Mask of Shadows (Untitled #1)(83)

“Lay her here.” Winter picked something up from the floor and snapped a piece of cloth. “Box there—opened.”

Cloth whispered over the stones, heels smacking wood. Five’s familiar quiet steps drew closer to me. The memory of Amethyst’s training still in my muscles, I pulled myself up by my fingers and peeked under the window screen.

Five stood over the prone Isidora dal Abreu. He was dressed as a server, but his tray had been traded for a sword. The room was plain and efficient, a writing desk in one corner and the walls lined with bookshelves. Isidora’s orange blossom water rested on the desk. Ruby’s limp body lay next to it.

He groaned. Five was on him in a heartbeat, crushing Ruby’s fingers under his heel.

“Nothing to protest yet.” Five leaned over him. “Haven’t even started.”

Shit.

I’d missed it. The runes lining his eyes, the shared freckles and eyes, the closeness, the anger at my outburst when he’d changed my disqualification to a probation. Ruby had lost everything.

His life as Rodolfo da Abreu.

He was the perfect Ruby—unquestionably loyal to Our Queen, prepared to do anything for her, and undoubtedly had been living locked away on family lands, keeping his entire existence a lonely secret. Being Ruby gave him back his life, gave him back a purpose.

And meant Five had every reason to want him dead.

Winter rolled his eyes at Five and sighed. I couldn’t think of him as Elise’s father any longer, not if this would end with his blood on my hands. I’d expected something suspicious but not this. Not tonight. “No broken bones. Shadows only take the flesh.”

Five turned, eyes bright and fingers twitching. “I know.”

“Then stop.” Winter picked up the water glass and turned toward my window. “We need this set before Nicolas arrives.”

That was it then. The last folks who knew how to create the shadows were to be killed as though they’d lost control of one they’d made. If the people thought Our Queen was a fraud who’d never banished magic and shadows in the first place, and she was making shadows on top of that, they’d tear Igna down before she could even mount a defense. Weylin and his lords could swoop in and take over without a fuss.

I ducked and flattened myself against the wall. Winter opened the window screen, tossed the water out, and took a deep breath of the breeze. I slid my hands over my head slow as I could. The orange slices splashed into the water far beneath us.

“You said I could do it!” Five’s voice pitched, wilder and more frightening than I’d ever heard it, all his careful cleverness gone. Metal clattered against stone—Ruby’s mask hitting the ground. Hard. “I suffered through days of your ‘stay low and stay alive’ shit with those fools you foisted on me, and I’m not walking out of here without his head and hands.”

Winter whipped around, window screen falling. I jammed one finger in the way before it could latch shut.

Five was replaying his brother’s death. When Ruby had been Rodolfo, he’d gifted the Erlend mages with a taste of their own medicine by flaying them like the shadows flayed their victims, and now Five would return the favor.

Two on one weren’t the worst odds, but I had to look after Isidora and Ruby. And Five wasn’t well.

The hitch in his voice, I knew too well. Ruby would not leave alive so long as Five still breathed.

“You’ll leave when I say you leave and with what I say you can have.” Winter moved away from the window. “He’ll be dead either way.”

“Shadows flayed the living.” Five grinned, pulling off his coat and revealing the paring knives strapped to his side. He pulled back his sword. “Three thrashed, but I’m going to pin you.”

I lurched up, muscles burning, and quietly shoved the screen out of the way. Ruby swatted Five’s sword aside.

“I’ve been to worse parties.” Metal muffled Ruby’s voice, and blood dripped out from under his chin. “You finally figured it out then?”

Buying time. Good. I dragged myself onto the windowsill, legs dangling out, and paused. Winter and Five faced Ruby, and I’d no weapon. I picked up the empty glass.

“This is it.” Five kicked Ruby onto his back. He punctuated each word with a well-placed kick to the kidneys, ribs, stomach. “Don’t be predictable, don’t be predictable, don’t share the same drink every single meal and have the same damn schedule every night. You made me give up my brother when you couldn’t even do the same for your sister, and look what your carelessness has done to her. You’re bad at hiding your tracks, Rodolfo.”

“You’re bad at kicking.” Ruby struggled to rise but tilted his head toward Isidora. “I suppose this is about that nonsense with your brother then?”

Five slapped Ruby with the broad side of the sword. Ruby went flying, arms weak and legs trembling. I inhaled, drawing myself fully into the window, and gripped the glass tighter. Ruby collapsed.

“Nonsense!” Five yanked Ruby’s hands in front of them and crushed Ruby’s wrists under his boots. “You stripped his arms before you took his head. He was alive.”

“Yes, he lived through a flaying like the victims of his shadows did. Very poetic of me.” Ruby beckoned Winter forward and away from Isidora—never looking at me, but he had to know I was here, had to be hyperaware of everything happening. “But what are you doing here?”