Mask of Shadows (Untitled #1)(57)

“Opal.”

I laughed, the low pitch catching me off guard. “Optimistic of you.”

“I’m an optimistic person—the thief who would be Opal.” Elise pulled my arm into her lap again and leaned out of her chair till our knees were pressed together. I could taste the sharp black tea on her breath. “And if you die today, I want to remember you in every way I can. Especially since I don’t even know your name.”

“Sallot.” It escaped me in a rush. She wanted to think of me when all was said and done, whether I was Opal or not. It filled me with a desperate need to move and speak and scream it to the rising sun. “Remember me as Sallot.”

“A name and a face,” said Elise. “Good farewell presents.”

I laughed again, and Elise raised a hand to my face, fingers skimming my jaw. The sound died in my throat.

“I wish I’d met you properly.” We’d met days ago, and I’d thrown all that time away. I wanted to close the gap between us and know if she tasted like tea, memorize the line of her fingers and subtle flick of her wrist as she wrote, listen to the soft, delicate sound of her breath between each word. I wanted all the things I thought I could never have.

“Sallot.”

The sound of my name on her lips cut through every last barrier keeping my words inside my head. “Elise, I like you.”

Her eyes widened. “I would hope so, or I’d be rather embarrassed.”

“No, you don’t—” I said and stopped. I grabbed her hand, pressing my forehead to hers so the words would reach her even if my voice softened and fled. “You don’t understand. I hate Erlend. My entire life’s been stuck in the shadow of Erlend’s crimes, and I didn’t like you. I did, but I didn’t realize it. I kept trying to think of you as the same as the others, the lords and the ladies who started the war and razed my home, but you’re not like them. Not at all. And I’ve waited for so long for some chance to show them up and help Our Queen, and it’s here, but you’re here too, and I—”

Elise closed the distance between us and pressed a light, chaste kiss against the corner of my mouth.

“You shouldn’t kiss people who could kill you,” I whispered, all the blood in my veins singing her name and urging me to kiss her.

“Don’t presume to know what I should or shouldn’t do,” she whispered back. “I know what I want, and that was a kiss for good luck. Do not die—you’ve an awful lot left to do and even more to explain to me.”

I nodded. “I do owe you some explanations.”

“Tonight then.” She turned in her chair till her back was flush against my chest and her hair brushed my chin with every breath. “Until then, something to remember me by.”

Elise picked up her brush again. She dragged the ink across my arm in small sharp strokes. Drips turned into wispy letters under her fingers, and illegible scrawls bloomed into words I knew I’d seen but couldn’t place, blackening my skin from fingertips to elbow. She curled over my arm, and her lips seared my palm.

“There.” She leaned against my shoulder instead of moving aside, ear pressed to my chest, and sighed.

A faint black lip print shone in the center of my hand, her words spiraling out around it.

“What’s it say?” I asked, resisting every desire to tilt my head and taste the answer on her lips.

Tonight. If I lived.

Elise chuckled, the sound ringing in my ears. She blushed and rubbed the ink from her lips with a thumb. “It’s a poem.”

“But what’s it say?”

“All the more reason for you to survive tonight.” Elise stared at me over her shoulder, lips set in a mock-serious, ink-smeared smirk. “It’ll keep me in your thoughts. I’m very selfish, you see.”

“Not even a little bit.” I grinned. I wasn’t likely to stop thinking of her unless I got dumped in the Caracol. “Least tell me the book.”

“The Way of Melting Snow. Isidora let me borrow it.” She glanced at the clock and shoved the pen into my hands. “Quick—your name.”

I flexed my fingers, afraid the ink would crumble like ash. She wanted some part of me on her for longer than a heartbeat, and the thought rendered me senseless, unable to even recall what letters made up my name. “It won’t be pretty.”

“I don’t want it to be pretty. I want it to be yours.”

I picked up the pen with a shaking hand and wrote my name on her arm, splattering extra ink across her wrist and leaving a spotty trail of black from letter to letter. I was sloppy and sharp, none of Elise’s soft curves. She smiled down at it.

I held our last glance in my mind as close as the ink on my skin.





Thirty-Three


The second test was a tense affair. Two was first, eyes darting over every dish and cup placed in front of her. The Left Hand watched from across the table, and Ruby tapped Two’s fingers with his spoon each time she raised a piece of food to her nose to sniff.

“Subtly,” he drawled. “It’s very rude to insinuate your host is attempting to kill you.”

Ruby glanced at me when he said it or at least turned his face to my corner. The Left Hand hadn’t told the guards to stop me when they let me enter. I stood in the corner meant for Maud, arms trembling after holding a pitcher of wine still for so long, and they let me be. Except for Ruby.