Mask of Shadows

by Linsey Miller

  “So far as you know.” I salvaged a cup of water from the unpoisoned pitcher and took a sip. “I’ve been fighting for years.”

  She made an odd sound in the back of her throat. “He thought you were only a thief. Death doesn’t settle well when you’re not used to it.”

  Erlend forced me to be used to it. “Says the circus performers.”

  “And look how well we fared.” She opened her arms wide and shot me a funeral smile. “See you at dinner.”

  “See you at dinner.”

  She wasn’t handling this well.

  “Twenty-Three?” Maud appeared at my elbow. She was perfectly Maud again. Every hair was in place and her face showed the emotionless passivity all servants had, but she’d bitten her nails to the quick. “If you’d like to go to your room?”

  “I’d love to.”

  Maud didn’t speak, didn’t even look at me, till she shut the door to my room. I sat on the bed, ripping off my coat. Elise’s ink crinkled on my arms.

  “The bath is hot. Don’t soak your stitches.”

  I flashed Maud a weak smile. Trusting people was nice—no wasting thoughts on second-guessing. “Thanks.”

  I sunk into the bath behind the screen, and Maud fiddled around the room, washing my mask in a small basin and hanging it up. I kept my inked arms out of the water and crawled into bed still damp, laughing as Maud left with a huff. I fell asleep to the midmorning sun slipping through the slats above me.

  I awoke to the sounds of clattering plates, mouth dry as cotton and head filled with sand. I rolled onto my stomach.

  “Time?” My voice cracked, and my shirt clung to the fresh salve on my side. “You change my bandages?”

  “Early evening—and yes.” Maud pulled me up into a sitting position and pressed a tin cup into my hands. “We need to talk about dinner.”

  I glanced at the tray of food filling my room with the savory scents of browned onions and olives. “Looks good.”

  “Not this. The real one.” She rose and crossed to the clothes in the corner. “You’re meeting with the Left Hand, and Two’s servant, Catia, was prepping an elaborate outfit in the washing rooms.”

  I sipped the tea. The tang of lemon snapped me awake and warmed me from the inside out. The ink on my arms had dulled to storm gray. “What am I supposed to do? Steal a nice outfit before dinner?”

  “Play to your strengths.” Maud set the tray onto my lap. “I washed the clothes you wore here, but I wouldn’t suggest wearing them tonight. Or ever again.”

  “For the best.” I traced the lip print on my palm. “What are Two and Five wearing?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Catia had a leather uniform with bracers. Dinah didn’t bother washing Five’s clothes before tonight, and officer’s uniforms always dye the water blue anyway. They’re only for parties. Completely useless.”

  I speared a boiled egg with my knife. Of course Five was an officer. He’d been trained with a spear, sword, and bow since childhood, and killing came easy when it was all you knew. The war was still alive but in skirmishes and courts. Unrest was rampant in the north where the lords who’d ruled Erlend still loomed. He’d grown up thinking civilians were the enemy.

  Such a surprise.

  “I was going to enlist, you know.” I plucked up an olive and squished it between my teeth. “But I’d have been a foot soldier. Nothing fancy.”

  She sighed, spirals of steam from the food flushing her cheeks. “My orphanage sells work contracts to the highest bidder. You can’t leave till you work enough to pay back the bid.”

  “Five pearls are enough to keep four fed and housed.” I tucked into the meal and offered her a slice of bread. She shook her head. “So how many orphans you trying to buy?”

  “Three.” She picked at her nails and took a deep breath. “My mother died when my siblings were born—triplets—and the orphanage will sell their contracts to whoever needs a servant soon as they turn nine. I have to buy them first.”

  That would do it. No wonder she liked rules after living in an orphanage and being responsible for a trio of toddlers.

  “That’s it though.” She stood and walked toward the door, fixing me with a stare.

  “How about your name for mine?” I asked. It wasn’t worth asking what she meant about papers. She must’ve lied about her age when they took her in so she could get out and buy her way out sooner. “Our real ones?”

  She paused.

  “Knowing my face could do more harm than me knowing your name.” I tapped my nose.

  “Maud de Pavo.” She smiled at me over her shoulder. “And your face was more punishment than privilege.”

  “How can you be afraid to tell me your name and be so mean to me?” I tried to frown, look at least a little threatening, but she kept smiling. “Sallot, but you can call me Sal in private till I’m Opal.”

  “You’d better be Opal after all we’ve gone through.” She gestured to the food. “Eat. I’ll find acceptable clothes. You have tutoring with your lady after all.”

  I froze.

  I turned my arms over and shoved my sleeves up. The ink was crinkled and cracked, and the lines blurred on my fingers. My gloves had saved most of it, but it was fading. I kissed my palm with the memory of Elise’s lips still seared into my skin.

  I was fishing the amber dregs of honey from my tea when Maud came back. She set the tray by the door and herded me toward the washbasin. I tugged my mask off.

  “New mask.” Maud held up a new mask with a pearl-white “23” stitched on the forehead. The number was small and unobtrusive, completely unlike the giant ribbon on my face now. She pulled a brush out of her pocket. “Two’s outfit is armor. It’s red and gold, and it’s got an insignia—an arrow shooting through flames.”

  “Of course it is.” I sucked on my teeth, wincing at Maud’s rough hairbrush ripping through my hair. “Carnival of Cheats—a family of fighters and thieves and daredevils.”

  What other circus taught people how to throw knives as easily as punches? A traveling carnival full of people doing dangerous things, most putting their more dangerous pasts to use and teaching their kids every trick of every trade, was the perfect breeding ground for assassins. And trust.

  Perform together, die together.

  “Five’s wearing his officer’s uniform, isn’t he?” I asked.

  Maud nodded. “He must have torn the pin off tonight, but I saw it when he arrived. Lukan was his last name.”

  “Lukan?” I patted down my untangled hair, trying to think of an outfit I could wear to compete with Two and Five. “That’s not a noble name.”

  And everything about him screamed noble.

  “No, but Dimas has heard of him. He killed his valet. They only found out after they’d invited him, and Dimas nearly quit. Emerald said the rules would be enough to keep Five from hurting us, but I wouldn’t have kept on if I’d drawn his lot.” Maud sat next to me, grabbed my hands, and cleaned my nails, careful to avoid Elise’s ink. “I hope you’ve got an impressive costume to break out.”

  “Street fighters and road agents don’t get costumes.” I washed my face with my free hand best I could without touching Elise’s words. The lifetime of wounds I’d collected were a map of bumps and pits under the ink. “We get fancy scars.”

  “Have you got enough to justify going to dinner naked?” Maud grabbed my other hand.

  “Is it too late for you to find me something?” If I was going to dress to impress tonight, I wanted to be like Ruby. Power and grace, a figure fit to be noble and deadly. “Can you make me look like Ruby but in white?”

  No reason to dress as the past when Opal was my future.

  “No,” Maud said but stopped, hands drifting to her pocket. “How much like Opal?”

  “Close as can be without being rude.” I pulled my new mask on and sighed. Soft cotton and silk lining the eyes. So much better. “Let the others be themselves. I want to be Opal.”

  She stood, nodding to herself. “I think I can do
that. You go to tutoring, and I’ll get your clothes.”

  No more mistakes, no more close calls, and no more deaths like Seve. I could put those lords to rest when I was Opal.

  And I had to be Opal because I was fairly sure the only way out of the final three was death.

  Thirty-Six

  I knocked, straightened my mask, and opened the door. “Sallot!”

  I startled, not used to hearing my full name, and Elise barreled into my chest. We fell back against the closed door.

  “How are you?” Her arms hooked around my neck, warm and heavy, and she tucked her face against my shoulder. She wore mourning colors—an ash-gray bodice trimmed in black and laced with opalescent ribbon—and had bound her coiled hair in a silver net. She touched my mask. “You’re Twenty-Three again.”

  I nodded, not sure about what to do with my arms but entirely sure I could not do this.

  “Plan worked, and I didn’t die.” I splayed my fingers over the wide curve of her hips, blood rushing in my ears, and curled my other arm around her back. “So here I am.”

  Elise traced my collar, fingertips skimming my neck. “I’ll miss calling you Sallot.”

  “You can call me Sallot.” I rubbed my thumb along the dip between her hips and ribs. She’d liked me for days—I had to catch up. “In private. Probably best not to do it in public.”

  “Yes, I’ll call you Honorable Opal like everyone else.” She drifted out of my arms, dragging her fingers over the words on my arm and letting the cold sweep into the space she’d left behind. “I admit I have nothing to teach you today. I wanted to talk.”

  I nodded and trailed after her, too pleased to say much more. She sat and gestured to the chair across from her. I took it.

  “Yesterday,” Elise said, fiddling with her locket, “you gave a very rambling rant about how much you hated Erlend, and I am less interested in that and more in you, but what did you mean?”

  I swallowed. “Just what I said—never had much good to say about Erlend.”

  “Well, I wasn’t too fond of you when we first met either. I suppose we’re even.” She closed her fingers around the locket and shrugged one shoulder. “And now?”

  “You proved me wrong.” I reached between us and took her hand, studying the lines of her palm and faded ink stains on her fingers. “I thought you were clever and pretty, but I expected you’d be like every other northern noble and dislike my sort. Then you didn’t do any of their sneering, and I moved on to thinking you liked me because I was mysterious and dangerous.”

  Elise tapped the imprint of her lips on my palm. “I didn’t like you until you corrected me about sounding literate.”

  “What?” Speechless, I let her lace our fingers together while I found my words. That was ages ago, back when I’d slipped with my pretending and called her on how I sounded. “I snapped at you.”

  “You were honest with me, and I was wrong. You hardly snapped,” she said. “People are rarely honest with me. You couldn’t rob me, couldn’t be angry without softening it with a joke, and you always showed up to tutoring on time and ready to work.”

  Elise leaned in front of me and added, “You look like I’ve shifted your world.”

  “Just about.” I tapped my forehead against hers, slipping an arm around her waist. “Thought coming here would be different but didn’t expect you.”

  “You kept my ring.” Her gaze dropped to my lips, and my heart leapt into my throat.

  “It was pretty, and Our Queen had touched it. Never had anything nice I could get away with wearing.” I nudged her with my nose and tugged her closer.

  “Come here.” Elise pulled away, and I swallowed back my protest when she slid from her chair and onto the floor near my feet. I sat next to her, back to the sturdy table legs, and she settled into the curve of my side, legs stretched out and pressed to mine, cheek on my shoulder and arm tangled around me. All the warmth in the world couldn’t have compared to her. “How did Sallot end up as auditioner Twenty-Three?”

  “Easily.” I traced the curves of her thigh through her dress and pulled her legs across my lap till there were no gaps between us, the press of her steady and sure as the sun rising. “You had a poster in your purse, and I wanted out of Kursk.”

  She hummed, the sound shuddering from her chest to mine. “Opal is a long leap from road agent.”

  “I like Our Queen, and if she needs me, I’ll answer.” And I wanted to kill those she’d let run free. I reached onto the table above us and grabbed a stick of charcoal. “My turn.”

  Rath used to do this trick where he’d place a seed in his palm and flick a hidden flower out from between his fingers like magic. I’d never asked how to do it and had no flowers. I took her hand in mine.

  “How’d you get on the high court so young?” I dragged the charcoal down the underside of her wrist, slowly drawing an orange blossom over her fluttering pulse. I leaned my cheek against her scalp.

  She took a shuddering breath and steeled herself. “I was invited to court after the war—something political involving my father, I’m sure—but Isidora took me in. When Our Queen asked for a list of trustworthy Erlends, they gave her my name. The war was built on half truths and omissions. History is simply what the winner writes, and Our Queen has a host of scribes to keep our histories varied. I am the Erlend scribe.”

  “You’re keeping them honest.” I trailed the stem up to her elbow and very carefully laid her arm over her lap. “How noble of you.”

  She laughed and touched the tip of one petal, finger coming away black. “You’re supposed to put it behind my ear.”

  “What?”

  “People tuck a flower behind the ear of the person they’re courting.” Elise arched her neck and bared the soft spot of flesh behind her ear to me. “But since it’s not a real flower, I’ll settle for a kiss.”

  She grinned.

  I swallowed. We were both at the same place then. “Settle?”

  Elise took a breath and rolled her eyes, rising to her knees. With one leg between mine and the other pressed firmly to my hip, she pinned me to the table and knelt in front of me to cup my face in her hands. My breath was caught behind the hollow of my throat, painful and demanding, heart pounding at the pressure of her thighs against my hips, the warmth of her fingers tickling the curves of my ears. I raised my hands to her waist and pulled. Her lips crashed against mine.

  My eyes fluttered shut. She threaded her fingers through the hair at the nape of my neck, tugged me closer, the curve of her hips hot against mine, the flutter of her pulse fast and demanding against my lips. She made a small pleased sound and combed her fingers through my hair. I shuddered.

  “If you become Opal,” she said softly, voice raspy and out of breath, “you can court me.”

  I licked my lips, the taste of her tea filling my mouth. “Yes please.”

  “Good.” She shook her head and leaned back, hands falling from my neck, down my chest, pricking the buttons of my shirt. “Go to dinner, Sallot.”

  “Of course, my lady.” I watched her rise to her feet, graceful as ever but flushed. My own legs were weak, and a tingling, dreamlike sensation raced across my skin. I stumbled to my feet. “Thought you didn’t kiss people who could kill you just as easily.”

  I’d so much blood on my hands, seeped into my soul and heavy as lead, and she was light as air, a breeze through ocean sands. She was summer and heat, the taste of salt on white crests, the shade of storm clouds before late spring rains. She was everything I wasn’t.

  “Hush.” Elise darted forward and kissed my cheek, my mask stuck between us. “I’ll kiss whomever I like. There’s not enough innocence left in this world after all we’ve done to it.”

  We’d been children, and we reaped what our parents sowed.

  But we were both working toward the balance—her teaching kids to read and paying for physicians for her people and me clearing the land of the nobles still stuck in the past. Protecting Our Queen, the only person who’d give
n us peace.

  “Say my name again,” I said and braced myself for the chill of leaving her.

  She laughed and smiled. “Sal—”

  I kissed her gently, barely brushing my mouth to hers, and memorized the feel of my name on her lips. “I’ll see you when I’m Opal.”

  Thirty-Seven

  Maud grabbed me soon as I stumbled into my room.

  “I know it’s old-fashioned, but trust me.” Maud grabbed my shirt and started undoing the buttons before I could even speak. “It’s as close to Opal as I can do.”

  I grabbed her hands and ducked out of her grip. “I trust you, but I can undress myself.”

  “Fine.” She stepped aside with a sarcastic bow. “Eventually, you’ll have to get used to me helping you.”

  “I trust you,” I said slowly, savoring the words. I grinned. “I’ll work on letting you help me later.”

  She only laughed and gestured to the bed. A crisp off-white pair of pants stitched with pale gold laid at one end. A matching shirt, collar wide and open with shell buttons and stitch work of golden stars along the hem, rested beside the pants, and a coat that might have been spun from starlight it was so pale was folded over the chair. The long coat was silk softer than I’d ever touched. I shook my head.

  “Maud, I can’t wear this.” I rubbed the hem of the coat. “Where’d you even get it?”

  “It was my uncle’s. You’re about the same size, and the only people who’ll buy it want to strip it for pieces. I don’t have the heart to let them pay me so little only to take it apart. I’m hoping my brother will grow into it.” She rustled through a bag at her feet. “You will give it back to me in one piece. The style’s old—coat will hit your knees—but if you leave it unbuttoned, it’ll look like one of those new robes that are getting popular.”

  I nodded, no idea about what was popular.

  “Let’s make me Opal.”

  Maud grinned. “Perfect.”

  She rubbed woody, herb-scented oil through my hair, drew a line of thin rouge across my bottom lip, and lined my eyes with black—to make the dark circles more accent than exhaustion.

  “Don’t stab me in the eye.” I stared up while she worked. “I’m already bad enough at archery without having to relearn how to aim.”