Adila!

What intoxicating innocence! What delightful naivety! You think Hornet has a lab, singular?

Hornet has secret labs stashed all over the tower, each one more cleverly hidden than the last. It’s only your keen dragon senses that allow you to find one after frantic searching up and down stairwells and through mirrored passageways.

The trick to opening the wall and entering, it turns out, is figuring which Goblin Gabby Mystery doesn’t belong on the shelf. You cheat and knock them all down, and it’s “Goblin Gabby and the Secret Entrance” that turns out to be the key.

It turns out to be a mechanical lab. Arcing lightning crackling between crystals is the only light source, sending flickering shadows across a dizzying array of wrenches, nuts, runes and wires. Masks line the walls, staring down sightlessly, and it takes a moment for your eyes to adjust.

And in that moment, you already have a spear’s tip pressing into your throat.

“Designated: intruder. This is a restricted area. According to my Watch Emulation Protocols, you are now under arrest. You have the right to remain silent.”

Your eyes focus on those Rider eyes, flecked with stars. But those stars are hard, merely flecks of diamond. And the face they are set in is familiar.

It’s Kazelia.

***

Kazelia!

“We are going to talk about what Ourania told you,” your father says, lifting your chin. You have no choice but to lose yourself in his eyes. “At length. But there will be time enough for that after the Gala.” Stars wheel and fall in that endless empty void. “And you won’t even need to sneak in. You’ll join us there before the end of the evening.”

Then he presses the amulet against your forehead, his opera cloak veiling the motion as he dips you low, just another move in the dance, and your mind goes white snow falling forever.

...

You’re over by the buffet, and your memories of how you got there are locked tight behind iron bars. There is something inside your head waiting. A command. But when you try to touch it your mind slides away.

Hypnosis. Of course. He’s layering hypnotic lulling over every word he says, and once he had you primed, he gave you some sort of order. One that you will have to follow.

And when you look across the dance floor, you see he has a new partner. One whose eyes are drooping and is leaning into him helplessly.

It’s Rita.

And that’s when Alina spins across the room and plants her face right in your cleavage.

***

Alina!

“One good turn,” Esmeralda purrs. “You spin Kazelia into my arms by the end of the night, all wrapped up in your pretty little ribbons, and I’ll back you up on the Ilumina heist.”

And then she spins you! She pulls the scarf like the line on a top and you go spinning across the dance floor, over all those careful maze lines, your skirt spinning out and your hair floofing.

Luckily, Kazelia catches you before you can collide with the buffet table. With her chest. Which is where your face is. But, poor dizzy little thing, it probably takes you a minute to get your head back in order.