People depended too much on doors and guards.
Pau’s chest rose and fell. I crawled toward him in an awkward half-slither and pulled out Tonin’s coin purse. Dirt and dried blood crumbled to the floor, making a nice little pile of evidence next to Pau’s boots. I dropped the bloodied stirring rod into one like a drunkenly hid secret. Pau didn’t move.
I peeked over the edge of the bed. He’d a face that might’ve been handsome—large eyes closed and full lips open—if my hatred weren’t clouding my vision. He was well taken care of with smooth unburned skin. All of it was paid for with money he’d robbed from corpses.
“Try to buy your way out of this,” I whispered. He’d either be poor as dirt or walking to the gallows by the end of the trial.
He snorted and turned over. I dropped the bloody purse filled with credit coins into the pocket of his discarded over-robe and spat on my hands to dampen the blood dried between my fingers. Couldn’t be too obvious or his servants would’ve noticed but still obvious enough.
I checked the size of his hands. Perfect.
I tossed one glove with his clothes, another behind the head of the bed, and cleaned my hands in Pau’s washbasin. A few drops of wine were easy enough to dribble on his clothes. Tonin hadn’t had time to fight back. The only ties to the murder Pau needed were a weapon, blood, and motive.
Check, check, and check.
What’d folks say? Death weighed you down? I’d not known the heavy pain of it till I was five and Erlend dragged its shadows to my home. This was nothing compared to my darkened childhood.
“I hope they hang you,” I said to Pau’s closed eyes.
Pau, snoring away the night in a drunken stupor, only rolled over.
I wiped all traces of me from his room, took one last look at his face, and pulled on my mask.
“And I hope I’m here to watch.”
Forty-Two
I’d a credit coin and Tonin’s signet ring to give the Left Hand, and if that didn’t work, they could wait for the news of Pau’s arrest. Two debts for the price of one.
“Twenty-Three?”
I turned at the familiar voice, spying Dimas’s willowy figure weaving between the palace gate guards. I stopped.
“The Left Hand is in the breakfast nook from your first meeting.” He led me through the gate—there were more guards with weathered knowing faces—and through the old courtyard where I’d first met Ruby. “It would be unwise to approach alone.”
“For me or the guards?” I asked as he opened the door.
He smiled. “You. Auditions are over. The palace patrols have returned.”
“Over?” I slipped through the door he held open, grinning. “Sounds good to me.”
“Should it?” Emerald’s voice cut through the pleasant, buzzing energy still coursing through my veins after Tonin’s death and Pau’s looming arrest. “I’ve gotten word of a rather bloody murder.”
I nodded—news from Nicolas surely. “By who?”
She shrugged.
Ruby laughed. “You’ve been starting rumors.”
“You gave me a job,” I said. “But it was more trap than test.”
“No, it was all test.” Amethyst leaned forward. “Did you pass?”
“Thorn da Tonin is dead. I injured no one during, and I wasn’t caught.” I swallowed. That was every rule.
“Proof?” Ruby asked. “Your secrets can’t save you tonight. Where were you?”
I glared at him, in no mood for his tone or reminder of my probation. “Alibi.”
Amethyst let out a laugh.
“Alibi?” Ruby rolled his head back and sighed. “You can’t invoke ‘alibi’ and expect us to take your word for it.”
“I was at Alibi. Ask Nanami Kita. She saw me.” I leaned against the wall next to the door. “Shan de Pau should be getting arrested for murder soon.”
The Left Hand stayed silent, blank masks staring motionless at me. Then Ruby very slowly clapped and laced his fingers together. He leaned forward, chin on his knuckles.
“Shan de Pau. A murderer. Who would have thought? How will he be discovered?” Ruby asked. “And how convenient that a man so hated will be shuffled aside by the laws he’s been so careful to abide.”
“Gambling debts and bloody credit notes—merchants are very predictable about their money.” I tossed the only credit coin I’d kept at Ruby. “You know what Shan de Pau did, and you sent me there—”
“Because not killing him would’ve been your job if you were Opal,” Emerald said sharply. “Yes, we know. Our Queen knows every detail, but he bought his freedom by funding her.”
My rage at watching him relax on that rooftop flared. She knew. Our Queen knew, and she’d let him off for money that wasn’t his to give. “He’s a citizen of Igna! Whatever is his belongs to her. She could’ve just claimed it.”
“And the people of a nation barely born would never have trusted her.” Emerald stood in one fluid motion, looming over me before I could blink, and held me against the wall. Her fingers closed around my arm. “Our nation is held together by fragile promises and fear. We are that fear, and we cannot jeopardize the deals Our Queen made after the war. Lord del Weylin has styled himself King of Erlend. He will take any chance he can to cast Our Queen aside and claim the throne. One moment of weakness or malcontent, and Igna is no more. You will not unsettle what little peace the civilians of this country have. Understood?”
I nodded.
I lied.
“Good.” She let go and settled back into her chair.
Ruby sidled up next to me, flipping the credit coin back and forth across his fingers. “You should keep this safe. Interesting improvisation though.”
“Didn’t need a shield this time.” I tucked the coin into my pocket. “So I passed?”
Ruby shrugged. The door swung open, slamming into the wall next to me. Five stomped inside, blood dripping down his boots, and a frazzled Dimas followed him. Ruby danced back to his spot with the Left Hand.
“Done.” Five dropped his slip of paper onto the table next to Emerald.
Ruby shrugged, flicking the paper aside. “Proof?”
Five pulled a severed hand from his pocket and tossed it onto the table.
Emerald picked it up by the thumb. “Well then.”
“They won’t question why it’s missing.” Five shifted, shaking out his filthy cloak. “They won’t find all of him, and they won’t know what to make of it.”
I sucked on my teeth. Given his history and the memories he chose to keep, I’d have been suspicious if I were Ruby. Five’s head snapped round to me.
“Evening,” I said with a fake smile. Three’s empty face flashed in my mind. “Nice night for a repeat of your shadow performance.”
I nodded to the hand. Amethyst looked at me.
“Thief girl’s here then?” Five asked, full lips pulling up into a sneer. He snapped at Dimas. “Towel.”
I scowled. I wasn’t “she,” and he was rude. Lady bless, I’d gone to dinner practically styled as Ruby, and I looked more like Five than anyone here. I didn’t want to deal with this, not when I was so close to having everything I wanted. I lurched off the wall.
“You can call me Twenty-Three or nothing at all.” I handed him a plain handkerchief—stolen from Pau and still bloody.
Five shoved me away with one hand, not paying a lick of attention, and I slipped his bracelet off. He wanted a thief, then I’d give him a thief.
“So touchy.” I held up his bracelet and grinned. “I’ll keep an eye on you then, little bird.”
Five moved toward me and Ruby stepped between us. Five flinched away from him.
Dimas broke the tension with a towel on one arm and Two on the other. He handed the towel to Five. Two slumped against the wall.
I took the only open seat, tapping my nails against the wooden arms. I was too anxious to be tired but too tired to think clearly. I shouldn’t have antagonized Five.
“Stop.” Emerald laid her hand ov
er mine. “It’s annoying and noticeable, two things you’ve neglected to be until now.”
I stilled—best I obeyed.
“Proof?” Ruby asked Two, beckoning her forward.
“Here.” Two tossed a sack at him. “Unfortunate carriage accident by the river.”
A head covered in matted hair and blood rolled out of the bag. I hid my grin behind a hand. I’d toss stuff at him too if I was tired and he was snappy.
“Perfect. That’s what I like to see. So glad you all are so punctual and efficient.” Ruby grabbed Two’s mark and set it on the table next to Five’s spare hand. “Although, I don’t know why you keep tossing your proof of death around. You’re going to need it.”
“The night is yours. The competition is done.” Ruby shooed Dimas from the room. “You may no longer attack each other, and there will be no more tests.”
Amethyst stood. “The security around your rooms and grounds has reverted to normal. No more sneaking around. You will be caught and you will be escorted out of Willowknot and the running for Opal.”
I couldn’t see her eyes, but I swore she looked at me.
“You will meet the Queen before breakfast. Bathe, rest, and look presentable. A wardrobe will be provided, but it’s up to you to choose appropriately.” Emerald examined her brass nails, crossing her legs till her own green gown flared out around her like a sea of grass. “Do you understand?”
We all nodded.
“Good. Take these.” Ruby gestured to the head and hand on the table. “Go clean yourselves up.”
I followed Two and Five out of the room. Five kept his head turned with one eye on me, and I darted around him with a grin soon as I could. Maud and another servant walked toward us from the old archery courtyard, and I paused so Five could leave without me. His gaze followed me till he vanished around a corner with his servant. Two glanced at me.
“What was that?” Two asked as she shifted the severed head from hand to hand, jagged edges of spine scraping her skin before stuffing it back into the sack. “With Five?”
“He’s an ass. Angry I messed with him a while back.” I nodded to the scratch on her arm. “You’re bleeding.”
“Am I?” She didn’t look at it, didn’t even flinch, only hummed and stared at her approaching servant. “I’ll see you at breakfast then?”
I nodded. “See you at breakfast.”
She didn’t turn her back to me when she left. I shook my head, going to meet Maud. Honor and trust were worthless when you were surrounded by folks like me, but I’d found Maud and Elise. They were nothing like me in the best ways.
“Twenty-Three?” Maud, hands clasped behind her back, bowed to me. “Ready to return to your room?”
“Lead the way.” I scratched at the stitches running down my side. “So now that we’re all tested out and corralled, what’s the security like?”
Her lips twitched. “You’re not to leave your room tonight.”
Dropped security at a time like this—no wonder rumors about auditions were wild and untamed. It kept the truth quiet about what really happened and how unguarded the noble grounds were.
Maud even had to show a little bracelet to the guards.
“We didn’t wear them while you were here, so none of you could steal one.” She smiled as she opened the door to my room. “Only nobles, guards, and servants are to know about the passes and who can go where.”
She still made sure the door was locked though.
“I suppose a one-in-three chance is still acceptable.” She started unclasping my cloak.
“I aim to please.” I moved her hands and shook my head. “You should let go.”
“Why? What’s wrong?” She pulled away, hands stained red.
“That’s why.”
She stumbled back and dunked her hand in the washbasin, gagging.
“That’s what I thought.” I finished undressing behind the screen and sunk into the shallow bath. “Can you wait and help me wrap my side? The stitches are getting itchy.”
Slathered in salve and bandaged a while later, I crawled into bed with Maud’s help. The sudden, crashing everything that had happened in the past few days slammed into my chest and dragged down my eyelids. I barely heard her leave.
It was my last night as Twenty-Three. The mask came off easily, sliding over my short hair. I took a deep breath and traced the bruises spilling over my chest in splotches of dark blue and deep red-pricked purple. The stitches burned.
I stared up at The Lady’s stars, memory of doing this so close but hazy as a dream, and flipped the credit coin from finger to finger, rolling it across my knuckles. They could give me as many names as they pleased, but I was doing this for me.
I’d scrubbed and scrubbed, but blood still stained my nails.
“Don’t be angry.” I swallowed and clenched the coin in my hands. “You’re all about balancing out the world and repaying debts. They owe you for Nacea.”
The stars didn’t answer.
Had I ruined it? I’d wanted to be perfect, but Shan de Pau drinking and gambling with money not his had awoken the rage in my blood born by Seve’s death. I was good—no one had seen me, and no one would ever know Pau hadn’t done it. Of course he’d protest, but anyone would.
I tucked the coin into the chest pocket of my shirt. I’d killed five people and more had died because of me, but it was all for nothing if I wasn’t named Opal. Knowing the names of the Erlend lords was nothing if I couldn’t get to them.
What was one more, five, five dozen when I’d so much blood on my hands I’d never be able to pay it back?
They were dead, blood drained and bodies burned, but they were my deaths to carry and mine to remember, no matter how dark their pasts. Just like I’d made Seve remember. Just like I’d make the others remember.
North Star. Deadfall. Riparian. Caldera. Winter.
Grell. Eight. Seven. Seve. Tonin.
And tomorrow would come no matter how much blood I’d wasted. I fell asleep beneath the twinkling stars with the scents of lemon and ink filling my dreams.
Forty-Three
I woke with the sun. Maud wafted the steam from a cup of tea under my nose and whispered my name till I rolled onto my back. Daylight burned through my eyes.
I was going to meet Marianna da Ignasi, Our Queen of the Eastern Spires and Lady of Lightning.
And I had to sit through breakfast first.
Two looked like the raging heart of a fire, dressed in deep reds and oranges, sunny yellows and golds, with a flicker of blue silk draped across her chest.
Five wasn’t there.
“He went first.” Two curled her bare hands around a steaming mug of tea, fingers shaking, and smiled. “The room feels larger without everyone else.”
“I’m sorry about Three and Four.” I poured myself a cup of tea, too afraid of getting food on my clothes to eat, and spooned enough honey in it to rile up Four from beyond the pyre. “Four was all right, even for trying to disqualify me.”
“It was so fast,” she said, not even acknowledging I’d spoken. “The last audition went on for two weeks.”
“But you’re alive.”
“It doesn’t bother you, does it? Killing?”
“It does,” I said softly, “but we all signed up knowing we could die. Everyone has an ending.”
I would remember them forever—their names, my reasons, the way their bodies slumped in death and their eyes stared through me. If I stopped, if I let their deaths weigh me down and keep me from being Opal, it was all for nothing. There was no going back.
I was what I was, and they were a part of me now.
Two opened her mouth, but Dimas bowed next to her. She twisted away from me.
“The Left Hand is ready to see you.” He gestured toward the nook.
Two rocked back and forth on her heels, lingering behind Dimas, and said, “I didn’t want them to die alone and leave me behind.”
I stared at her retreating back.
They still had,
and there was nothing anyone could do to fix that. Killing like Five did with Three was monstrous, like the lords did with the shadows as their weapon. That should bother people. This was nothing.
I dunked a roll in my tea. It would’ve been awful to see Rath here—watch him kill, tremble with the weight of something he’d not known, till one day, he wasn’t at breakfast. He’d have lost himself. I couldn’t have watched it.
I set the roll aside and stirred my tea to pass the time, forcing thoughts of Five and Two from my mind.
No use thinking of what I lacked and what they had. It was over.
“Twenty-Three?”
I jerked, knocking my chair arm into Dimas.
“The Left Hand would like to see you.”
“Sorry I got blood on your floor last night.” I kept pace beside him and studied the little lines crinkled around his eyes. A little older than Maud and me but not by much. Managing so many people and buildings took its toll. “Maud would’ve killed me for it.”
“Thank you, but it was no issue.” His jaw tensed. “Maud is very—”
“Lovely?” I sucked the last bits of food and honey from my teeth and straightened my coat. I helped Rath out enough times to know how this worked. “Trustworthy?”
Dimas stiffened. “Dedicated but avaricious.”
“Who isn’t?” I frowned. Everyone needed money, especially orphans and servants. Wanting wasn’t bad. “Everyone’s got their reasons.”
He glanced at me, losing his calm expression, and rapped on the door. I took a breath.
“Our prodigal auditioner returns.” Ruby’s drawl, all feigned happiness and sarcasm, seeped through the cracked door. “You had a busy night.”
“You would know.” I sat in the only free chair in the little room off the dining hall, small and cramped. “Setting me up and keeping tabs like that.”
“You’re not as adept at hiding your hatred as you think.” Amethyst leaned back in her chair, the tan leather armor with beautiful detailing back today. “But you didn’t give into your anger this time. Mostly.”
I flushed. “I do have some self-control.”
“Hardly,” Ruby said softly. “However, you’re young and learning, and you got Shan de Pau out of the way quietly. He drank too much to remember the whole night, much less what really happened to his business partner.”
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