Mask of Shadows (Untitled #1)(41)

Maybe, with Seve so close at hand and so close to dead, my memories of Nacea and shadows wouldn’t wake me.





Twenty-Four


Maud woke me up with a sharp rap on the door. Another night, another tutoring session with Elise de Farone.

I rubbed my side. All my jumping about today had awakened the ache in my stitches. I fiddled with the silver cuffs in my pocket. I’d never had something of Nacea to carry with me.

I bathed and got dressed in silence. The quiet was familiar and welcome. No one playing word games or trying to kill me. Nothing to worry about but my own thoughts.

“Where’s the parlor for tutoring?” I made an effort to straighten my hair under the mask, stomach uneasy.

“I’ll lead you,” Maud said over the changing screen. “Don’t worry. You have plenty of time to get ready for your tutor.”

I frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

“Only that you put an awful lot of care into your looks when you go to tutoring.” Maud hummed softly. “More than you do any other time.”

“Such a bitter tongue for such a sweet face.” I straightened my mask again and shook out the long hem of my dress. Wasn’t anything wrong with me caring about what Elise thought.

“Shush.” Scowling the whole way, Maud led me out of my room and down a path.

The air was fragrant as an apothecary. Mint leaves ruffled in the breeze and wind fresh from the orangery blew over our shoulders. Little glass lanterns cast wavy, colored lines from their perches in the overhanging branches, and each footstep was muffled by the carpet of well-cared-for grass. A short, long building glowed with light at the end of the path. The palace spared no expenses.

Wherever they came from.

“Through that door.” She gestured to the building and stomped away, nose in the air.

I took a breath, shaking out my limbs and holding my sore side. Elise looked up as I entered.

A net of gold fine as fishing line held her curls at the nape of her neck. She wore no cosmetics today, and her tunic was plain—long and black, falling in a flow of shadows around her knees, every shade of night mixed within the threads. Pale gold flecked the high collar, and her tightly laced boots covered her leggings. Each movement drew my eyes to the smooth curves of her arms, her hips, and the lines of her crossed legs.

I bowed, flexing my hands.

“I told you,” Elise said with a sigh. “You can stop doing that.”

“They’re teaching me etiquette for a reason.” I stayed bowed, hand out and waiting. Her fingers slid over mine till I could gently grip her wrist the way Erlend nobles did when greeting Erlend ladies. I pressed my lips to her knuckles, shaken by the warmth in her hands and the pleasant brush of her skin against mine. An unfamiliar heat pooled in my stomach. “You smell like lemons today.”

The sharp scent of spring fit her so well.

“I use it to remove ink stains.” She shifted her hand, fingers brushing my lips, and pulled back. “Today?”

“You wore rosewater perfume when we first met.” I took another deep breath, the bite of lemons already fading. “I remember.”

“You remember what I smelled like the first time we met?”

“That night changed my life.” I flexed my hand, off-balance by the prickling feeling coursing up my arm. The warmth of her skin lingered.

She flushed. “That’s a bit of an overstatement.”

“No.” I’d found the poster in her purse for the auditions that night, but thinking I was talking about her would seal whatever feelings she had for me. I needed the history and rumors she knew, and I’d no better way to get them. Wasn’t like lemon was a bad smell either. Pleasant. “It’s really not.”

“Still.” She hid behind a tall book bound in exquisite leather. “We shouldn’t waste time—best to show the Left Hand you’re learning quickly.”

I grinned. “Of course.”

We repeated last night’s lesson with new words, moving through prewritten lists. Halfway through, Elise stopped. She dropped the last word she’d made me read—pretentious.

“It’s odd,” Elise said. “You don’t speak like you can’t read.”

There it was.

I rested my chin on my hands like her. “How am I supposed to sound?”

“Common” was the answer. Merchants and higher-ups said it enough without ever saying it. Rath had been turned down for plenty of jobs he could do because he sounded like an orphaned commoner with no education. Reading was well and good, but people didn’t believe you unless you sounded how they wanted.

And one could sound the part. Spouting off common slang one moment and throwing out old pretentious words the next was part of living in two different circles.

Reading didn’t teach you words like “pretentious” and “hypothetical.” People said them all the time. Seeing them on paper didn’t magically make you know what they meant. It helped, but it wasn’t the only way.

“I’m sorry.” Elise’s fingers tightened in her lap.

“Why?”

“I feel like I’ve insulted you.”

“You have.” I shrugged, pushing the papers we’d been using aside. “The way people talk doesn’t mean anything. Only means you had private tutors and a fancy education that taught you how to talk a certain way, and I didn’t.”