Mask of Shadows (Untitled #1)(42)

She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

“You keep doing that.” I smiled wide enough so she could see it through my mask even though most of me was still fuming. And confused—Erlends never apologized. “I didn’t know nobles could do that.”

“Could do what?” She narrowed her eyes behind her glasses and tilted her chin up.

“Apologize.” I tapped the table with my right hand—drawing her attention away from her collection of supplies—and swiped a handful of paper and charcoal sticks with my left hand. She didn’t notice. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Elise laid her fingers over mine, dark smudges shadowing her skin. “What? You’ve got the look of someone thinking of what to say.”

I hid my laugh with a cough. “All those names you taught me yesterday worked out well.”

“Really?” She sat up straighter, resting her chin on her other hand. “Did you write them down, or did you recognize them?”

The push and pull, like scamming a mark. Enough flattery to get her to talk but not enough to get her suspicious.

“Really.” I met her eyes and ignored her other hand still on mine. “With all the messengers running around, I recognized a few names. Your handwriting’s better though. And I met Lady dal Abreu. Her husband’s Lord del Contes?”

Elise nodded. “Do you know how to write her name?”

“No.” I pushed the paper toward her, hoping to get her talking about the divide between the nobles.

She pushed it back to me. “I’ll spell it. You write it down.”

Lady, she must’ve been an annoying child.

I spelled the name right at least. She set me to copying letters and words after that, working on my writing. I traced the lines of her name onto the side of the paper.

“You always live here?” I asked.

“No.” She wrote out new exercises for me. The books stacked next were history and medical books, words I didn’t recognize stitched to the fronts. She flipped through one and stopped on a page full of calculations. She must’ve been teaching another auditioner about numbers. “I lived at home until Our Queen requested my presence. She needed tutors and scribes, and I wanted to see court.” She paused, fingers tracing the tear on one page. “I preferred studying with others, and the war left everything…”

She trailed off, the achingly familiar sound of bad memories in her voice.

“Ruined?”

She shook her head. “Damaged. If it were ruined, it wouldn’t have been fixable. I was too young to be a proper scribe, but Our Queen wanted people who remembered the war, and Isidora agreed to take me in. I think she just wanted another sibling, something to focus on that wasn’t grief. Father didn’t think Hinter was a place for me then anyway—a broken land full of broken men back from war. He wants me to go back now, but returning home feels final. I’m still not ready.”

“I remember the sounds—catapults and crashing rock, screaming, bodies hitting the ground.” She shook her head. “I didn’t realize how scared I was until I left. I’m responsible for everyone in Hinter, and I know I could never protect them from that. Not without help, so Our Queen called and I answered.”

The chasm in my heart usually reserved for Nacea pitched. Elise wasn’t old enough to have damned Nacea. Living off the legacy, sure, but she’d no part in it. She’d lost things too—her mother, her home, her childhood.

I reached across the table and squeezed her hand. She returned the touch.

How easy it was to recognize a pain you knew.

“I’m glad you didn’t see the shadows,” I said and meant it. No one deserved that but especially not Elise. Especially knowing—actually knowing—the scars of our childhood still lived in her too. I smiled back at her. “But I’d like to hear about living with Our Queen and Lord del Contes and all. What’s life at court like?”

At least prying wouldn’t drag up all her bad memories.

“Hectic.” She handed me a new list of words. “Most of the high court lives here year-round, and everyone else is constantly coming and going. Lord del Contes likes to wander—I’d swear he knows everyone on the grounds.”

And yet I’d never seen him.

“How am I supposed to scare nobles into submission when I’m Opal if they’re not here?”

“So humble,” she said dryly.

“You don’t like me for my humility.” She liked me because I was dangerous and new to her. I was a mystery. Safe but dangerous enough to pique her rebellious interests.

“And yet.” She paused to correct my writing—too sharp again, a point where there should’ve been a curve—and held up another new list. It was a miracle she’d not shown me every word in existence already. “I am not fond of arrogance. Perhaps I don’t like every aspect of you.”

I frowned. “You flirt a lot for not liking me.”

“Get used to holding this but no ink yet.” She swapped out my charcoal for a brush pen. “I said an aspect of you. Everyone has flaws.” Tipping her chin down, she glared at me over her spectacles, somehow looking down at me despite both of us sitting. “Like my mistake earlier.”

Only nobles could be helpful and infuriating all at once.