Mask of Shadows (Untitled #1)(46)

Wouldn’t hurt looking nice. Elise was always pretty, and she’d expect nothing less from me.

Maud hummed. “You could pass for Honorable Opal if you’d better clothes.”

I took off before Maud could say anything else. Honorable. Such a better title than Lady or Lord.

I didn’t bow to Elise this time. Flirting was over. I’d be equal to her as Opal, and I owed her nothing. She’d surely lose interest in me soon as I stopped flattering her.

But then I’d have to live with her glowering at me in court day in and day out.

“You’re scowling,” Elise said softly. “And you’ve not spoken a word except ‘yes.’”

I startled, guilt gnawing at my ribs. “Big scowling road agents with dual knives and masks ugly as their manners?”

“I was embellishing that night.” She set down her pen, lips set in a severe line. “I know our interactions are largely exaggeration, but it’s obvious you’re upset.”

“I’m not upset—only thinking, and I don’t want to talk about it.” I shrugged off my anxiety. I wanted to move, climb, watch Seve sip his evening tea and shake all the well-kept secrets from his bones.

“You don’t have to tell me anything.” She sighed, picking up the paper again and turning it over so she could write down a new series of words. “Read these.”

Of course I didn’t have to tell her anything. I read the words aloud, mind on Seve, and by the time tutoring was over, we’d said nothing to each other except the words I was learning.

I shook away the aching worry rising up in my chest as Elise’s hollow goodbye rang in my ears and rose from the table.

A hand on my shoulder held me back. The scent of lemons filled my nose.

“Erlend’s traditions remain. It’s unseemly for me to flirt with anyone not a nobleman, but men are not the only people I am attracted to, and I’m tired of keeping quiet about it.” Her fingers tightened, barely there but burning through my dress and searing her fingerprints into my skin. Her voice dropped. “You flirted back.”

I shuddered. “I can’t have been the first one.”

“Of course not, but my father would have less cause to complain if I were flirting with Opal,” she said. “It would be politically savvy.”

Of course her father would be so set in his ways he’d not accept Elise as she was.

“What’s his name?” So I could avoid him forever.

She sighed, half smile grim. “Nevierno—it’s old Erlenian. He’s exceptionally traditional and spectacularly furious right now because he has a cold and can’t stand to let Isidora anywhere near him.”

An Erlend named after ice and cold would hate depending on an Alonian.

“You hate politics.” I locked my knees, refusing to turn even though I knew what she meant. “And even when I’m Opal, no guarantee we’ll still like each other.”

“I like you,” she said. “And I only want you to know that.”

I opened the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”





Twenty-Seven


Seve was in the bath when I leapt into my perch. I whispered every Nacean name I could remember into the night. He would know why I’d come for him.

And then he had to die quietly.

A dead lord in the middle of Left Hand auditions would be suspicious. I only had to be less suspicious and they’d never know it was me.

I’d have to keep him from screaming. Couldn’t cut out his tongue—too much blood, too little words, and a bit suspicious.

I pulled on my gloves, turned my mask inside out to hide the number, took out my knives, and crept toward his roof. The servant poured his tea and left, and I dropped onto the roof as the door shut. I crept around to the side of his little nook, keeping in the dark across from his chair. A thousand thoughts flickered through my mind and fidgeted in my fingers. He leaned into the light.

He was cave-fish pale, blue veins marbling his carefully maintained white skin. A sheen glistened on his cheeks, catching the light with every movement, and he clutched his silk robe tighter around his long neck. Only one rune marred his hands—the jagged tail of a symbol I didn’t know peeking out from under his sleeve. He brushed a hand through his hair and straightened his gold spectacles. His eyes darted to the small mirror hanging on the wall. He checked the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes.

At least I knew how to keep him compliant.

“Apologies, Lord del Seve,” I said in Erlenian, coming up behind him and covering his mouth with a hand. “You scream, I carve up your pretty face and leave you for the night crawlers. You stay quiet, I reward you for your time.”

Seve nodded. A bead of sweat dripped down his nose, seeping through my glove. I jerked my hand away and rubbed it over my thigh. Disgusting.

“What do you want?” He rolled his neck, fingers drifting to his pocket. “I hold meetings for anyone who asks all day.”

Playing it unconcerned, like I wouldn’t notice him going for a weapon.

“You wouldn’t have agreed to meet me.” I tapped his hand with my knife. “Sit. Stay still. Answer my questions and I won’t hurt you.”

He sat, hands clenched in his lap. “What do you want?”

“Who ordered the withdrawal of troops from Nacea?” I leveled my knife with his neck, the tip nipping his chin, and stared at him through my mask. Let him think I was a shadow come to claim what he owed. If Our Queen had known what he’d done, he’d have died years ago. His death was long overdue. “Your soldiers were there and then they weren’t. Same with all the others. Why?”