Chapter 40: ExposedVICTOIRE GLORIES IN the energy of the dancers. It shivers across her skin in a thousand-thousand tiny, delicious sparkles, glancing off flecks of paint and glitter and rolling with the drops of sweat. I make myself small within her, pushing away the touch of those hands, the frenzied worshippers dancing their death around us.
The Exchange takes place in ritual silence, broken only by the stomping beat. But whatever arrangement Ravel had with the Mara is broken now. We perform the Exchange hourly, desperately, in every room from blue to black, but between sacrifices, more screams pierce the frenzied melody in a weird counterpoint harmony. I don’t know what magic Ravel has to make everyone stay, if it’s the dust and the music, or the hunger inside them, or simply that the
