The matriarch of House Kore was running late for a dinner. In the normal course of things, she did not care for punctuality. Punctuality, with its unseemly whiff of eagerness, was for peasants. And she was neither a peasant nor eager to endure a meal with the mongrel heir of House Nyx.

"What is taking my carriage so long?" she yelled down the hall.

If she arrived too late, she would invite rumors. Which were a great deal more pesky and unseemly than punctuality.

She flicked at an invisible speck of dust on her new dress. Her silk gown had been designed by the couturiers of Raudnitz & Cie in the 1st arrondissement's Place Vendome. Taffeta lilies bobbed in the blue silk of her hemline. Across the gown's low bustle and long tulle train, miniature fields of buttercups and ivy unfurled in the candlelight. The Forging work had been seamless. As well it should be, given the steep price.

Her driver poked his head through the entryway. "Deepest apologies, Madame. We are very nearly ready."

The mariarch flicked her wrist in dismissal. Her Babel Ring - a twist of dark thorns shot through with blue light - gleamed. The ring had been welded to her index finger the day she became the matriarch of House Kore, successfully beating out other members of her family and intra-House scrambles for power. She knew her descendants and even members of her House were counting down the days until she died and passed on the ring, but she wasn't ready yet. And until then, only she and House Nyx patriarch would know the ring's secrets.

When she touched the wallpaper, a symbol flashed briefly on the gilded patterns: a twist of thorns. She smiled. Like every Forged object in her home, the wallpaper had been House-Marked.

She'd never forget the first time she'd left her House mark on an artifact. The ring's power made her feel like a goddess cinched to human shape.