Mask of Shadows (Untitled #1)(82)

He wasn’t ill. He’d agreed to see Isidora too easily, and he was Winter. That was a plot if I’d ever heard one—a long game coming to a head.

Missing this party to see Isidora was either the beginning or the end.

“I suppose.” Elise took a sip, drifting closer to me with each breath. “I knew he wouldn’t argue with me over it because you’re Opal, but he’d never be—”

“Generous and understanding?” I curled an arm around her waist and savored the warmth of her body against mine. “How long’s he been sick?”

Let it be the start. Let me not have to shatter her memories of him so soon, and let Our Queen learn of it quickly.

“Since summer.” She drawled the word like Ruby. “I hate it. He works all day and night, never speaking to anyone but his assistants and won’t see Isidora because it’s unseemly for a man of his stature to show weakness. Traditions have their place, but this is ridiculous.”

Erlend’s ideals had ruined more families than Nacean ones.

Horatio del Seve’s notes had mentioned waiting for winter, but the north wind at my back had nothing to do with the chill running down my spine. I had to get out of here. “I have to talk to Ruby.”

Elise frowned. “What?”

“I’ll be back. I promise.” I held her close, comforted in the fact that I’d see her again no matter what. “Talking to your father reminded me of something I meant to ask Ruby before he left.”

Even if I was wrong, he’d understand. And if I was right, hopefully it wasn’t too late.

“Go.” She sighed, long and sad, but smiled. “I should’ve realized I’d not have you to myself yet.”

I laced our fingers together, brought them to my false lips, and pressed our foreheads together. “I’ll make it up to you.”

I’d all the time and resources to do that. Soon as I figured out what Winter—her father—was up to, I could let Nicolas and Our Queen do as they wanted with it. It wasn’t my fault or Elise’s that her father was what he was. It wasn’t my fault that I had to do what I was about to do, but she couldn’t know my part in it. Not yet. Not if I was right.

Lady, let me be wrong.





Forty-Seven


Winter walked for ages. We passed through a dozen different buildings and wove our way toward the outskirts of the palace where the number of servants and guards thinned. He shared Elise’s round frame and dark curls, hair bound by a forest green ribbon trimmed in gold, and wore Erlend’s old colors hidden in the pleats and stitches of his clothes. He was easy to follow through the open walkways high above the forests where I’d lived as Twenty-Three. He finally stopped in a hallway populated by unlabeled, locked doors.

He slipped through a door and locked it behind him. Muffled voices echoed behind it.

I sighed. His faked illness, Seve’s note, and his life as Winter all pointed to some nasty plan brewing. Seve had been told to wait for Winter, but there’d been no notion of what the waiting was for. I darted back to the open-air path I’d followed and glanced over the edge. I’d not thought to bring lock picks to a party.

The ends of supports jutted out from the building, a broken pathway three stories above the swirling waters of the Caracol.

Best not fall then.

I leapt over the wall and onto a beam. Dimly lit windows shone in the darkness, and I stepped onto the next support. The remnants of an old bird’s nest crumbled under my feet, falling off the metal-enforced wood, and a handful of bird bones tumbled into the river. I focused on a far window as Winter’s voice leaked through the paper screen. A line of marching turtles decorated the bottom of the screen.

Turtles meant a Royal Physician—Isidora dal Abreu.

“Remarkable,” Winter said, Erlenian polished as Elise’s but the drawl all his own. His voice wasn’t rough or weak. “How did you notice? I can hardly tell when they speak, much less drink.”

“Noticing things you miss is my job.” Five’s familiar voice cut through any lingering doubts in my mind. Winter had bad intentions, and this was his endgame. “Celso and I used to do the same, and with him at her side, no one would ever think to poison her.”

I tilted my ear toward the window. Five was working for him, with him, and had to be talking about Isidora and Ruby. They did share drinks—they’d shared water tonight.

Hand-delivered by a blond, pale-eyed server.

A body hit the floor. Isidora let out a slurred cry, and Five laughed. I bit back the anger bubbling up my throat. Whatever he was plotting, she’d no place in it. She was a physician.

One of the good ones. One who’d never broken her oath and harmed someone even in the middle of war.

“Restrain yourself.” Winter crossed the room. “Your little revenge fantasy has already forced me to move well ahead of schedule. We need to make this believable.”

“Fantasy?” Five’s voice pitched, and metal clattered against metal. “I’ve already done this once. You messed up your end. That’s your problem.”

I curled my fingers around the window’s edge and pulled myself up. Memories and finger bones weren’t enough for Five. He had to have more, had to have revenge for a mage who didn’t deserve it. But Rodolfo da Abreu was dead, and Isidora had nothing to do with her brother’s actions. Why take it out on her?