The Gantean (Tales of Blood & Light Book 1) by Emily June Street

planned.
    “I suppose it’s all nonsense, isn’t it? The Vhimsantese invented taroc, and they don’t have any magic. It’s just a game,” Ghilene went on.
    “I don’t know taroc.”
    “Of course you don’t.” Ghilene sighed. “Oh, damn. I left the nosegay that Adrastos Galatien gave me in the ballroom. So cute—he gave nosegays to all the ladies tonight as his token, even though he’s too young to make an offer. Go and get it for me, Lili. It’s got a yellow chrysanthemum in its center. ”
    I hurried back towards the ballroom, relieved to have a proper excuse to separate from Ghilene. Perhaps whatever Costas Galatien wanted wouldn’t take too long, and she’d never have the opportunity to scold me.
    Before I reached the ballroom doors, the man who had delivered Costas’s clandestine note fell into step beside me, taking my arm and guiding me straight past the grand room. We headed due west, in the direction of Costas Galatien’s rooms where I had breakfasted with Ghilene the day before.
    “This way,” the servant directed. We passed Costas’s rooms and continued towards the end of the hall, where an almost rustic-looking wood door filled the entire abutting wall.
    Costas’s servant indicated the door.
    “I—I am to enter?” I clarified.
    He nodded.
    I had to use both hands to turn the large handle, leaning my full weight into the thick door to push it inwards.
    My breath caught as I stepped into the room beyond the door. I had never seen anything like it; even the ritual chamber that surrounded the Hinge in Gante could not compare, for though that cavern had colored crystals for walls as well, no light penetrated it, so the colors could not been seen so easily. Here, the opal walls rose around me, sparkling with internal light as well as from magelight sconces that hung from a web-like lattice overhead, suspended on thin strings of the same glassy substance that formed the bridge into the High City. The entire blue crystal room—garden?—glowed.
    I paused a few steps into the magical place, staring up at the lattice in utter amazement.
    “Quite an accomplishment of magical architecture, Jiri’s Web,” a voice said from my right.
    “W—what?”
    Costas Galatien emerged from a triangle of shadows between two dwarfed trees that grew in blue ceramic pots.
    He pointed overhead. “Jiri’s Web. Made by the mage Jiri Saberian over two hundred years ago. We have him to thank for the advances in magical architecture that allowed the Galantia Bridge to be built, not to mention the invention of the Lethemian court dances.”
    I blinked. Costas Galatien, up close, robbed me of words and breath. The garden’s opalescent light enhanced whatever he had done to his skin to make it shimmer, and he looked even more like a cast statue.
    “You—you wish me to convey a message to Ghilene?” I asked, pleased I had managed to say the entire question with minimal fumbling.
    He stood at less than an arm’s distance. Had I dared, I could have run a finger down his cheek.
    “Ghilene Entila? Gods, no. I want to speak to you.”
    “M—me?”
    Costas circled me, his gaze roving in an examination as close and assessing as the slave auctioneer’s in Queenstown, but where the auctioneer’s gaze had contained only scorn, Costas’s felt more like a touch. A caress, even.
    Clearly my imagination needed to be curbed.
    “Where did you grow up?” he asked.
    I sucked a breath. I hated lying, but I feared Ghilene’s anger and this man’s disapproval more. “In the north,” I replied. “In a remote area.”
    “Let me see your women’s knife.”
    “What?”
    Costas gestured at his own sleeve, a furrow between his shapely brows. “Your blade. Your women’s knife. The one you flashed at me in the ballroom. Let me see it.” He pulled my sleeve to expose the knife I’d taken from the party.
    “This is a cheese knife,” he said, grinning. “I thought it looked a little strange.”
    Heat flared across my cheeks,