“Probation.” The word came out like a curse, and I turned my hand over for Elise to see. No one had ever looked at me like this, stuttered over their words in their eagerness to see me alive. And certainly not an Erlend. “Basically dead.”
“Not at all.” She traced the callouses and scars crisscrossing my skin. My hands looked ragged next to hers as her nails trailed over my crooked knuckles and bony fingers. Drips of ink from her freckled hands stained mine. “Sorry.”
I tried to speak, but my words were gone, replaced with the impressions of her fingerprints on my hand, ink on my skin, and lemons on my lips. She was everywhere.
She gripped me so tight that I was sure I’d bear the marks forever.
And I didn’t mind.
“Are you all right?” She leaned back, eyes narrowing and smile falling. “What’s wrong?”
I took a breath, and a small voice I couldn’t stand to know was mine asked, “Why are you being so nice?”
I fought the urge to pull her back into the circle of my arms, to place myself back in the tight grip of hers. She’d hugged me—she hardly knew me and she’d leapt out of her chair to hug me.
She’d worried about me.
“I thought you were dead,” she said as if the words made any sense.
“Tons of people have thought that.” I stared at the stray curl bouncing against her cheek, unable to meet her eyes with that lost-and-now-found look. The aching, longing sense of wanting a life where I was me flared—one where I was known as me even if my name was Opal and I could be me. No one had ever worried about me. “But you’ve been crying.”
Rath had thought me dead once and clapped me on the shoulder when I reappeared. He’d never cried—another dead friend, another funeral pyre we couldn’t afford, another memory to dissolve as the years went on. I was always another.
Elise laughed. “I thought you were dead, and half of what I’ve been saying to you is how you’re too dangerous and wild. Last time we spoke, I insulted you.”
“Not more than anyone else.” I shrugged, dropping my shoulder so her hand fit more easily around my neck. This was new, terrifying, and I’d no idea what to do.
“People flirt with the Left Hand all the time.” Elise slid her fingers from my shoulder to the curve of my neck to my jaw, heat trailing wherever she touched. “I didn’t want you to think I was doing that. That I was lying or being insincere. I was keeping you at a distance but not lying. And then you were cross and dead, and you didn’t know.”
Lady bless, I couldn’t tell her I was the one who was lying now. Especially not when she’d been doing what I had—playing it safe, keeping her real meaning guarded.
Elise wasn’t like I’d thought at all.
She wasn’t her nation or an idea.
She was Elise, and I’d not been paying attention.
“Come.” She tugged me toward the table, pushing me into the seat. “You look like you’re the one who’s seen a ghost.”
“You cried.” I couldn’t reach out to her, not yet, not while all this was so new. “No one’s ever worried that much over me.”
Elise sniffed and closed the distance between us. “You haven’t known the right people. I thought you were likable even when you were robbing me—funny, nice about it, apologized eventually.”
“Only because you were a bully.” I smiled. “You thought I was funny?”
She looked at me over her spectacles. “In that mask? Funny looking.”
“I’ll get a new mask.”
“Works for me.” She touched my blood-spotted coat. “What happened?”
“A liar—an auditioner accused me of killing another auditioner, and I couldn’t prove it wasn’t me. Didn’t have an alibi.” I slowly took her hand, torn between keeping her close and running away fast as I could so I could sort through whatever feelings Elise had awoken. Out of all the things I’d done, how was this the newest, strangest thing to happen to me?
Elise straightened my collar, studying my face. Her hand fluttered next to my cheek. She didn’t touch me and didn’t pull away, only lingered. “I can’t picture you as a new recruit.”
I leaned very slowly against her hand.
“I’m glad you’re not.” Elise tucked a strand of my hair behind my ears. “They would’ve sent you somewhere far, far away.”
“Can ladies have affairs with common soldiers?”
“We can do anything we please,” Elise said softly. “Even if we should know better.”
“Like kissing people who could kill you?” I couldn’t keep the catch from my voice.
“Oh yes.” Elise slid her arms around my neck again, pulling me into a half hug. “Is this the last time I’ll see you?”
“No.” I tangled my fingers in her tunic till I could feel her warm skin and heartbeat fluttering in her veins. “I’ll come back tomorrow, if I’m still alive. I need to take care of a few other things.”
She hugged me, arms tight enough to break, and tucked her face into the side of my neck. I slid my hands around her waist, unable to stop the hesitant shaking that had taken over my limbs.
“Don’t die,” she muttered into my neck, lips hot against my skin. “I’ll stay here all night. Come back before you die.”
I didn’t want to die, but the idea of someone hoping I didn’t, asking me not to, made the prospect of tomorrow brighter. “I’ll try.”
“Good.” She pulled away from me, rubbed her eyes, and straightened up.
I leaned forward and pressed my lips to hers. She blinked up at me, eyes half-shut behind her spectacles, and I kissed her more gently than I’d done anything else in my life. Her hand closed around my wrist. I pulled back. “Here.” She slid her silver ring over my finger. “Now you have to come back—to return it.”
I nodded. “Wouldn’t be like me to steal something like this.”
Without another word or touch, sure I’d be unable to leave if I lingered too long on how her mouth felt against mine, how her fingers curled just so around my wrist, how her eyelids fluttered shut over her dark, dark eyes with each shuddering breath, I turned my back on Elise de Farone and walked away.
Thirty
With a confused weariness tugging at my bones, I wandered back to my room and crawled into the perfectly made bed. The cleanliness of it all only made the loneliness more gaping. Maud must’ve thought I wasn’t coming back.
I glanced at the little constellation of ink that Elise’s stained hands had left on my skin, breathed in the leftover scents of lemons and paper, and sighed. She’d haunt my dreams longer than ink could stain my skin, and both thoughts eased the hollow chill in my chest.
“This punishment?” I asked the night sky, staring at The Lady’s stars through the open slats in the ceiling. “Retribution for killing? Losing my temper with Seve?”
Her stars twinkled back. I raised a hand to trace the line of her armor, the runes dripping from her fingertips, and the vine leaves curled around the roof shifted in the breeze. She vanished.
“I was doing it for funeral rites.” I took a deep breath and threw my ink-splattered arm over my head. “All those lords who spilled blood—your blood—and let it lie are here, and I’m returning them to you. Repayment for their debts.”
It would be an easy run for the ones left—I’d bet anything Two, Four, and Five would be the last three. It had better be Two. I’d smack Four if he was named Opal and I was still alive, and I’d not mind the punishment for assaulting a noble.
I’d have to see him in court, but that would be another chance to hit him.
Courts. The audition followed the same rules as courts, and witnesses recanted all the time. Grell used to stare down law-abiding folks till they ran out trembling and the charges were dropped. If Four recanted, I’d have proof it wasn’t me.
And I could make it fun.
The lock on the door clicked. I dove aside, darting to the wall and tucking myself where the door would hide me. The person let out a long sigh, stepping into the room with
a shuffle, and adjusted the basket on their arm. A familiar plait of shiny black hair tied with gray ribbon flopped over one shoulder. The person shut the door and turned.
“Maud?”
She shrieked and tossed her basket at me. I caught it.
“Maud, Maud, stop.” I held out the basket. “It’s me, Twenty-Three.”
She stopped shrieking. Her eyes widened, and she flew at me. I took the first punch to my shoulder, falling with it onto the floor. She smacked my uninjured side, never hitting anywhere near my stitches, and rained a series of ill-done punches on my chest and arms.
“You ass.” Maud pulled her arms so far back that she tangled her fingers in her hair. “You were disqualified!”
“I wasn’t! I’m just on probation.” I took her hand, tugged her thumb from inside her fist, and patted her knuckles. “You’ll break your thumb that way, and you should always go for the throat, nose, or ears.”
Maud rolled her eyes, sitting on the edge of my bed. “I’m not one to start fights.”
“No.” I smiled. “But you should know how to finish them.”
“I’ll finish you,” Maud muttered. She bumped her fist—properly folded—against my cheek. “You’re plainer than I thought you’d be.”
“I deserved that.” I nodded to her hair. “You’re all out of sorts.”
“All thanks to you.”
She deserved more than an auditioner doomed to die. Like Grell’s bounty. It had to go to someone, and she’d get more use out of it than I would. I’d have to will it to her later.
“I am sorry though. I’m trying to stay in, but I’m probably going to die and lose you your job—”
“You know how long I worked trying to get out from under Dimas?” Maud asked, throwing her hands up and interrupting me. “And cleaning! I don’t like it, but I’m good at it, and everyone says an eye for detail like mine can’t be wasted on some wealthy merchant coming to town and keeping me around to run the guests rooms, but this was finally something they couldn’t stop me from doing.”
I stopped smiling, completely done with being interrupted and ready to be Twenty-Three again.
“I’m on probation and all the auditioners are out to kill me,” I said. “Sorry if that disrupts your business plans, but I have to get a killer to recant in order to prove my innocence. So I’m going to focus on that.”
She sucked in a breath, walked to the tub, and started going through the chest of drawers next to it. She returned with a tiny jar. “Shirt up—you can’t do anything if you pull your stitches out.”
She washed her hands with a bottle of watered-down witch hazel and opened Isidora’s salve. The spicy scent of hot peppers wafted around us, burning my nose.
“What do you need?” she asked.
“You’ll be breaking the rules.”
“Those rules were made for auditioners not on probation.” Maud sniffed and patted the salve down my side. “They never specified rules for this.”
“I knew I liked you.” I grinned and saluted her. If I died, she didn’t get paid. Helping me, even if it was slightly wrong, helped her. “I need to know what the others are up to, and there’s only one sort of person they won’t attack—a servant.”
She nodded and said, “I’ll have to get you a uniform. What else?”
“It’s about time for another test, isn’t it?” I tested the edges of my wound, wincing with each pinch of pain as I twisted. “You heard about that?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” She sighed. “It’s breakfast.”
“So you’re fine with helping me win but not fine with telling me stuff like that outright?”
She frowned.
“Your face will stick like that one day.” I laid out my mask, knives, and lock picks on the bed. Best take stock of what I had and what I needed. “Ruby’s been teaching us manners, and you need those at the breakfast table. The meal’s poisoned—there’s Emerald’s lessons—and they’re seeing if we paid enough attention to Amethyst and Isidora to know how to counter it. They using servants?”
Maud nodded. “I volunteered to serve drinks.”
“Think the Left Hand will notice if I take your place?”
“Probably not. Their servants recruited us.” She shrugged. “They’ll be too busy with the food to check.”
The door handle twisted. I threw a hand over Maud’s mouth, dragging her to the other side of the room.
“Someone picked it,” I whispered. “Be quiet and still.”
No one had seen me enter. I’d made sure of it. So this was meant for me the next time I opened the door. I let go of Maud and lowered myself to the floor as quiet as I could, cheek pressing into the floorboards. Small feet—too small to be Four, Five, or Fifteen—tapped against the entrance steps. Gloved hands fluttered around the bolt keep.
Eleven.
She had to be trapping my door. I knew a few common ones: packets that blew powder and vials filled with oils that ignited as soon as the air hit them. I could disarm one of those without killing myself. Probably.
I’d done it once, and Rath had only lost some knuckle hair.
Eleven shut the door and hurried away.
I tested the handle, wincing at the pressure. The trap was inside the bolt keep and probably a packet of something nasty. Sliding one of my finer, thinner picks between the keep and the door, I wedged the pick in place. Silver shone in the crack between the door and the jamb. I took a small breath.
A mealy, slightly acidic scent hit my nose.
“It’s Lady’s Palm.” Fresh from the earth and potent enough to kill a grown man. Emerald had shown us the mushroom in a dark, damp corner of her greenhouse. I’d only ever seen it dried before coming here. “I mess this up, don’t touch anything. Just go get Emerald and Isidora.”
This wasn’t clever. Eleven’s trap didn’t discriminate between auditioner and servant. Lady’s Palm was the easiest poison to use and the hardest to counter. The antidote only worked if you knew how much to take.
And Lady knew no one wanted to guess how much nightshade extract to drink.
I eased another three picks into the crack and opened the door. No click, no puff, and no white cloud of death.
A small white ball of Mizuho rice paper—thin enough to fold and thick enough that the powder didn’t seep out—sat in the keep. If I’d opened the door as normal, the ball would’ve rolled out and the needle glued above it would’ve torn a hole in the rice paper. It was crude but effective.
“That’s it?”
I glanced at Maud. “Killing people isn’t hard.”
And wasn’t that how everyone died? Not expecting death from something simple.
“You all need better locks.” I studied the ball, gently turning it over in my hands.
“You really don’t trust anyone, do you?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “It’s impossible to cross the river and get here—”
“I did it.”
“—normally.” She stepped around me and peered out the door, blocking me from view with her skirts. “They changed security for the auditions.”
“Handkerchief.” I held out my hand, and Maud handed hers over. “What do you mean?”
“Most of the guards are new recruits,” Maud said. “They switched them up for auditions.”
I’d not thought of that. I pried the needle off the door, tossing it aside. The ball was trickier, and I wrapped the handkerchief twice around it. If Eleven had used rice paper, the powder was too big to fall through the holes, and she’d surely not put herself in danger with a leaking trap. Maud took a step back from me, eyes on my hands. I nodded to the door.
“Shut it.” I weighed the bundle in my palm. This could work. “Know where I could get nightshade extract?”
“Lady dal Abreu has everything in her laboratory.” She shook her head a breath later when she realized why I’d asked. “You can’t—she has everyone searched before they enter and again when they leave.”
“That’s fine.”
I pictured the building for healing training in my mind, trying to remember how many doors and windows it had. “I’ll just go in properly and leave some other way.”
“The window,” she said softly. “Go out the window.”
“What?”
“The orphanage masters searched us when we left and when we returned.” Maud shrugged. “So we used the window.”
Of course—concerned more with if their charges were stealing than why.
“We used to break our falls with this old hay cart. It worked fine as long as you landed properly.” She nodded slowly, spreading her arms out wide, as if to prove all her jumping had left her in one piece and I’d be fine. “I’ll leave a laundry cart there, and you can land in it. That might work.”
She arched her brow and tapped her foot when I didn’t agree immediately, as if jumping out of windows was normal.
“Trust me,” she said. “We’ve got nothing left to lose.”
I snorted. Trust got people like me killed.
But she’d used “we.” Maud was in this too.
“All right.” I clapped her on the shoulder. “Let’s jump out a window.”
Thirty-One
Maud was quick to remind me that she wasn’t jumping out of any windows.
She left to get me a uniform. I double-checked my stitches and bandaged up the rest of my hurts so they couldn’t be seen while I was playing servant. She returned with a sharp-looking set of clothes identical to Dimas’s fitted shirt, flared coat, and matching gray pants. I tucked the soldier’s uniform away for later and got dressed. Maud looked me over with her critical gaze.
“Passable.” She buttoned the collar up to my chin. “Now how to serve drinks.”
I shifted about in the stiff coat. “Pour when the glass is empty?”
“Just be quiet and pay attention.”
It was boring. Exhausting for sure but mostly boring, and the fact that Maud had a strong enough will to stand around waiting for folks to order her about made her all the more interesting. Anticipating people’s needs was a whole different kind of spying. It took me till dawn to get the hang of all the little rules. I even had to stand a certain way.
Mask of Shadows Page 16