a fistful of glitter {{SETH}}

[blaire]

It seemed that both she and Seth were getting better at understanding each other without words. They had just made a treaty between them, signed and dated and sealed, without so much as a word rolling of a perfectly trained lip. Which was probably for the best, because words could easily be arranged and faked by the most amateur of performers; poison could easily be buried in a word, twists were around every syllable, and all in all, it took a skilled, experienced interpreter to get any sort of true, reliable meaning from the words of a person you didn’t know well. Which is why she would’ve been wary if Seth had tried to lure her into the maze of a mutual agreement by speaking to her. But he hadn’t—he’d stayed quiet, and by the smallest changes in facial expression, the tiniest tugs at the furthest corners of muscles, they had come to an agreement: I will pretend not to notice if you will.

Or at least that’s what Blaire interpreted it as, but she’d had plenty of practice in gaining insight from nonverbal clues, and she liked to think that she knew what she was talking about. She was the queen of the stage, and in being such an expert at masks and gestures she naturally figured out how to read those that belonged to other people. And so the unspoken treaty was written, signed, and tucked away in a pocket. No need for anyone to know that there was something between them—the audience always had to be happy. After all, they were counting on them throwing roses up when it was all finished, calling for an encore that would require a white dress—Blaire pulled her mind away from that, back to the present, back to the marble staircase and the glass eyes of the man in front of her. There wasn’t room for daydreaming—not here, not now.

She presented her hand to him as an offering that held a challenge hidden in its depths, and, again, he seemed to know what she was doing. Perhaps this sequence of nonverbal cues would work later on in life, too—it might make it better if they only had to talk to each other on rare occasions. It would certainly be harder to be annoyed at him if he wasn’t spouting loud, arrogant comments every few moments, like he was at school. Right now, perhaps she was seeing a side of him that could be quiet. It was…oddly nice, to be understood without having to explain every little detail.

He was getting the ring, and the two ringleaders down at the base of the stairs had no idea. Delicious irony; a tiny little hitch in the otherwise perfect night that Blaire was giving those two gentlemen. Maybe she was the unhappy actress trying to let her discomfort be known to the directors but no one else. She didn’t know, in truth, but she was pleased that Seth wasn’t waiting for permission. And then he was holding up the ring, the light glinting blue off of both the jewel and his eyes. She was tempted to look down, but she wouldn’t. Instead she looked at the ring that would sit on her finger until one or both of them died. It was pretty, of course. Finely crafted, expensive, tasteful. But also a tad gaudy, with the large sapphire and the surrounding diamonds. It would be the focal point of her hands—something to show that this trophy was prized. It was her figurative velvet cushion, something to flatter the fact that she was nothing more than shiny gold.

When she realized that the ring wasn’t even on her finger yet, she came to the present a little bit confused. What was taking him so long—had he changed his mind?

Worse.

He was tracing a scar with his thumb. The scars that she had taken special care to disguise with potions and creams. The scars that no one was supposed to notice. Blaire froze. Perhaps it was an accident. But then he caught her eye, and she knew it hadn’t been. There was something inside his gaze, too, something dark and dangerous behind the glass blue of his eyes. She stayed frozen, hardly daring to breathe, trying to steel herself against whatever comment that he was sure to make. But in the end, she wasn’t prepared. He’d found the chink in her armor, and she hadn’t had the time to shift away to cover the space when he said it. Not all pretty, shiny things are safe to touch, Miss Marcoux. Blaire’s nostrils flared, but she tightened every muscle in her body and made herself stand still as he slid the ring onto her hand. He had said something else as well, but the rush of thoughts inside her head drowned him out. She had to work hard to block out that torrent of thoughts, to lock the gate on them and keep them inside. He didn’t know—he couldn’t know.

But this logic didn’t stop her from slipping her hands from his as soon as he was done. She vaguely saw the half-surprised crowd and the applause that wasn’t exactly a perfect welcome because many of them had been unprepared and unaware. She vaguely saw her father and mother, but she couldn’t see their faces. Half of her awareness was turned inward now, examining the weakness in her walls and trying to determine how much was obvious from the outside. The ring was on her finger. She could feel it. So she was done here. She nodded in the basic direction of Mr. Masters once, then at her own parents, then dipped a slight curtsy to Seth. Perhaps it was too cordial, too detached. But did it matter? She just wanted to get away before he could find out more. So then she glided down the staircase, nodding at the receiving crowd and doing her best to lose herself among their colorful plumes, where she couldn’t be found.

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