Mask of Shadows (Untitled #1)(34)

Where Lord Horatio del Seve was.

Where the lords who’d withdrawn their soldiers from Nacea and left us to die were.

Who all owed me the blood of thousands and had yet to pay up.

Lady, guide me. With the right push, Elise de Farone could tell me everything I needed.





Twenty


Elise set down her pen when I entered. Her hair was loose today and the window behind her open. Tight curls bounced over her shoulders, strands as dark as a midnight pansy, and two pearl combs shaped like Our Queen’s jagged lightning bolts kept her hair from falling into her eyes. She rested her chin on a fist.

Flirting with her would be easy.

I bowed. “Lady de Farone.”

“Twenty-Three.” She nodded to me, the azurite powder lining her eyes tilting up like ocean waves. Silver dotted the tips like salt. “You’re still alive.”

“I’d hate to miss studying with you.” I took my seat and shifted my shoulders back, chest slightly out and tunic falling off my shoulders till the base of my neck was bare. I needed to know if she was truly interested in me or even could be. “You look lovely.”

“Thank you,” she said, “but we’re here for you, not me.”

“And I continue to wonder what kind act I performed to grant me time to see you.”

She laughed, covering her mouth with her hand. I let myself relax.

She opened her mouth to speak, shook her head, and laughed again. I picked up the piece of charcoal.

“My apologies.” I pulled the little booklet of phrases toward me, ignoring the scribbles of another auditioner—another person Elise was probably as kind to—and tapped a section near the end. “We left off here.”

“We did.” Elise reached across the table and gently pulled the charcoal from my fingers.

I glanced up. Her glasses slid down her nose, revealing the dusting of dark-red freckles dotting her face from round cheek to round cheek. A small scar clipped her upper lip.

“Why are you flirting with me?” she asked. “I loathe politics, and I’ve no time to get tangled up in some Left Hand auditioner game.”

“No game. I like you.” It wasn’t a complete lie. I took the charcoal back, carefully brushing my fingers against her hand. The ring I’d stolen rested comfortably on her right forefinger. “And you’re the prettiest person I get to talk to these days.”

“Please, I’ve met Lady Emerald.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re terrible at this. You’ll need to get better before you can survive court.”

Good—now I knew Elise’s likes. And they were good. Lady Emerald was a jewel among mortals and dangerous as death itself.

“You could teach me,” I said, leaning forward and running my tongue along the cut on my lips.

Her gaze dropped to my mouth and darted back up to my eyes. “I’ll teach you to read and write. I don’t flirt with people who could kill me as easily as they could kiss me.”

Fine, but she was as attracted to me as I was to her at least.

“Fair enough.” I traced the lines of the words I was supposed to be learning. “But I wouldn’t dream of killing you.”

She caught on and glanced away, brown skin warming along her cheeks. “Write down the alphabet, and we’ll see what you remember.”

I did. My letters were a little shaky, but they were correct. She watched me, head angled high enough that I couldn’t see her eyes through the glare on her glasses. I doodled “Ignasi” on the paper while she looked over the alphabet and words I’d learned to write last time. “Good.” Elise set aside the paper, shivering when our hands touched. “I suppose we can work on penmanship later.”

“How do you write ‘Erlend?’” I asked, tapping my scrawled “Ignasi” and pursing my lips in the image of feigned confusion. “And your name? What do the titles look like?”

She hummed and nodded. “That would be more useful for you. Let’s start with Our Queen and the Left Hand, and then we’ll move through the ranks of people you’ll probably meet.”

She pulled out a blank sheet of paper and began scrawling names. I recognized Our Queen Marianna da Ignasi. I’d prayed for her as a kid, writing her name in blood and burning the pages so The Lady would get them. The rest I could guess at—Ruby was short, Emerald was longer than I thought it would be based on how it sounded, and Amethyst looked ridiculous even in Elise’s pretty handwriting.

“Will you write Opal too?” I asked. Best to know what it looked like now since it would be my name if I lived. “And all those Erlend nobles? I know the Alonian ones.”

“Igna nobles.” Elise continued writing, making the letters separate and clear. A handful of the names were harsher, the tip of the charcoal digging into the paper with each jagged flourish. Someone had pissed off Elise. “We’re all members of Igna now.”

Political and polite even when they’d angered her. I copied her as she wrote down more names, only recognizing some—del Contes, del Farone, del Seve. Horatio del Seve was among Elise’s collection of names that were more stab wounds than words. I pulled the paper toward me.

“Not so fast.” She grabbed the edge of it. “I’ll say a name and you point to it. Let’s see if you can sight-read them.”