Iron Kin: A Novel of the Half-Light City Read Online Free

to me, so all I could really see was the pale pink sweep of her dress and dark—reddish perhaps—curls falling down to hide the line of her face and neck. Both Holly and Lily were smiling at her—perhaps she worked at St. Giles Hospital, where Simon was Master Healer?
    Reggie reached the group and obviously reported my recalcitrant behavior. Holly craned her neck to frown at me over the unknown girl’s shoulder. I tipped my glass to her, then turned back to the bar before she could send me any further indicators of her concern. The starched white linen covering the polished wood offered no reproval, at least. No answers to any of my problems either.
    When I turned to look again, the girl in the pink dress had disappeared, leaving just Lily and Holly and Reggie clustered together. As I watched, a young buck in immaculate evening dress came up to Reggie and bowed. There. She had a partner. She was safe. No need to feel guilty.
    “Don’t you like to dance?”
    The voice came from my side, low for a female and somewhat amused. I turned my head. It was the girl in the pink dress. Tilted green-gray eyes watched me with interest and she smiled, revealing a dimple in her left cheek that only added to her prettiness.
    I tipped my head, taking her in. The pink dress floated over sleek curves, to curl around her feet in a sea of flounces. Her hair was unadorned, apart from a single bar of pale pink pearls that matched those at her ears. Lovely. Lovely enough to distract me for a while at least. I smiled at her. “I don’t generally dance, no.”
    Her smile widened—there was something vaguely familiar about that smile and the dimple. “Oh good. I hate it too.”
    I blinked. Not what I expected a well-brought-up human female to say.
    The girl turned to the barman and asked for champagne. Another blink. I would have thought her a little young to be drinking champagne. “Why are you at a ball if you don’t like dancing?”
    She wrinkled her nose, sipped champagne, swallowed, and then sighed. “My mother requested my presence.” She flexed the hand not holding the champagne glass. She wore long gloves of an even paler pink than her dress . . . a pink that almost wasn’t. Her skin, bared between the top of the glove just below her elbows and the floating ruffled sleeve halfway down her arm, was faded gold, not pale white. And there were muscles under that skin, smooth curves revealed with the movement of her hand.
Where had she got those?
    “My mother has a way of talking people into things.”
    “My sympathies,” I said. “I know a few people like that.” I cranked up my own smile a little.
    A bored young thing at a ball. A bored, young, slightly unconventional thing. Perhaps my night wasn’t going to be a complete waste of time after all.
    She laughed, then offered the gloved hand. “You’re Fen, aren’t you? I’m Saskia. Saskia DuCaine.”
    I almost choked. Saskia
DuCaine
? This was Simon and Guy’s little sister? I took her hand gingerly and shook it, then released it as quickly as I could without being rude. The kid leather slipped over my skin softly, warm from her body as our fingers slid away from each other. I tucked my hand into my pocket before I could reach for hers again. That would be a very bad idea.
    This particular bored young unconventional thing was not for the likes of me. For starters, her brothers were a sunmage and a Templar, respectively. I was fond of my head being unfried and attached to my neck. True, both Simon and Guy had chosen women who weren’t exactly the type that heirs of a powerful human family were expected to fall in love with, but I wasn’t stupid enough to think that the DuCaine daughters would enjoy the same leeway.
    “Pleased to meet you,” I said, after a moment of gathering my wits. “I know your brothers.”
    “I know.”
    Her tone held more than a hint of eye roll. My brain clutched for something else to talk about. “Did Holly send you over?”
    She shook her