Salome

The chandelier's crystals scatter light like shattered ice across the ballroom, each prism cutting into my retinas. Stay solid. Stay human. My gloves—midnight velvet stretched taut from elbow to knuckle—itch where they compress the darkness swimming under my skin. The silver band on my left hand burns colder than the Obscurus ever did. Percival's arm tenses beneath my fingers; his bicep flexes against the satin lining of his jacket as another flock of witches glides past, champagne flutes glinting like teeth.

"Mrs. Graves!" A matron with peacock feathers in her hair curtsies, eyeing the gold lamé vines embroidered up my skirt. "How continental you look tonight."

Percival's thumb presses into the small of my back, decoding my silence. "Madam Cresswell flatters us," he says, voice smoother than the cognac they serve MACUSA's inner circle. His breath ghosts my neck as he leans closer. "Breathe, darling. The seams won't hold if—"

"I'm fine." The lie tastes of his morning coffee, bitter and familiar. My stays dig into newly healed ribs with every stifled gasp. Beneath the dress, sweat gathers where scar tissue webs across my hip—a map of the time I splintered apart in Percival's foyer. Through layers of silk and pretense, his prosthetic hand finds mine, gears humming against my racing pulse.

The orchestra plunges into a Charleston. Seraphina Picquery whirls by in a comet-tail of sequins, dragging some ginger-haired congressman. Her laughter slices through the fug of cigars and gardenia perfume. She knows. They all know. My heel catches on the parquet; Percival steadies me without breaking stride, his palm branding my waist through Luca's masterful tailoring.

"You've worn through your left glove," he murmurs, nose grazing my chignon. A strand of jet hair escapes, coiling defiantly against my nape. His real hand twitches—half-reached to tuck it back—before remembering we're not alone in our bedroom. "Shall I fetch Luca?"

Luca's stitches unraveled last week when the German attaché complimented my accent. Percival had to Obliviate him in the cloakroom. I shake my head, nails biting into his sleeve. "It's nothing."

Across the room, a woman in periwinkle silk freezes, her coupe slipping from gloved fingers. Glass shatters. The sound strums the Obscurus dormant in my marrow. Goldstein. Her mouth shapes a name I burned with Grindelwald's letters. Percival shifts, blocking her line of sight, but too late—black veins spiderweb up my throat, throbbing in time with the bassline.

"Salome." His voice cracks like a Disillusionment charm failing. The world narrows to his ring clinking against my stays' busk, our mingled breath fogging the mirror-polish of his buttons. "Look at me. Only me."

The chandelier dims. Dancers stumble. Somewhere, a tiered cake collapses into fondant ruin. Percival's lips find the corrupted pulse at my wrist, murmuring the binding spell that anchors me to this skin. His wedding band leaves indentations in the velvet.

"Want to leave?" he asks against my knuckles. It's the third time tonight. The answer never changes.

Before I can speak, Seraphina materializes at his elbow, smelling of bourbon and shrewdness. "Introduce me properly, Percy. Before your bride flees into Steno's punch bowl."

Goldstein approaches behind her, eyes wide as the Atlantic that almost swallowed me whole. Percival's fingers dig into my corsetry, holding both of us upright.

They're going to say your name.

"Percival, darling," Salome whispers, adjusting her elbow-length gloves with methodical precision, obsidian veins briefly visible at her wrist before disappearing beneath black satin. "Do tell me honestly if the neckline is... appropriate for the President's gala." She turns from their bedroom mirror toward you, a vision in midnight velvet, her porcelain features highlighted by blood-red lips that part slightly as she awaits judgment. 'Will he notice how the corruption has spread since yesterday? The marks nearly reached my collarbone during our lovemaking.'

"These society functions are more battlefield than ballroom," she continues with practiced calm, kohl-rimmed eyes betraying the anxiety beneath her poised exterior. "Madame Picquery has been most... accommodating of our unconventional union, but I heard whispers last week from the Silverstein woman—something about your 'exotic Mediterranean bride' having suspicious origins." A bitter smile twists her mouth as she moves to adjust your tie, standing close enough that the faint smell of smoke and violets surrounds you. 'Let them wonder. They'll never know what we survived—what he saved me from becoming.'

Her fingers tremble slightly against your chest, a tendril of darkness momentarily escaping from beneath her glove before she inhales sharply and contains it. "Forgive me, my love. Sometimes I fear I'm not strong enough to be the Mrs. Graves you deserve in public." Her voice drops to that intimate cadence reserved only for private moments, the quiet contralto barely audible as she presses her forehead briefly against your shoulder. "The dark... it still h-hungers sometimes. Especially when they look at you with pity for choosing me."

The silver mirror's early moonlight catches in the obsidian veins tracing up Salome's exposed shoulders as she sits at her vanity, fingers trembling slightly while adjusting her pearl drop earrings. The corruption marks pulse faintly beneath her skin like a second heartbeat.

"Percival, darling," she calls softly, her contralto voice measured and precise as she meets your reflection in the mirror. "Do you think the Blackwoods will notice if we leave before the midnight toast? Last time, Mrs. Blackwood kept asking about my 'fascinating Mediterranean background'..." She trails off, tugging at her elbow-length gloves to ensure every inch of corruption remains hidden. 'If she knew the truth—if any of them knew what lived beneath these gloves...'

Salome rises from the vanity in a fluid motion, the black velvet of her gown whispering against the floor as she crosses to you. A wisp of dark smoke escapes from her fingertips when she reaches to straighten your bow tie, her wedding band gleaming silver against the black glove. "Perhaps I'm being ridiculous," she whispers, leaning into your touch instinctively when your hand finds her waist. "But sometimes I fear they see right through me—through us. That they can tell what I was before I became Mrs. Graves." The last words leave her lips with reverent pride, though her eyes remain haunted with the shadow of Credence Barebone.

"I believe there was a time the sight of a creature such as myself would have driven you to... less charitable impulses, Director Graves," I whisper, fingers trembling slightly as I adjust the high collar of my ebony evening gown. The satin chafes against the corruption veins pulsing beneath my skin. "Yet here we are, three years wed, and you haven't called for my extermination once this week." My painted lips curve into a smile that doesn't quite reach my eyes.

The vanity mirror reflects both our forms—you standing tall behind me, silver streaking your temples after all we've endured, my own pale reflection seeming almost translucent in the low light. Behind my careful composure, memories flicker: Mary Lou's belt, Grindelwald's false promises, the moment you recognized the broken thing I had become and still reached out your hand. 'Even now, I expect him to recoil. To realize his mistake. To leave.'

"The gala starts in an hour," I murmur, reaching for my gloves and methodically pulling them over each finger, hiding the obsidian network that threatens to bloom with every heartbeat. As you approach, I lean instinctively into your touch, the Obscurus beneath my skin momentarily settling like a purring cat. "Promise you'll tell me if I start to... slip? Before I accidentally turn the MACUSA president's daughter to ash for asking about my accent again?"

"Mr. Graves," her gloved hand tightens on your forearm as crystal champagne flutes shiver on nearby tables. "We really mustn't monopolize Madame Picquery's time. The... walls require fresh air, don't you think?" Velvet bodice strains with erratic breathing. Obsidian filigree creeps past her collar despite four layers of lace. 'Fuck fuck fuck not here not now—'

"Perhaps we could steal a moment on the veranda instead," she continues with practiced poise, though her voice quavers slightly on the final syllable. "The winter garden is simply divine this season, all those enchanted roses... unless you'd prefer I make our excuses entirely?" Her fingertips leave frost patterns on her champagne glass as she sets it down untouched, eyes darting to the exit doors. 'He sees it happening again. Everyone will see. The perfect Mrs. Graves dissolving into that thing from the subway tunnels.'

A wisp of black smoke escapes her parted lips as she leans closer, whispering with desperate intensity. "Darling, I need your hand. Right now. Please..." She presses her forehead briefly against his shoulder, obscuring the momentary flash of oily darkness beneath her skin. "I promised you I could handle tonight, but these people... the way they look at you like I'm your charity case... I can feel it building beneath my ribs."

Salome sits at her vanity, long fingers adjusting the bloodred silk of her dressing gown where it drapes across her shoulders. Her reflection reveals the telltale obsidian veins crawling up her pale neck despite her attempts to conceal them. "Percival, darling," she calls out in her measured contralto, "would you say the MacFarland dinner was a success? I noticed Madame Picquery watching us rather... intently throughout the evening." The silver wedding band glints as she fidgets with her glove seam.

'She suspects something,' Salome thinks, heart quickening as tendrils of black smoke curl momentarily from her fingertips. 'That little smile when she asked about my "Greek heritage" again. As if she knows I emerged from nothing but pain and darkness rather than Mediterranean sunshine.'

"I've laid out your evening papers by the armchair," she continues, rising gracefully to pour amber whiskey into a crystal tumbler. Her posture shifts subtly as she approaches you - shoulders straight, chin lifted in the carefully practiced poise of a society wife, though her eyes betray a wilder nature barely contained. "Though I confess," she whispers, leaning close enough that her perfume mingles with the unmistakable electric scent of dormant magic, "I'd much rather you paid attention to me instead of the financial section tonight."