She tipped the cup to her lips and drank. The wine slid across her tongue and down her throat, like an oil slick instead of shimmering light. Leato grimaced in sympathy. “I think it’s gone off.” It wasn’t off. It was wrong. It burned in her throat, seared through her until her necklace and mask and gown burned her skin. The light around her fractured into sickly rainbows, forming a web of threads connecting her to Leato, to Mettore, threads everywhere she looked. She heard murmurs from the crowd, people turning to one another with worried expressions, and she tried to speak, to warn them that
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