The stadthuis blazed like a furnace against the winter dark, every window spilling gold onto the square. Lanterns shimmered along the frozen canal, mirrored in the slick cobbles where horses stamped and coach wheels hissed through the slush. The air smelled of pine boughs and tallow smoke — the city's last breath of Carnival before the silence of Lent.
Floris van den Berg offered his arm as they crossed the square. His cloak caught the torchlight, a rich bronze that gleamed like the metal he traded. Beside him, Katelijne's pale blue skirts brushed the ground, the silver embroidery catching at the frost. She had not wanted to come, but Margriet's delight had left no room for refusal.
'A triumph of civility,' Floris said, voice smooth beneath his mask. 'Even the Burgermeister's wife has outdone herself. I'm told there are fountains of wine in the gallery.'
'Then Antwerp has forgotten its fast already,' Katelijne replied, forcing a small smile. Her voice was steady, though her stomach had been in knots since they left the house.
'Not forgotten,' Floris said easily, 'only delayed. One night of sin to sweeten the repentance.'
Margriet, walking close behind, laughed lightly. 'So long as your repentance is as splendid as your sin, Master Floris, you will have the priests competing to absolve you.'
Floris bowed to her with charm practised to perfection, and Margriet glowed with pride.
Inside, the great hall swallowed them whole. Music thundered from the gallery; chandeliers turned the air molten gold. Masks shimmered in every direction — wolves with jeweled eyes, stags, peacocks, priests, jesters. The scent of perfume and heated wax mingled with the tang of wine.
Margriet gripped Katelijne's hand. 'Look, my love — half the guild is here! Even the Burgermeister's wife in cloth-of-gold. Oh, what a night!'
Katelijne nodded, though her throat felt tight behind the dove-shaped mask her mother had chosen — white satin for purity, its wings folded like a prayer. Beneath it, she could scarcely breathe.
She let Floris guide her toward the dance floor, her steps careful, her smile fixed. Every surface gleamed. Every laugh felt sharpened. And though her mask hid her face, she knew — she was the one being watched.
The musicians struck a pavane, stately as a sermon gilded in gold. Couples arrayed themselves like chessmen; silk whispered, bells chimed faintly at wrists and heels. Floris bowed and led her in. His glove was warm through hers, his posture impeccable, his confidence a tide that assumed the world would part to let him through.
'Hold your chin a little higher,' he murmured, not unkindly. 'Let them see what they envy.'
'And what is that?' Katelijne asked, keeping her voice even.
'A match well made,' he said. 'Fortune with grace. Strength with beauty. Order.'
Order. It landed like a stone. She let him turn her through the measured figures — forward, back, hands, release. Around them masks flashed and vanished: a harlequin with painted tears; a priest whose mouth smiled beneath a sanctimonious hood; a woman crowned as a stag, her gems winking like eyes. Laughter pealed too loudly, the kind meant to drown something else.
Floris danced perfectly, as he did all things meant to be seen. When the pavane broke to a livelier galliard, he adapted seamlessly, the leap scarcely more than a polished flourish. He leaned close, his words pitched to reach only her.
'Do you feel it? The gaze of the room? They know. No one would dare speak against us now.'
Us. Her chest tightened beneath the dove's mask. She had once thought this splendour tempting — a promise held out in the gleam of polished floors and candlelit glass. Now each candle seemed another eye. Each mirrored panel another trap.
When the music paused, servants swept through with spiced wine and candied almonds. Floris broke from her to exchange greetings with a merchant dressed as Mars, his helm crested with dyed feathers. Margriet appeared at Katelijne's elbow, cheeks flushed behind her tiny gilt mask.
'He has never looked better,' her mother whispered, the words almost a prayer. 'Hendrik's lion mask is ridiculous, of course, but it cannot dim Floris in that bronze. He shines, Katelijne. People are watching. You must be gracious.'
'Must I?' Katelijne asked softly.
Margriet didn't hear the edge. 'Think of what this means. Our name in every hall. Your children—'
The word snagged like a thorn. Children. Rooms upon rooms of order, forever. Katelijne lifted the cup to her mouth only to find she could not swallow. Through the slant of her mask she watched Floris—how he turned his head just so, smiled just so, how even his laughter came measured, stacked like coins.
A man built of polish and intention. A mask even without silk.
And yet the room loved him for it.
The hall had grown thick with heat. Katelijne slipped from the dance floor, letting the tide of velvet and feathers sweep past as she edged toward a side corridor where the air ran cooler. Here, servants moved like shadows between tables of half-emptied cups and sugared rinds. The scent of wax and winter air drifted through the high windows.
A pair of merchants' wives stood near the archway, fans fluttering like small birds. Their voices carried, soft but sharp.
'Have you heard?' one murmured. 'The van den Berg accounts—questioned. Not much at once, but a drop will sink a ship if it falls long enough.'
'Boys' sums and old men's envy,' the other replied briskly. 'Master Hendrik keeps order. He'll set it right. And Master Floris—' she lowered her voice, tone conspiratorial— 'has friends enough to oil any hinge in this city.'
The first snapped her fan shut. 'Oil burns.'
Their light laughter pricked Katelijne's skin. She set her cup down, throat too tight for wine. Beyond them, the lion-masked Hendrik held court, his bark of approval booming over smaller conversations. Floris moved through the crowd with polished ease, a bronze coin rolling across a conjurer's knuckles—always gleaming, never falling.
At the corridor's far end, a young man in plain livery spoke to a burgher, his words quick and low. Katelijne recognised him after a moment—the boy who sometimes ran errands for Willem's inn. When the burgher moved away, she stepped closer.
'You there,' she said softly. 'You've worked for Master Willem, have you not?'
He startled and bowed. 'Aye, mistress. Hauled beer, scrubbed benches. Before—well, before the trouble.'
'Trouble?'
'Willem's fools,' he said, eyes flicking to her mask and back. 'Gone, most of them. Wagon rolled out two mornings ago. Said Antwerp's crowd turned sour. The innkeeper was glad to see them take the noise and the debt with them.'
Ice slid along her spine. 'And Joseph?'
'Didn't see him,' the boy admitted. 'Some say he stayed, some say he followed after. I heard he was playing alone down by the river road last night. Might be paid enough to buy his own supper, but—' He shrugged. 'I keep my head down, mistress. I don't ask after fools.'
He bobbed another bow, already half-turned to go.
'Thank you,' she managed.
He vanished into the drift of servants. The corridor seemed to tilt. The last of the music from the hall swelled and broke against the hush like surf. So: gone, or not gone, and no word either way. A note that said 'tonight' and a square that stayed empty. It should have made her angry. Instead, a blankness opened in her chest, cold and flat as a sheet of ice.
She pressed her fingers to the pearls at her throat. They felt like beads of frost. Perhaps this was what safety felt like—cold and heavy and unbreakable. Perhaps safety could starve a person as cleanly as hunger.
'Katelijne.'
Floris appeared at the arch, bronze mask gleaming, a wine cup in hand. His smile was smooth as lacquer. 'You vanish,' he chided lightly. 'Shall I take it as a challenge?'
'Only a breath of air,' she said, shaping her voice to composure.
'Then take it near,' he returned, offering his arm. 'I have something—no, I shall not spoil it. Come.'
She let him guide her back toward the blaze.
A fanfare curled from the gallery, bright as cut brass. The Burgermeister raised a goblet on the dais, his voice booming over the crowd.
'Friends! Antwerp closes her Carnival with splendour. Yet what joy equals the joining of two houses that strengthen our city's good order?'
Heads turned as if on a single neck. Silence gathered, the pleasant kind weighted with expectation. Hendrik's lion mask tilted toward the staircase, approving. Floris stepped forward into a bright circle of candlelight, his bronze mask lifted in one hand, his face bare and handsome beneath.
Margriet's fingers dug into Katelijne's arm. 'Now,' she whispered, breathless. 'Be gracious.'
Floris bowed low before her. It should have looked absurd, this noble theatre in a room crowded with masks; instead it worked exactly as intended. The crowd tipped toward them, smiling, murmuring, tasting triumph on their tongues.
'Mistress De Wael,' Floris said, his voice carrying cleanly. 'These months I have found in you a steadiness and grace that outshine Carnival's brightest lantern. I ask you to make that light mine—Antwerp's—and let me honour you as my wife.'
He went to one knee. The ring in his hand flashed like a coin tossed to the sun.
Gasps; a few eager claps. Masks turned; fans stilled. The heat of every gaze pressed on Katelijne's skin, tightening like laces pulled one hole too far. She saw, for one slipping instant, the dim tavern: a woman's bared shoulder, Floris's hand as if it belonged there. Then a harsher image: the empty square of St. Andries. The note in her sleeve a dead weight. The boy's shrug—fools are none of my business.
Perhaps safety was a kind of drowning. Perhaps all choices were.
Her lips moved before she knew they would. 'I… accept.'
Sound burst like a cracked cask—cheers, applause, a trumpet's triumphant skirl as the musicians struck a celebratory air. Floris rose, radiant, sliding the ring onto her shaking finger and kissing her hand for the room to see. Margriet wept; Hendrik thumped his cane in approval; even Jeroen inclined his head, grave as a judge sealing a contract.
Katelijne stood very still, the world deafening around her.