Chapter 472 - Whispers Beneath the Silk (End)

Music still drifted up the grand hall, but to Belle it sounded thin now, as if someone had pricked holes through the melody and let its strength bleed out. She moved between pillars of cracked marble the way smoke slides through rafters—present, elusive, never still long enough to be caught. Incense hovered in low clouds above the guests' heads, heavy with myrrh and orange peel, and candles lined the balustrades in trembling rows, their flames tilting whenever doors opened to the chill outside. For every step she took Belle matched the hall's rhythm with a deliberate flutter of her fan, using silk ribs and painted roses to steer conversation like reins on a skittish horse.