Nocturna (A Forgery of Magic #1)(25)

Finn’s panting broke her out of the memory. She pulled her knees to her chest. “I’m safe here,” she murmured to herself with shaking breaths. “He’ll never recover, never be able to find me. Just calm down.”

But her own words couldn’t slow her trembling heart. Her palms and face were slick with sweat. She screwed her eyes shut and counted. Counting helped.

By the time she counted down from ten twice over, her pulse had finally calmed, and she’d made her decision.

No one was ever going to own her like that again. Not Kol, not Ignacio, not a maldito soul. She was going to do the unthinkable. She was going to finesse the vanishing cloak right out of the palace. If she died in the process, then that would be that. But if she pulled it off, Kol would never see it coming. She certainly wouldn’t expect Finn to use the cloak to catch her unawares and cut her throat. Then she’d have her propio back and she’d leave this city for good.

Finn stifled the yawn building in the back of her throat. There was no time for rest when she had a heist to plan. She would sleep when she was dead.

And that, she thought, might be sooner than she’d anticipated.





8


The Pig


Finn couldn’t help but think that this must be punishment for stealing those pork skewers.

She’d done many strange things in her short career of thievery. She’d changed her face into that of a woman whose family suspected she had been murdered by her husband. Finn had haunted the husband for two whole weeks before he finally cracked. Turned out, the family had been right.

She’d done many odd things, but this was likely the strangest.

Finn was inside a dead pig.

It turned out that there was some fancy dinner at the palace. The occasion gave her an opening: a gargantuan puffer pig to be delivered to the royal kitchens. The chef himself was a stone carver, and he’d constructed a clay box for the hog to be transported and then baked in.

So Finn had snuck into the renowned chef’s kitchen and wriggled herself into the great split in the boar’s stomach. Surrounded by an array of fragrant herbs and spices, she waited until the guards delivered the pig and the servants carried it into the palace kitchens. There she heard the sizzling of pans and the bubbling of pots brought to a boil. Now she just needed them to leave the crated pig somewhere while she escaped.

“Into the oven, then!” the boy carrying the crate said. Finn’s heart sputtered in her chest.

The servants grunted and Finn felt the crate being lifted higher and pushed forward. A sudden wave of heat rushed over her.

Damn, damn, damn!

Should she burst out of the pig and the crate? Would she have to kill them? Where the hell would she hide the bodies?

“Not just yet!” a voice boomed. “Leave it in the pantry for now. Bake it in an hour.”

“Sorry, jefe!” Finn heard the boy say. “Right away!”

Finn felt the crate being pulled out of the oven. The stifling heat receded. Sweat poured down her face. She hoped these people liked their pork salty.

With that, the crate was lowered onto the floor. She heard them retreat from the crate, shutting a door behind them. Silence swaddled her. It was now or never.

She got on all fours, her back grazing the pig’s cavernous rib cage. Finn rocked sideways, her cheek pressed to the pig’s wet, meaty flank. The pig finally rolled onto its side. From within, Finn thrust her hand upward, lifting the lid off the crate and lowering it to the ground. With another swipe, she collapsed one side of the crate to give her space to exit.

She crawled out of the slit in the pig’s belly, tearing it even wider in her haste. When she was finally free, she’d never been happier to lie on the dirty, hard floor. Covered in a layer of seasoning and moisture, she smelled like a walking kitchen.

Finn rose from the ground and resettled the boar into its former position. She stepped back and took stock of the damage. The skin was mashed down on the side she’d rolled it onto.

“There goes the dinner presentation,” she said. With careful flicks of her hands she reconstructed the crate wall she’d collapsed. She lowered the lid back over it and set to work. The pantry was bigger than her rented room, with wall-to-wall shelves of pickled spices and herbs. She felt around the walls, looking for what Kol had told her to find.

Before sending her off, Kol had provided her with a map and told her how to access the secret passageways of the palace.

“Why are you telling me this?” Finn had asked, her eyes narrowing.

“I want my cloak, Face Thief. I’ve got no chance of getting it if you’re too thick-headed to get around the palace unseen. Find the switches hidden in the walls and you’ll get into the secret passages.”

She pulled the map out from under her shirt. It was stained with very expensive seasonings, but still good to read.

She checked for the switch behind each bottled spice but found nothing but sandy, stone walls. Finn moved to inspect the wall behind the pantry door. Just when she got behind it, it swung open. She flattened herself against the wall, the open door blocking her from sight. She heard a voice murmuring as bottles of spices pinged against each other. Then they were gone.

That was too close. She needed to find the passageway or she’d be stuck here until someone found her. Then she saw it. There, half obscured by a bottle of pickled garlic, was a statue the size of her little finger jutting from the wall—a bird with outstretched wings.