The Society of the Eleventh Hour

Martyred.

The ballroom is full of people, the air thick and humid, to the point that my hair feels slightly damp. I am on the verge of nausea, even with Morgan at my side. She hasn't left me, not even for a second, because she's smart enough to know that something is wrong. (And wise enough not to ask.)

Dagger and a tall man that I've belatedly realized must be Nightingale, with an extensive amount of possibly unethical alchemical alterations to their physical form, are standing on the other side of the room. Conspicuously.

Javier, thankfully, is not here yet. He takes parties very seriously, as well as the notion of fashionable lateness. Part of the reason I chose to match with Morgan was merely the fact that he refused to be associated with my "unfashionable" "drab" and "morbid" sense of style.

I suppose parties can seem all-important when you're in desperate search of an ally, but that has never been my style. I don't like to feel cramped, or bossed around. Though... I guess I've adapted to having Morgan as my partner quite well, considering.

When he does arrive, he is predictably dressed in something golden and tasteful. His face is technically unmasked, like all the men in attendance, but he has chosen to paint his face with intricate lines of gold pigment.

(In a letter, he had confessed that he was extremely disappointed that all the people in attendance do not wear masks as he had spent AGES designing one for this occasion.)

He stops between the two of us, both wearing the standard silver skull masks assigned by the society, and grins.

"Which one of you is my fiancée, again? I just can't tell, with your whole matching schtick!"

He and his bodyguard both crack up at the joke, and I smile weakly. Morgan doesn't seem to make an attempt, eyes staring back at him behind the mask, cold and hard.

"It's me!" I point to the painted tear under my eye. "Javier, I literally sent you a guide about my mask and how to find me. That's the whole point of the ball!"

He smiles, again.

"Stupid tradition, if you ask me. Marriage proposals don't have to be this convoluted, in Pieromal— you send a letter, the lady in question says yes or no. Works any time of the year, as you please." Javier describes the concept of marriage proposals similarly to ordering a new stove in a home improvement catalog. I assume this has much more to do with him than it does with actual Pieromal attitudes about marriage.

I shrug.

"The masks remove a lot of the social pressure on the ladies involved. If a man you don't wish to marry approaches you despite you sending him blatantly incorrect instructions on how to find you... you can tell him he has the wrong woman and get off scot-free."

It's considered deeply embarrassing to approach a potential wife that hasn't asked you to do so prior to the event, so it usually works out pretty well. (Unless your fiancé is an entitled lunatic that continually approaches you year after year and has to be turned away with increasingly cold reproach.)

"Why can't the lady just say no?" The bodyguard, Nick, asks out of the blue. "She should be allowed to."

I frown.

"This custom is about the lady saying no— or yes, if she pleases. Marriage proposals cannot be formed without her first making the initial move to share the custom design of her mask."

Nick hums thoughtfully, at that.

"On the topic of proposals— might I have your first dance?" Javier manages to keep a straight face through this, bowing very slightly at the waist.