I let Paffuto bully me into attending a gathering exactly once: the midwinter masque.


    In truth, it didn’t take much bullying. Barti and Otto were also going. Everyone was going. I was curious.


    I had no mask, but the local shops sold cheap papier-maché confections with all the robustness of a damp sandwich for five lira each. Highway robbery, Otto assured me as he handed it over, but it was his treat. His and Barti’s, to encourage me to go. I returned the favor by inking all our masks with the designs of our choice. Otto wanted scrollwork. Barti wanted a skull. I ran out of time on my own and simply limned the eyes; the ink was still drying as we made our way down the path to the botanic gardens, where the masque was held every year.


    The botanic gardens were halfway between Queen’s University and Perfezionamento, the local women’s finishing school. Paffuto, resplendent in green velvet and a well-crafted leatherwork wolf mask, spent the entire trip alternating between slighting our cheap masks and speculating on how difficult it would be to evade detection by the Perfezionamento-provided chaperones for the purposes of doing exactly what my deportment tutor had exhorted me against. I was starting to understand the man’s fervor a bit better now.


    I missed Francesca.


    We had written each other numerous times over the course of the term, nearly once a week. My missives were tedious, I was sure; I had little to comment on other than classes, and telescopes, and Paffuto’s boorish antics. She, conversely, was making her way through Espania with her grandmother for the second time. She had seen three bullfights, one ship-christening, a hanging, and kissed two more girls—at the same time.


    I sighed and pushed my mask back up my nose. It kept sliding down. I would never catch up to Francesca’s numbers; I wasn’t even going to try. It sounded exhausting.


    My suitemates had quickly discovered that I was regularly writing a woman, and for some reason, my halfhearted protestations that our relationship was aromantic only served to convince them that I was besotted with her. I gave up trying to persuade them otherwise when I found it only made Paffuto’s ribaldry worse. All three of them, however, were in agreement in one regard: I needed an alternative.


    And frankly, I did not disagree.


    All four of us, then, were united in our quest tonight. And from the sound of it, the sentiments from the other half of the equation were mutual. The chaperones definitely had their work cut out for them.


    The botanic gardens were surprisingly pretty, given the number of plants that were dead for the season: twiggy, naked grapevines; roseless rosebushes; ragged thickets of brittle brown thatch. Even the larch had shed their golden needles. It was up to the spruce and pines to provide any greenery, which they did admirably, illuminated by paper lanterns and peppered by pinecones.


    But when we entered the main area of the venue, a sort of sunken outdoor dancing hall paved in flagstones and bordered by ranks of slender cyprus, I stopped noticing the plants entirely. For there, clad in silks and velvets, draped in veils and furs, were more women my own age than I had ever seen in my life, all together in one place.


    Going to university was the best idea I had ever had.


    Paffuto clapped me and Barti on the back. “Gentlemen,” he said solemnly, “I wish you a fruitful evening.” And then he was off, disappearing into the milling crowd.


    Something was thrust into my hands; a flask. “Drink,” said Barti. He had to raise his voice to be heard above the chatter and the first strains of a saltarello. I watched the men and women below pair up and accepted.


    Otto left us shortly thereafter, drawn into a giggling menagerie composed of a fur-swathed mink, a white-taffeta swan, and a pair of leopards that he evidently knew quite well, and were not at all displeased to see him. Barti and I shrugged at each other and went in search of refreshments.


    By the time Otto found us again, we were very refreshed indeed, courtesy of a staggeringly strong mystery punch. In retrospect, I suspect it had been enhanced, several times over, by the more charitable and alcoholic of the guests. At the time, all I was aware of was that the freezing midwinter garden had instead become delightfully crisp, and the lanterns had somehow become brighter even as they illuminated less, and the candelabra lining the refreshments table amongst the litter of cheese rinds and mushroom canapés were refracting shards of light that danced over the table in a way that I could not look away from. Otto had to thump me on the back to get my attention.


    “Leo!” he shouted, right in my ear. I swung around, startled, and nearly knocked Barti over where he stood, already raptly attentive to his brother. For Otto, that magnificent gentleman, had brought with him two stunning creatures, one on each arm. The one on the left was, as best as I could tell, meant to be a mouse, although the most prominent element of the outfit by far was the décolletage; the ears were vaguely mammalian, and otherwise an afterthought. She was smiling at Barti.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    And on Otto’s other arm, directly in front of me, was a hawk. Her gown was simple gray silk, set off by a crown of feathers in her hair. She was not smiling.


    My heart began to hammer against my ribs.


    “Gentlemen!” Otto bellowed, over the mirth elicited by the latest dance. “May I introduce you to—” But even though he raised his voice still further, the noise drowned his words. A frulana had just begun.


    My training took over.


    I took her hand and bowed over it. “Lady Hawk,” I said, meeting her eyes as I straightened again, “may I have the pleasure of a dance with you?”


    Even if she couldn’t hear me, the meaning was clear. She nodded. I led her to the floor.


    My head was swimming, but my steps were sure. At fourteen, I had finally managed to convince Renella that music lessons were a waste of time. I had been angling for another day of fencing lessons, but she assented only on one condition; that I substitute in dancing, instead. When I complained to Master Fiore, he shrugged and said, “It might improve your footwork.” So I took her up on the bargain, and almost immediately thereafter began to reap benefits; I was good at dancing, and girls noticed. It was how I had secured my third kiss.


    They noticed again now.


    While a lady couldn’t ask a gentleman to dance, they had numerous ways to extract an invitation from him. That night, after the first dance, I fell prey to all of them. I did not mind, except insofar as it meant I lost Lady Hawk in the onslaught from the rest of the menagerie.


    I finally managed to break away after an invigorating tarantella with a Lady Gazelle and a desperate demurral to a slightly put-out Lady Lynx. I made my way back to the refreshments table, desperate for water, only to discover it was all but gone. I drank what last few sips there were to be had before turning to the only other liquid available: the punch.


    This was a mistake.


    I was doing what I could to sop up the mistake with a few leftover canapés when I once again caught sight of Lady Hawk. She was standing to the side of the refreshment table, in the shadow of a leafless arbor. She was alone.


    I straightened and moved towards her, navigating the swaying ground as I went with what I hoped was casual aplomb. “Hello again,” I said, leaning against the arbor lattice. Twigs crackled under me. My mouth was very dry. “Does this garden have an arbor, d’you think?”


    She stared at me from behind her mask. I couldn’t tell what color her eyes were; everything looked gray in the semi-darkness. “We’re in an arbor.”


    It was the first time I had actually been able to hear her; the dance floor had been too loud. “I meant a fountain,” I replied. “Is there a fountain here?”


    “I don’t know,” she replied. “I’ve never been here before tonight.”


    “Me neither.” I extended my arm to her gallantly. “Shall we look together?”


    She took my arm and we set off, staggering slightly. I was not large, but neither was she, and I couldn’t walk straight. She did her best to support me, even as I did my best not to rely on her support. It was slow going, but nobody hindered our course. We saw no one at all, the further out we went. The chaperones ought to have all been fired.


    We did finally find a fountain, a respectably-sized marble roundel with three tiers, freestanding in the center of a circle of hedges. I went to it gratefully and splashed my face, then took several large, messy gulps from my cupped hands before giving up and drinking straight from a spigot that I realized, only after I had been at it for an indeterminate amount of time, was actually stylized as a lactating breast.


    “Pardon me, Madam,” I said solemnly to the carved stone woman. She continued to gaze at me, beatific and unblinking, one hand cupping each trickling breast. No offense taken, evidently.


    I turned around again and was surprised to see someone standing there. Right. Lady Hawk. We’d come here together.


    “Thank you,” I said, with feeling. “I needed that.”


    “You actually wanted a fountain.” I couldn’t see her face behind the hawk-mask, and couldn’t quite read her tone. Was it amused? Incredulous?


    “Of course,” I replied. “They were completely out of water back there.” I waved a hand vaguely back where I could still hear the noise of the party.


    “I thought you wanted something else.”


    I stared at her, perplexed. “What else would I want?”


    She edged forward. “To be alone.”


    “Oh,” I said. Then my eyes widened. “Oh. Yes.” Out with the deportment lessons, in with the charm. Having a female best friend for years had its advantages. I moved towards her. “As long as you don’t mind being alone with me.”


    She did not.


    I remember very little of what happened next. There were warm kisses, and cold fountain stone, and the soft brush of feathers against my fingers as I held her mask and crown. Then Otto was there, and Barti, each with a creature of their own—Lady Zebra, Lady Mouse—telling me it was time to go, quick, before the chaperones got there. And then there was running over grass that crunched beneath our feet, and breathless laughter, and the feel of a hand in mine that was small, and light, but not as small and light as it should have been, somehow.


    And then there was nothing.