Clockwork and Silk

The Aetherium Gala was the social event of the year, hosted entirely within the belly of a colossal, floating zeppelin tethered above the cloud line. The ballroom was a spectacle of excess—crimson velvet drapery, crystal chandeliers vibrating with the thrum of the zeppelin’s engines, and hundreds of the Iron Republic’s elite hiding daggers behind polite smiles.

Nyx was suffocating.

She wore a breathtaking, blood-red silk gown that clung to every curve, corseted tightly with brass boning. Her hair was pinned up with jeweled combs that doubled as throwing blades. She hated the dress. She hated the heels. But most of all, she hated the way Silas had looked at her when she stepped out of her quarters.

He had stopped breathing for a full three seconds, his eyes dark and unreadable, before silently offering her his arm.

Now, they were standing near a towering champagne fountain. Silas had a hand resting lightly on the small of her back, the heat of his palm radiating through the thin silk. They were playing their parts perfectly. To the room, they were deeply, sickeningly in love.

"Smile, darling," Silas murmured, leaning down so his lips brushed the shell of her ear. "Minister Thorne is staring at us from by the orchestra. If you scowl any harder, he’ll think you're planning to gut him."

"I am planning to gut him," Nyx whispered back, flashing a radiant, entirely fake smile for a passing photographer. "He’s the one who sent the assassin to your office. I can smell the guilt on him."

"Patience, Viper," Silas said gently, using her underground moniker as a term of endearment that made her stomach do an involuntary flip. "We need hard evidence. Until then, we dance."

He set his champagne glass down and pulled her onto the polished wood of the dance floor. The orchestra played a sweeping, heavy waltz.

Silas moved with the same commanding control he applied to his politics. He pulled her close, eliminating the space between them. Nyx was hyper-aware of his scent, the solid wall of his chest, and the way his hand gripped hers.

"You're tense," Silas noted softly, spinning her.

"I don't like being in the air. Limited exits. And half the people in this room want you dead."

"I only care about the woman currently in my arms," Silas replied. The words were meant for the audience, part of their cover, but the intensity in his blue eyes made Nyx’s breath hitch. There was no cameras pointed at them right now.

"You're a very good liar, Mr. President," Nyx murmured, staring up at him.

"I'm a politician, Nyx. I lie for a living," Silas said, his gaze dropping to her lips. "But I'm not lying right now."

Nyx’s heart hammered a frantic rhythm against her ribs. The lines were blurring. The fake relationship was becoming a deadly, intoxicating reality. She wanted to pull him closer. She wanted to—

Her spine clicked.

It was a sharp, painful, mechanical grind at the base of her neck. An involuntary reaction to a sudden, localized shift in aether-pressure.

Nyx’s eyes snapped wide open. The romantic fog instantly evaporated, replaced by cold, lethal clarity.

She looked past Silas’s shoulder. Four waiters, dressed in pristine white liveries, were moving toward them through the dancing crowd. But they weren't gliding. They were moving with a rigid, terrifying speed.

Nyx recognized the micro-tremors in their hands. She recognized the dead, hollow look in their eyes.

"Get down!" Nyx screamed.