Mask of Shadows

by Linsey Miller

  Pulling the charcoal from my pocket, I drew a wide staring eye behind the key.

  And a dozen more—small narrowed pairs with pinprick pupils hidden on the wall behind his pillow; large eyes with their lids ripped away all staring at his bed; and a series of handprint-size eyes staring down at him from the ceiling over his bed.

  He could wipe the easy ones away in a heartbeat and fret over the hidden ones as soon as he lay down to sleep. He’d rip apart the room trying to find everything I’d touched.

  Removing the silver cuffs and tucking them into the clean safety of my pockets, I rolled up my sleeves and shoved his bed out of the way. I covered the floor in charcoal and created a pool of rippling, dusty shadow where the dark under his bed would be. I left two bare slits for eyes in the center and dragged two spindly arms up the wall, jagged fingers reaching for Five’s head. Safe behind their walls and armies, Erlend hadn’t feared them.

  If Five wanted shadows, I’d give him shadows.

  He’d no right to invoke their brutality.

  I pushed the bed back into place, made sure the shadow drawing was completely hidden, and washed my hands in the washbasin. A wooden memory box sat on a table next to Five’s bed—a tradition older than Igna, Alona, and Erlend combined, usually packed with memories of the recently dead. It rattled as I moved past it. They were supposed to be buried a year after death, with the grief of death returned to the earth. But this box was old and well cared for. I pried it open.

  Finger bones. I’d seen enough during my time with Grell. Five had enough bones for two hands, and the edges were worn down to smooth polished points from constant touch. Constant prayers. I dropped them and closed the box. My stomach rolled.

  I locked the door with my picks and pushed the dismantled hands from my mind. Whatever Five was up to, it didn’t involve me and might even get him killed before I had to deal with him again. No one with a box of bones had peaceful intentions, even if they were a treasured memory. I tossed the charcoal into the woods.

  What a good day.

  Twenty-Six

  I made it to breakfast in time to stuff a roll into my pocket and be ushered to Emerald’s greenhouse. She vanished through the door, a wavering green blur through the damp glass, while her servant kept us outside. I leaned my back against the wall and glanced around—rooftops and tree branches, any nest for an archer. Four paced, his gaze always landing back on me. I ignored him.

  It wouldn’t do me any good to think of the others as people with their own lives and desires.

  It would only bring more nightmares.

  “You’ll go in one at a time,” Emerald’s servant said, holding open the door, “and remain inside for the duration.”

  “Thanks.” I slipped through the door before anyone else. I wasn’t staying outside in the open.

  Emerald smiled when she saw me, the skin near her ears wrinkling under her mask and giving it away. A table was set up in the middle of the building, and plants—green, prickly, smooth, striped, flowering, and dripping sap—were laid out for us. She gestured to the spread.

  “Eat the nonpoisonous ones.”

  Lady, help me. I wasn’t hungry for this. I nudged the hooded blue flowers aside with my sleeve, careful to keep them from brushing my skin. The mottled branch with white flowers went next, and I studied the yucca for a long while. This small piece wouldn’t kill me without cooking, but it would be unpleasant. That must count.

  I pushed it away. A bright-yellow dandelion was next in line. It looked like a dandelion, smelled like a dandelion, and it didn’t sting when I rubbed it against the inside of my wrist. I held it to my lips. Nothing. I set it aside.

  A pale purple trumpet flower gave off a foul scent. The leaves were dangerous and teethed, and I pushed it into the pile with the hooded flower and yucca. Anything with that scent wasn’t for eating.

  The final plant was a creeping, dull-green cactus sprouting violent pink flowers. The baker back in Tulen had one of these in her window box, and I’d never tried to eat it. I plucked one of the flowers, spied a speck of nectar at the base of it, and sniffed. It wasn’t much—a little sweetness under the normal scents of dirt and growth. I smeared it on the inside of my arm.

  “I’m not eating those.” I waved to the ones shoved aside and stared at my arm. I wasn’t itching or puffing up. I nibbled on the dandelion. “Tastes like grass.”

  Emerald nodded. “And the other one?”

  “Grass.” I chewed on the petal. “Flowery grass.”

  They could do with sweetening, but I wasn’t dying.

  “Stand here. Give nothing away.” Emerald cleared the table and laid out new pieces of the plants I’d been tested on.

  I was being tested on poisons and secret keeping then.

  No one died. Ten took forever but lived, and Fifteen nearly ate the hooded flowers. I nibbled on my roll the whole time, going over the layout of Seve’s life and roof in my head.

  Exhaustion dragged my eyelids down. I slipped away from the group and back to my room. I needed sleep, not manners and more bandages. I fell into bed without even removing my boots.

  “You need to wake up.”

  I jerked up, arms flying out and knife tearing through the air.

  Maud sighed across the room with my dinner in hand. “You have tutoring.”

  I dropped my knife. Little silver flecks spotted my sight, and I steadied myself. Blurry, fading memories of silver and blood, eyes in the darkness, prickled over my skin. I wrapped my arms around myself.

  I was finally going to get answers.

  I was finally going to make Seve beg. Blood owed and blood paid.

  “You look peaky.” Maud leaned in front of me, staying an arm’s length away, and narrowed her eyes. “How are your stitches?”

  I reared back. “Fine. I look how I always look.”

  “Malnourished and unkempt, yes,” Maud said with the air of superiority that reminded me more of an older sister scolding her sibling than a servant. Not like I’d been holding her to normal servant standards. I liked this bluntness. Kept us both mostly honest. “But you look exceptionally tired today.”

  “Least I’m exceptional at something.” I shrugged. “You ever met Nicolas del Contes?”

  He’d the rune-scrawled face of a hawk and the legs of a stork, easy to spot and easier to recognize, and I needed to know as much about him as he knew about me.

  Maud frowned. “He’s always skulking about, knowing things he shouldn’t. He’s nice, but it makes me jittery to think he’s watching even if it’s for Our Queen. Asked me how my siblings were once. I nearly died.”

  So he was a spy. And a bad one if everyone knew it, which meant he probably hired out folks to research us while he followed us around as a distraction from the real spies. I’d nothing to worry about long as I kept on as I’d been doing. He’d have stopped me if he knew what I’d truly been up to.

  And if I didn’t talk to him anymore, he couldn’t drag any other secrets from me.

  “He’s interesting,” I said.

  “That’s one way to describe him.” She pursed her lips and smoothed out the wrinkles in my slept-in dress. “Regardless, I’m glad you’re not dead.”

  “Me too.”

  Getting ready was a rushed affair. Maud tossing clean clothes at me over the screen while I sucked down a bowl of soup. She sniffed as I walked out the door.

  “You smell like sweat and dust.” She pulled a small vial from her pocket and unstopped it. The watered-down, clean scent of peonies washed over me. “Completely unfit for seeing your lady.”

  I froze as she tapped her fingertips to either side of my neck, smearing the scent of spring against my skin. I swallowed. “She’s not my lady.”

  “Of course not.” She tucked the perfume back into her pocket. It must’ve been hers—a treat she’d bought after working hard. She’d not poison me with so much on the line. “But best not suffocate her.”

  I’d write “Maud did it” on my arm soon as I was
out the door.

  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?”

  “Nacea?” His brows furrowed. “That was ages ago.”

  “Barely a decade.” Time must not matter when you were rich and unworried about starving to death or rotting because you couldn’t afford a physician. Out of sight, out of mind. “Last chance—names.”

  “Lord, girl.” He threw up his hands and sighed. “I don’t even remember what region my troops were in. If you called on me tomorrow, I could look up—”

  I slapped his hand away from a teacup—no doubt searing hot and meant for my face—and grabbed his collar. Of course “girl” was an insult when it came from his lips. He made words sound so wrong.

  “They were in the western farmlands, and you withdrew them soon as you knew shadows were heading your way. You used Nacea to stall the monsters you created, and I want the names of the people who came up with the idea. I know it wasn’t you.” I tightened my grip, blade still pressed to his neck. “What were their names?”

  “I don’t know!” He shuddered but stilled. At least he knew one wrong move would have him bleeding out quicker than help could arrive. “It was Nacea and I had other troops, other places to worry about.”

  A cold calm settled over me. My hand was against his throat, but I couldn’t feel him. I was numb to the warmth of his skin, panicked fluttering of his pulse, and frantic rise and fall of his chest under my elbow. Like his words had snapped the last knot holding me to this world.

  “You don’t know?” My voice was low and soft, softer than I felt, softer than I ever thought I could be. Was this even me? Was that my hand grasping his neck? “You let thousands be massacred, and you don’t know who told you to do it? Why you did it?”

  I dragged my knife up his neck, over his lips, to the paper-thin flesh of his nostril. He stilled.

  “Stand up.” I pressed the knife deeper, and he rose, watery eyes and jutting chin a full head above me. “Remember—you do as I say, your face stays in one piece.”

  I led him into the moonlight. Let The Lady witness him. He might not have killed anyone with his hands, but his apathy was as guilty as the shadows.

  “No, no. We used secret names. We all got letters.” He sniffled and stumbled, blood dripping down his chin. “Let me go. I’ll get them for you.”

  “The names.” My face—my mask—was black in the reflection of his glasses. A shadow blocking the stars. “You have nothing I want but names and blood. I know they used secret names. What were they and what
were their real names?”

  A debt of flesh repaid in blood.

  “Winter! Winter was the first to agree.” He ripped open his sleeve, baring his wrist to me. “Naceans take blood, don’t you? To pay debts to your lady? Take it. Take it please. I won’t—”

  “The other names?”

  “I can’t. He’ll kill me,” Seve whispered. “I can’t.”

  At least I owned what I was. They’d rather die than admit they’d done wrong.

  I let him kneel in a shaft of moonlight on the edge of the roof. “You stop raising your voice and give me his name or you get a new nose.”

  He dropped his arm.

  “You kept the letters, didn’t you? A clever little magpie like you?” I thought I’d be angry, that the rage smoldering within me for so long would burst free, but I was quiet. Still. How clear everything was. “In case they ever tried to move against you? Tell me the name or give me the letters. He can’t kill you if he’s dead. Who’s to ever know you told me?”

  “North Star,” he whispered. “He sent letters to Winter, Caldera, Riparian, Deadfall, and me after Nicolas del Contes sided with the queen, telling us to withdraw from the fal—Nacea.”

  “What was your name?” I lowered my blade to his throat.

  “Coachwhip. I was Coachwhip.” He gripped the roof’s ledge. “We’d no other choice with Nicolas gone. The shadows—they’d have killed us. He was the only one who could contain them.”

  I nodded, staring beyond him to the branch-streaked horizon and glaring stars. The Lady’s stars were bright and damning, demanding my attention. “No mage, no way to stop the shadows.”

  “Exactly! I’d have been sentencing all those soldiers to death. Hundreds!”

  Instead, he killed thousands, but it didn’t matter. They weren’t Erlends. They didn’t matter.

  “North Star, Winter, Caldera, Riparian, and Deadfall.” I waited for the familiar rush of vengeance, memories of stitched faces I couldn’t recognize and gurgling screams in my ears. I waited for the rage and terror that woke me every month. Nothing. “What was it you almost called Nacea?”

  He paled. “What?”