The Art of Being Unseen
The Grand Hall had been dressed for autumn, though autumn itself seemed a distant rumor beyond its towering windows. Garlands of copper leaves twined around the marble columns, and great brass bowls of chrysanthemums perfumed the air with something between honey and smoke. Candlelight bounced off gilt-edged mirrors until the whole chamber shimmered like the inside of a struck bell, and somewhere above the crowd, a quartet of musicians coaxed a slow, stately melody from viol and lute that nobody actually listened to.
Lucien Valemont had already found his corner.
It was a good corner—half-shadowed by a tapestry depicting some ancient battle nobody remembered the outcome of, tucked just beside the musicians' gallery where the crowd thinned to almost nothing. From here he could see the whole glittering theater of the court without being seen himself, which was, as far as he was concerned, the only sensible way to attend one of these affairs.
He watched a cluster of young lords near the punch table erupt into laughter at some joke he hadn't heard and doubted was funny. He watched two matronly duchesses lean their bejeweled heads together, murmuring behind painted fans, their eyes…
