Mask of Shadows (Untitled #1)(25)

“Hands at the window.” She sucked in a breath and shook her head. “I didn’t think it’d frighten me, but I looked up and they were there.”

She shuddered. I leaned off the wall far enough to pour her the tea she’d set out for my dinner and retreated to my safe place.

The least dangerous place. Safety didn’t exist anymore.

“The rules matter. A lot. The Left Hand harps on them enough, none of us would think about breaking them.” They’d never want us to be Opal if we couldn’t be trusted to keep our weapons to ourselves in the palace. I slid down the wall. “And you don’t look like me.”

Where I was all angles, Maud was soft with round hips and dimples. Her light-brown, hooded eyes were nothing like my black ones, and she’d a waist-long plait of shiny black hair that must’ve been a trial to braid in the morning. Her button nose had never been broken like mine.

We shared the same rough hands though. Years of work and blisters.

Not that I couldn’t look like her with a little help.

“You’re prettier,” I said after a long moment. Maud was unsettled and needed the compliment. “And much shorter. They could turn around and not even see you, unless they ducked.”

She laughed. “They set off the bells. You’d have heard them.”

“You could’ve left. I wouldn’t have minded. Whoever owned those hands is someone I’ll have to fight eventually.” I pulled the tray of food toward me.

“I need you to be Opal.” She let out a low, long breath and cupped the mug in her hands. “I need the promotion, and I can’t help you, not really, but…”

She twirled her free hand in the air like she was gathering cobwebs, eyebrows rising to her hairline, and her gaze drifted to the mice fighting over the last of the sausage. She smiled as tight-lipped as she had when we first met.

“You’re being awfully nice.” I chewed, mulling over my words. I trusted her about as far as I could throw her—soon as our wants didn’t line up, she’d have no reason to help me beyond her duties as servant—but she was all right. Cooked better than anyone I’d ever known and picked out my clothes better than me. “I’ve never had a servant before.”

“I know.” She patted down her hair. “You’re not subtle.”

“Might’ve been a bit hasty.”

“Not all competitors are as nice as you.” She fixed me with a narrow-eyed stare, all seriousness and in a tone I was sure no servant ever used with an employer. “We talk about you—we have favorites—and we can’t help you, but hurting someone without anyone noticing is an art in Our Queen’s court. She can’t stand it, but no one can risk outright warfare. You’re an etiquette travesty, but you’re polite about it, and that goes a long way.”

“And the folks who’ve had servants before aren’t nice?” The invited were nobles or rich. They ignored the servants, pointed and took them for granted. They were the ones who needed to be told we couldn’t hurt servants. “The invited?”

Maud hummed. She gathered up her skirts and rose, mostly back to sorts. “Would you like a bath?”

“No, thank you.” I raised my voice so it carried out the window. Let the other auditioners come. “I’m exhausted. Going straight to sleep.”

She arched an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

Rath and Maud were cut from the same cloth—too quick to be lied to and too clever to not pick up on signals. I’d bet my mask she was as clever with numbers as him. In a different life, she might’ve been more like him.

I shut one eye, finished eating, and nailed the door shut again. By the time I snuffed out my lone candle, my eye was ready for the dark.

Silence settled over my room. Curls of smoke from chimneys drifted through the shutters. I crept behind the bathtub, eyeing the makeshift dummy in my bed, and waited. The dark closed in, bleeding into the corners of my eyes. I shook my head.

No shadows here.

The window creaked, bells chiming softly in the wind. I let out a slow, quiet breath and slid my knives into my palms. I was faster with them than the ax, and I needed to be fast. A hand with pale white fingertips peeking out of a black glove curled around the bells. Silence returned.

I could deal with people. I gripped my knives tighter, breathing in the smoke, and shifted to my toes. I had dealt with people.

And would.

I flattened myself between the bathtub and wall. The auditioner who’d come to kill me paused, staring at my bed from the window. Anyone would’ve caught my trickery by candlelight, but with clouds filtering unsteady moonlight through the shutters and shadows playing across the walls, they’d assume the lump of blankets was breathing. Hopefully.

The auditioner unhooked the bells. Another arm slithered between the wires and unhooked the broken shutters. The white ribbon stitched across Eight’s mask glowed in the darkness. Halfway through the window, hands flat on the floor and feet still dangling outside, he stopped and stared at my bed. I leaned forward.

Lady, guard me.

I lunged. Eight raised his head in time to catch my knee in his teeth. His head snapped back, and his arms collapsed, dropping to the floor. I buried my knife into the back of his neck. He gurgled.

“Sorry that hurt.” I twisted the knife.

His last few breaths left him in a rush.