What is Hidden

by Skidmore, Lauren

  Aiden tried to laugh it off, but I caught the way he reddened. Absently, I wondered if there was more of a history between them.

  “And so, I get most of my information from other Lacies. We all know what we’re personally invested in, of course, but we also like to keep tabs on what others are searching for and help out when we can. It’s always beneficial to provide what information you know, since you never know what or who can prove useful. And, again, we’re all used to keeping our secrets, so there’s no fear of leaking information to the wrong person. The loyalty between us is too strong. No Lacie would ever betray her sisters like that.”

  She spoke so fiercely that I couldn’t doubt her. Added to what I knew about the women, I would have bet my life that any information passed through the Lacies was true and secure.

  “What if someone got fed bad information?” I wondered out loud.

  “If there’s any doubt, it doesn’t get passed along. Or if it does, it’s passed with the disclaimer that it may or may not be one hundred percent true.”

  “How can you know if it’s good or bad?”

  “It depends on the source,” she said thoughtfully. “For example, if I see or hear something with my own eyes or ears, then I can trust it, obviously. And there are people that I trust just as much as if I’d heard it myself. If I get information passed on from anyone else, then I’ll tack on the disclaimer. I usually don’t pass anything on that’s more than one or two people removed.”

  I digested that. “Sorry to ask, or if I insulted you in any way—I don’t mean to doubt you. I just want to know.”

  She waved off my apology. “Not at all. I’d be asking the same questions, if our places were reversed. Which says a lot about the both of us.” She smiled at me.

  I smiled back. I was definitely looking forward to getting to know her more.

  * * *

  “So I have a feeling there’s more to the story than you originally told me,” I said nonchalantly as we left Arianna’s place. We’d stayed for a short while longer, talking about nothing in particular. I had a feeling that Aiden had picked up more information from the casual conversation than about I was privy to. I was sure he wanted information other than the Chameleon, but he didn’t bring anything else up. I didn’t know if it was because I was there and he didn’t want me to know, or because he couldn’t let me know. Either way, it didn’t bother me. It wasn’t any of my business.

  His personal life, on the other hand, was always my business.

  “What gives you that idea?” He sounded far too casual. I knew I was on to something. If it had been nothing, he’d tease me about how I was either being paranoid or something silly like that.

  I shrugged. “Just . . . something in the air, I suppose. Any chance you’ll spill?”

  “Assuming there is something to spill, of course.”

  “And I’m pretty positive there is.”

  “Would you be willing to bet a round of training on that?” he bargained with me.

  “In a heartbeat.”

  “Then I guess you’ll see tonight, won’t you?”

  I groaned. “Come on. Can’t you just tell me now? What’s a few hours difference going to make?”

  “Because I know you. I know that if I tell you now, tonight you’ll try to worm something else out of me, claiming that what I tell you now doesn’t count as an exchange for something later.”

  I widened my eyes and gave him my best injured puppy dog look. “You really think I’d do that to you?” I asked as innocently as I could manage without laughing, because that was exactly my plan.

  “Don’t give me that look,” he said, groaning. “I refuse to look at you until you put that look away. And you know how dangerous that can be if I’m going to be helping you into any boats. I’d hate for you to accidently land in the canal.”

  I snorted. “Right, and I’d hate for you to come tumbling in after me because I refuse to let go of you when you push me in. You’d ruin your pretty clothes, and I’m still not entirely convinced that you can swim.”

  “What?! I can swim perfectly well, thank you very much,” he cried indignantly. He crossed his arms over his chest and pouted.

  “You’re such a baby.” I laughed, tugging on his arm, trying to loosen his stance.

  “I am not.” To prove a point—I wasn’t sure if it was his or mine—he stuck his tongue out at me childishly.

  I dropped my innocent act and dissolved into giggles. He tried to keep up his tough façade, but that didn’t last long, and soon he was laughing along with me.

  “All right,” I said once I’d caught my breath again. “Cross my heart, I won’t try to cheat you tonight. I’ll make you tell me something else by some other way, like kicking your butt.”

  I made an elaborate show of drawing an X across my heart and holding out my other hand to show I wasn’t crossing my fingers that would negate my promise.

  He seemed to accept that. “Fine, fine. You are irresistible, you know that, right?”

  “I do my best.” I smiled.

  “All right. So Arianna and I do have a little more of a history than I’d let on before,” he confessed, watching the ground beneath his feet carefully as we continued down the street to the boat docks.

  “I never courted her in front of my father. I couldn’t give him the pleasure. And there is also the matter of her profession to consider. She’s a Lacie through and through, and I don’t think she’d ever give that up, not even for me.” He laughed at some inside joke. “Perhaps especially not for me.”

  “How long have you known her?”

  “We’ve known each other for years. We were intimately acquainted for perhaps a month or so before we both realized we weren’t fooling anyone and that we’d never amount to anything together. She’s far too independent to be with someone like me, and I’m too much of a . . . complication to be with her.”

  “I thought you liked her independence.”

  “I do, very much. I admire her extremely. It’s just, in our situation, it wouldn’t have worked.” He struggled to find the right words. “I mean, you of all people should know how I like my girls to have some brains and spitfire in them.”

  He nudged my shoulder, and I couldn’t stop the blush in my cheeks. “I see why you hang around me now,” I said, trying to deflect his comments the best way I knew how. “You like to fool yourself into thinking you can conquer my independent streak every once in a while when I let you get the better of me.”

  “Not at all,” he surprised me by saying. “I won’t deny that I get a special sort of thrill thrashing you in personal combat training, but you have to know that I like being around you because you’re not afraid—of anything, it seems.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m afraid of plenty of things.”

  “You never show it. Sometimes I wonder if you’re actually real.” He looked at me sidewise with an odd look in his eyes.

  “Again, don’t be ridiculous. Of course I’m real, and of course I’m afraid of plenty of things.”

  “Name one thing you’re afraid of.” Before I could even open my mouth to answer, though, he said, “And the Chameleon coming after you doesn’t count. I know you’re not insane, and he has to scare you a little.”

  “Actually that wasn’t what I was going to say, but yes, that’s on my list.”

  “And what were you going to say?”

  “Spiders,” I deadpanned.

  He stared at me for a silent moment, then cracked up laughing. “Seriously?”

  “Don’t laugh at me! They’re creepy little things with their millions of eyes and legs and the skittering way they walk . . .” I trailed off and shivered. I was creeping myself out.

  Aiden, on the other hand, was still laughing. “You’re honestly scared of spiders? You live in a basement! How does that even work? And that’s so . . .”

  “What? Girly?” I said, annoyed. “And I freak out every time I see one. You’re just never around when I need you to squish them,
” I added as an afterthought.

  “Well, yeah, it’s girly, but I was going to say normal. And it’s not my fault that I’m not always around.”

  “What are you afraid of then, Lord I’m-Too-Dignified-For-Spiders?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.

  He stopped laughing and looked at me seriously. “Getting lost.”

  I stared back at him. “You’re messing with me,” I accused. “You didn’t look at all scared when I first met you. If anything, you looked frustrated.”

  “People deal with fear in different ways,” he said, shrugging. “And I didn’t really mean physically lost. I meant more in the figurative way. Like, getting lost in the shuffle of life. Losing sight of who I am under the pressures and stress of who people expect me to be.”

  “That’s . . .” I struggled to find the right words. “Really deep. Who knew you could be serious like that?”

  He didn’t answer, and I worried that I had taken my teasing a little too far that time. “Aiden.” I put a hand on his arm and waited for him to look me in the eyes. “I promise, as long as you know me, I won’t let you get lost in yourself, okay?”

  A small smile tugged at his lips. “And I’ll protect you from any and all spiders.”

  I shoved him away. “Rogue.”

  He smiled in earnest then. “I feel like I’m cheating you in this deal. But I’ll take it, if it means you’ll stick around.”

  “It’s a deal, then.”

  As we walked back to the palace in relative silence, I couldn’t help feeling as if we’d passed some sort of milestone in our relationship. He’d become my best friend. And I was starting to feel like I was becoming something more than his best friend.

  And I was surprisingly okay with that.

  =

  TWENTY

  +

  The quickly approaching masquerades meant the mask room was always bursting with activity, and I was more often than not cleaning or working on something other than my own mask.

  But today I would put the finishing touches on my mask and present it to Milo. I’d spent hours sanding and smoothing and sewing until I felt it was perfect.

  “It looks good,” a chipper girl with short brown hair commented. I could never remember her name, but I thanked her. “Don’t you think it looks good, Joch?” she asked my neighbor, who was in the workroom today, reading some books of different glass-blowing techniques.

  He barely glanced at it before turning back to his paperwork and shrugging, apparently not impressed.

  “Oh, ignore him,” the girl insisted, adding under her breath, “He’s just bitter and jaded.”

  I raised an eyebrow, surprised. “Oh?”

  “You haven’t heard?” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “The reason he came here? He’s from one of the Northern Islands and was set up pretty nicely too. Had a girl and everything. But then she ran off with a sea merchant who was quite popular with the palace suppliers. He followed her here but never found her.”

  “That’s so tragic.” I looked at him out of the corner of my eyes, seeing him in a new light. No wonder he was always so sullen. “How did he end up here, though? Wouldn’t he be reminded of her all the time?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know he showed up in the palace one day as an official guest to the crown.”

  “I can hear you, you know,” Joch said suddenly, lurching to his feet and gathering his papers in a huff. “And really, that’s none of your business.”

  He marched out of the room, barely snapping an excuse to Milo before letting the door slam shut behind him.

  “Someone has a bit of a temper,” Milo remarked calmly as he walked over, as if this happened every day. Although given the lack of confusion in the room, it apparently happened more often than I’d thought. “I hope that means you’re ready for my examination, Miss Evelina, if you have the time to chase your desk mate away.”

  I ducked my head. “Yes, sir. I mean, I’m ready.”

  He held out his hand, and I gingerly placed my finished product in his palm, feeling as though my racing heart was another ornament on the mask.

  He ran his hands over the inner lining, feeling for snags or puckers, but I’d done that as well and knew there were none to be found. Then he felt out the surface, tracing each curve and swirl and bead with his fingertips. He pulled gently on the beaded string that strapped the mask to the wearer. He tested every inch of my creation, his passive face leaving my stomach in knots.

  “I’d like to test the fit now, if you please. Would you prefer to go to one of the fitting rooms?”

  “Yes, please,” I answered immediately, feeling curious eyes on me.

  Once securely behind a curtain, Milo asked me to remove the mask I was wearing and put the one I made on. “Now I’m going to feel for the fit, but let me know if you are uncomfortable at any time, all right?”

  I nodded, then remembered that he couldn’t see and answered aloud.

  His nimble fingers felt along the edges, making sure everything was flush against my skin. My whole body tensed as he brushed close to my Mark, but if he noticed, he didn’t say anything. Finally, he withdrew his hands.

  “Well, Miss Evelina, I think you’ve done a very fine job.”

  I beamed with pride.

  “I could feel no cracks, and the work is solid. However,” he continued, my stomach dropping, “it is very safe. I detected no risks, nothing adventurous. I would wager you’ve made hundreds of masks like this in the past.”

  He was right, I realized.

  “I’m pleased you have a good grasp of the basics. However, you won’t create masterpieces if you are forever playing it safe. When someone asks you to prove yourself, you must also stretch yourself and take risks, otherwise while you might prove something to another, you prove nothing to yourself.”

  “I understand,” I said softly, looking down.

  “Don’t sound so glum.” He lifted my chin up. “I did say I was pleased with your work, and I would be very pleased to have you continue to be in my workroom.”

  I beamed at him. “Thank you, sir. I would like that very much.”

  “Good. And how’s your work with Signore Joch coming along? He seems to be a bit more testy as of late.”

  Sighing, I said, “I’m not sure. I thought I was making progress, but he’s always so . . . stiff and abrasive. I don’t know what he thinks of my work. All he does is grunt at me.”

  “He hasn’t kicked you out yet, which is more than I can say for others that have tried. Give him time, Miss Evelina. I think you’ll get through to him eventually.”

  I doubted it, but I wasn’t going to give up just yet.

  * * *

  “Why are you just standing around?” Vera screeched at me as I floated into the kitchens later that day.

  “I—”

  She cut me off before I could form a response, not that I’d had any clue how to respond.

  “You’re supposed to be helping prep for the balls, and the first one is tomorrow! Didn’t anyone tell you? You’ll be in the first shift of servers and will need to leave an excellent first impression.” She rolled her eyes. “I’d keep you serving for both, but I can’t have you seen out on the floor for that long. Someone might think you’re being over-worked. Instead, you’ll be inside the kitchen, working on the dishes. You did so well with them last time.”

  Grinning happily to herself, she sauntered away, having delivered the bad news. I don’t know why she delighted in doing that, but it seemed to just make her day every time she could ruin mine.

  “Great,” I muttered to myself, my good mood deflated. I’d been hoping to attend at least one of the elaborate masquerade balls, but it looked like that wouldn’t be possible this year. Instead of dancing with handsome beaux, I’d be keeping company with the suds and crusty dishes. Fantastic.

  “Aw, were you hoping to have a chance at the prince, after all?” Jeza called from her cutting board full of badly sliced tomatoes. “I’m telling yo
u now, sweet lady, you’re better off hiding in the kitchens.”

  “Why would I even think I had ‘a chance at the prince,’ ” I mocked, “at the ball?” I was tired of Jeza’s meaningless accusations.

  “You haven’t heard yet?” she squealed, immediately abandoning her post to come gossip. “The king has decided it’s time for the prince to settle down. I think there was some drama in the family or something. I haven’t got all the details on that yet.” She sounded frustrated about not knowing every minute detail about their royal lives. “But the prince will actually be dancing at the ball. I think he might even be in disguise! You know, actually have some inch of his skin visible, so as not to skew the results or something silly like that.”

  I’d never had my sights set on the prince, but I had to admit I was disappointed that I wouldn’t even have a chance to dance with him, if for no other reason than to have a good story to tell. Or something to rub in Jeza’s face, should I get the chance and she did not.

  Jeza seemed to read the disappointment that caused my shoulders to sag. “It really is a shame that you’ll miss out.”

  I shrugged it off, trying to act like it didn’t bother me. “It’s not like I won’t be there to see him,” I pointed out. “I’ll still be serving. I’ll be out there. I bet I’ll still get to see him.”

  That stopped her for a moment. “But seeing isn’t the same as touching,” she finally said. “And as a server, you’ll have no chance of dancing with him. You’ll be all but invisible to him.”

  She grinned triumphantly. I kept my voice calm as I responded. “I guess it’s a good thing I never wanted that ‘chance’ at him in the first place, isn’t it?”

  I left her then; I was afraid I probably would have tried to slap her. I don’t know how she got under my skin, but she seemed to know exactly how to irritate me.

  I couldn’t go far because dinner was under an hour away, and I’d be needed back in the kitchens. So I just stalked back and forth in one of the hallways, silently fuming. I shouldn’t let her get to me like that, I knew, but I couldn’t help it.