white walls, a passageway into the palace proper. She rushed to it.

She hit the corridor and bowled over a creature that came through at that instant. White beard, three feet high, looking like a garden gnome with a blue cap. Lily screamed, pushed him away and ran faster. Her path took a twist and became much darker without the light spilling in from the ball, but there were faint glowing globes interspersed, almost like magical torches, and it was enough to see by.

It was enough to see that this hadn’t been the route she had followed to arrive at the ball.

Footsteps echoed behind her and she didn’t stop.

She recalled the room had been isolated, so she took a small corridor as soon as she saw it. She could go back there, barricade herself in. It’d let her flee the insistent cries behind her.

Her name reverberated along the smooth stone.

She tried to go faster. She tried to lose him. He was the monster hidden under the bed.

She took more turns. She couldn’t tell when, or which ones; they just felt right, and she kept running down endless, empty corridors. Fleeing kept her from breaking down and sobbing, and that was good.

Wasn’t it?

She heard a curse behind her. There was no longer a hint of music, only her breathing, her feet slapping the floor, and the footsteps behind her. One set? Two sets?

Her corridor ended in a door ahead of her, a plain thing of flimsy wood. She launched herself at it. It gave.

“Lily! Wait!” Troy’s voice. Getting closer.

“Come back, My Lady!” Cadowain was with him. So there were some things they would still team up for, it seemed.

She staggered forward, struggling to regain her lost momentum.

“Lily Boyd, stop!” The command hit her like a whiplash and sunk hooks full of bitter poison into her soul. Her back arched taut, all her muscles tensing for one endless moment that didn’t allow her to breathe, and she collapsed in relaxation’s wake.

She tried to crawl forward, but she couldn’t move. Her treacherous body had stopped like a wound-down clockwork doll.

Then, she felt Troy’s hands on her shoulders, sliding down to her upper arms, twisting her around to make her look at him. She gave him the most defiant glare she could muster and couldn’t protest when he pulled her up with him.

“You fool,” he whispered, low enough for her to hear. His mouth was pressed in a hard, angry line and his eyes twinkled in the dark. Droplets of cold water fell in Lily’s face and a tiny rivulet ran down her bodice.

There was a swooshing sound. Cadowain had closed the door again.

“You know her name,” he said in the silence that followed. Lily caught a note of wonder in his tone.

Troy’s fingers tightened their grip on her, but he didn’t reply. Lily tried to work her lips so she could speak.

“Now you do, too.” Her words came out rasping and mangled, but they brought a laugh out of Cadowain.

“But I don’t own it. It wasn’t freely given to me, you see.”

“Going to stop you from using it?” She still couldn’t move, but talking was a bit easier. Breathing was a bit easier, too.

“In fact, yes. I couldn’t use it, you see? That would be stealing. And that would be wrong.”

The idea of morals struck Lily as very funny indeed, and she laughed quietly while Troy picked her up and carried her back to the room they had been given. Cadowain followed them for all his initial reluctance to approach them in their quarters.

“Shouldn’t you allow her to move now?” he asked Troy somewhere along the way.

“She can.” She heard his voice and felt it through his chest. She tried flexing her fingers and found she could. She didn’t want to. It was easier not to fall to pieces when she was in that brutal vacuum brought on by his commands.

“But the order you gave—”

“Worn off already,” Troy interrupted. “She only needs rest now.”

“Oh. Well, forgive me for being surprised at her meekness in your arms after she made us run across the whole court chasing her while she fled you.”

“You are not forgiven.”

Cadowain chuckled, a dry and mirthless sound. “Forgiveness was never in your nature.”

They walked a bit more in silence. Lily began to relax with the gentle rocking of Troy’s steps. Then, he said, “What game did you play with her?”

“Me? It wasn’t me she was scared of, let me remind you.”

“She did not heed your calls, either. Forgive me for knowing how much you enjoy your games and how often they leave broken mortals in their wake.”

“Not forgiven. Absolutely not forgiven.” Cadowain spoke in a heated voice at odds with his previous easy manner. “I would never jeopardize Mackenna’s blood.”

“So you say.”

“Do you claim me a liar? I have many talents, Kelpie, but I am still fay.”

“And you are still a courtier.” Troy cradled Lily closer to his chest for a moment, used his freed hand to open a door.

Their room. The fire cackled in the fireplace. Someone had been by, had cleaned the bathtub. Her mortal clothes were folded over the vanity, clean. The bed’s covers had been thrown back.

Troy deposited her in the bed. He didn’t take off her dress, and he didn’t have to take off her slippers. She must have lost them during her mad dash away from the dance. He did tuck her in, and Lily watched with detachment.

“Try to rest, Lily,” he said. “I shall try to procure you some food for when you wake. Surely rest and a full stomach will let you appreciate the situation as it is.”

“Are you leaving her alone?” Cadowain asked, doubtful.

Troy gave her a long look and sighed. “Yes. She needs space.”

“I am not sure—”

“Come, Cadowain.” Troy moved toward the door, not looking back. “I recall you did not want to be seen visiting us in the guard’s chambers.”

“Well, yes. But that was before I worried.”

“Let her cope.”

Cadowain lingered a bit longer at her bedside, his beautiful, fair eyes darkened with concern. Lily managed to conjure a small smile that more resembled a grimace, and a nod, and then he left as well.