The hour was late, but Everin valemont" was wide awake.
In his lavish bedchamber within the high walls of the Valemont estate, moonlight filtered in through tall stained-glass windows, casting a wash of violet and silver over the floor's polished onyx tiles. Everything in the room—curtains, upholstery, cushions—spoke of luxury, but Everin's attention was not drawn to any of it. No, his fingers curled around something far dearer to him.
A handkerchief, white silk and delicate, embroidered with his cousin's name: August.
The thread gleamed silver in the candlelight, and Everin, with a sigh that echoed with longing, pressed it against his nose. The scent of old books, smoke, and something faintly floral—lavender, perhaps—still clung to the cloth. He inhaled as though drawing in a secret.
"Three days," he murmured, lips curving into a dreamlike smile. His voice wavered like a prayer whispered to a hidden god. "Three days until I see you again, my dear beauty."
He closed his eyes and gave a small, blissful laugh—a sound soft and unhinged, stitched with excitement and ache. Then he whispered, as if August might hear him through the veils of time and stone, "I will be the air you breathe. I will be the music at your throat. And you... oh, you will be mine."
A knock startled the silence.
He slipped the handkerchief into his breast pocket quickly, the silk vanishing like moonlight into shadows.
"Enter," he called, smoothing his hair and reclining slightly on the chaise.
The door opened and a maid stepped in, modestly dressed in twilight grey, her eyes cast low. "My lord, dinner is served. Your presence is requested at the high table."
But Everin did not stand. Instead, he rose with a slow, languid stretch and walked toward her. The soft click of his heeled boots echoed in the marbled room. The maid took a step back, uncertain.
Then, with a flourish too fast for her to avoid, he caught her by the waist.
"My lord?!" she gasped, flustered.
Everin did not answer her. His eyes were half-closed, his grip firm but not cruel. He twirled her once beneath the moonlight, feet sweeping across the floor in a dance that was both graceful and intimate.
The girl's face turned bright crimson. Her hands hovered in the air like she didn't know where to place them. "My lord, I—this is—"
But Everin didn't hear her. In his mind, it wasn't the maid in his arms. It was August—cool, beautiful August with eyes like fog and sorrow. His cousin, his obsession, his muse.
Everin's lashes fluttered.
"So warm," he whispered, holding the maid closer. "So perfect..."
The maid's confusion deepened into alarm, but she said nothing, too afraid of his unpredictable moods. Her heart pounded in her chest like a bird caged by silk.
Everin spun her again, their shadows twirling across the marble floor like fractured phantoms.
"Ah, mon trésor," he said in a breath, tilting his head back. His smile was ecstatic. He imagined August's pale hair brushing his shoulder. He imagined those delicate hands resting against his chest. The vision made his skin flush, made his thoughts spiral.
"Three days," he said again, and this time, his voice carried the weight of worship.
Then he stopped suddenly, stepping back as though waking from a trance. The maid stumbled but caught herself, breathless, her cheeks still aflame.
"That was... quite enough," he said, adjusting his sleeves. "You may go."
She curtsied shakily and fled the room without another word.
Everin turned to the tall mirror, gazing at his reflection with unblinking intensity.
"Soon," he whispered to it. "He will be mine. He will see me—not just as cousin. Not just as family. As something more. Something inevitable."
The moonlight watched him, silent.
And in Everin's palm, he pressed the handkerchief to his lips, dreaming of the masquerade to come.
The dining hall of estate of Valemont" was a cathedral of gold and echo, every chandelier a frozen burst of sunlight caught mid-fall. Velvet curtains veiled the towering windows, drawn just enough to allow the crimson dusk to spill in like watered wine. The cutlery gleamed beneath the flickering breath of candelabras, and the air smelled faintly of thyme, cream, and powdered amber.
Everin sat across from his parents, his plate untouched save for the cherry-glazed duck, which he carved delicately but barely tasted. His smile lingered, soft and unfocused, a curve of reverie not rooted in the room but in a faraway dream. His fingers idly brushed the embroidered silk of the napkin on his lap, though in his mind, he still clutched that perfumed handkerchief. Still saw the curling script of August's name stitched in silver thread.
His mother, seated at the opposite end, studied him over her crystal goblet. A woman of sharp elegance, she had once danced through fifteen courts and left each one weeping for her absence. Now she lifted her glass, eyes gentle. "You seem... unusually radiant tonight, my dear."
He blinked, gently returning to the present. "Do I?" he asked, eyes still glazed with a private fire.
"You do," she said, with a knowing smile that wore the memory of youth. "Your cheeks are roses. Your lips nearly humming."
He laughed lightly, swirling his wine. "Ah, mother, what an image. I daresay it must be the prospect of the ball. It's been too long since I've worn anything other than velvet boredom."
At the head of the table, Lord Valemont, a man of sculpted reserve and iron-bent posture, did not smile. His eyes, the same pale blue as the northern icefields, remained on his plate as he spoke.
"Is your ball dress prepared?"
Everin straightened slightly, voice crisp with rehearsed charm. "The royal tailors have already measured me. They said the final fitting will be tomorrow. Gold-burnished lapels, as requested."
His mind, however, had already vanished again—swept up like a moth toward flame. In that moment, he was no longer at the dining table beneath ancestral portraits. He was beneath chandeliers of starlight and glass, standing in the center of a marble stage, wearing his new attire.
And August was there—like a fallen ghost dressed in moonlight and quiet rage.
Everin reached for him in his mind's theater. Took his waist with a grace learned not from tutors, but from longing. He pulled him close, closer, until they were nearly one silhouette. The music was soft, imaginary, and the world hushed to listen as their bodies moved in synchrony.
August's eyes, those mournful smoke-grey stars, were so near. Closer still. The scent of ash and parchment, the soft brush of silver hair. Everin leaned in, lips barely trembling—
"Everin."
He blinked.
His father's voice had been flint on steel.
"Everin," Lord Valemont" repeated, this time slower. "That was the third time I've said your name."
Everin sat back, sheepish and suddenly very warm under the collar.
"I apologize, Father. I was... adrift."
His father's gaze narrowed, sharp as the creases in his cuffs. "I can see that. One would think your mind was still in masquerade. Or perhaps," he added, too lightly, "with someone from there."
His mother's glass stilled midair.
Everin swallowed.
Lord Valemont" went on, each word measured like coin. "August did not say anything after you returned. Not a letter. Not a word of what happened between you. Not even a farewell."
A pause. Then—
"Why was your departure so abrupt, Everin?"
Everin's throat caught. He sipped his wine, but it did not soothe.
His father leaned forward slightly, one brow arching like a question turned into suspicion.
"Don't tell me," he said, voice low and glinting, "you did something foolish again."
Everin's spine stiffened, but he didn't speak.
"Like last time," Lord Valemont continued, voice suddenly silkier. "Marrying a princess in the south. But not just any ordinary princess. One who vanishes from records. One whose name was never officially signed. Do you think I am a fool?"
His gaze pierced deeper.
"Or was it a princess you married in haste this time?"
A beat passed, heavy as winter snowfall. Everin's lips parted.
But salvation came—loud and welcome.
The double doors creaked open, and in strode the royal tailors, three of them, arms laden with books of embroidered swatches, sketches, and accessories gleaming with thread and gemstone.
"Lord Everin," the lead tailor said with a precise bow. "Forgive the hour, but we require final choices regarding the cuff detailing and sash embroidery for the Midnight Reverie Ball."
Everin rose—far too quickly. "Ah! Yes. Perfect timing, I was just considering... stars or laurels."
His father raised a single brow, unimpressed.
"I'll be just a moment," Everin said, already half out the door with the tailors in tow.
As the doors closed behind them with a soft thud, Lady 'Valemont" took a slow sip of her wine.
"He looked almost... giddy."
Her husband set down his fork. "Or guilty."
The great hall shimmered under dusk's farewell light as Everin excused himself from the dinner table, the scent of roasted duck and jasmine still clinging to his silks. He stepped briskly into the corridor, his embroidered sleeves trailing behind like trailing stardust. But the moment was not his—it now belonged to those who awaited him in the drawing room adjacent: the royal tailors.
They stood together like three divinely aligned stars.
Seraphine Lyselle, the lead embroiderer, moved with an unhurried elegance. Her long black hair was braided intricately down her back, entwined with silver thread, and her cerulean eyes glinted with precise curiosity as she examined the bolt of velvet before her. There was something about her that shimmered without trying, a grace not born of effort but of blood. She was the quiet fire that melted gold.
Beside her, Thassian Dorrè, the master tailor of the court, lounged with a kind of poised arrogance, as though the room itself had been sewn to his liking. His golden blond hair was neatly cropped, like a sculpture in motion, and his yellow eyes—sharp, discerning—missed not a single stitch. When he moved, it was with the precision of a dancer and the coolness of ice over steel.
And then there was Nerin Quill, the youngest of the three, barely twenty, with a pair of light green eyes full of storms yet to arrive. His brown hair fell in soft disobedience over his forehead, always tousled with chalk dust or caught on a rogue pin. He darted about with the nervous energy of a hummingbird and the soul of a poet who had once fallen in love with lace.
Everin entered with all the glory of a young noble recently kissed by a daydream. He was flushed still from the remnants of his romantic distraction at dinner—his mind haunted not by politics nor power, but by the ghost of a pale-haired beauty in his arms.
Thassian gave a low, almost theatrical bow. "Your Highness. We are honored to design the vessel for your triumph."
Everin gave a breathless laugh, his hands raised in a helpless flourish. "Only you could call a ballgown a vessel and not make it sound ridiculous."
"It is not ridiculous," Seraphine said gently, approaching with a silk ribbon drawn between her fingers. "It is sacred. You will not just wear this—you will live inside it for a night. We must give it breath, bone, and voice."
Nerin, meanwhile, had already dropped a box of pearls in excitement and was scrambling to gather them up, muttering apologies that trailed off like falling sequins.
"You've grown taller," Thassian noted, circling Everin like a falcon eyeing fine prey. "Or are you simply standing straighter?"
"Perhaps both," Everin replied with a teasing grin.
Seraphine stepped closer. "Let me see your arms. We're thinking a high-waist structure with silver detailing. Something reminiscent of Khyronian winter courts, but not quite so… mournful."
As she measured his shoulders, Thassian murmured, "We've selected a velvet so deep it steals the breath. And embroidery like frost across midnight. If you dance, you'll look like starlight trapped in motion."
Everin's smile was distant. "I plan to dance, yes."
Nerin blinked. "With someone special, sire?"
Everin turned his head ever so slightly, his profile made poetic by candlelight. "With someone unforgettable."
At that, Seraphine paused, her fingers lingering over the hem of his sleeve.
The measurements continued, filled with the sound of chalk tapping, of scissors snipping the silence into form. Each tailor worked as though enchanted by unseen threads guiding their hands—Seraphine humming softly as she sketched a phoenix across the train, Thassian perfecting the waistline with architect-like precision, Nerin running between them with pins, patches, and nervous admiration.
They were building a moment, not a garment. A memory stitched into silk.
And though none of them said it aloud, each of the tailors could feel it: this ball would not be like the others. Not because of politics. Not because of spectacle.
But because love—true, blinding, reckless love—was being tailored too.