by Kesia Lupo
Anger rises in my heart, burning hot, scorching away a little of my grief. I cling to the feeling as I raise my fingers to the mask.
I feel for an edge, for a hold, and after a lot of probing I think – I think – I find one. I pull. Pain scorches through me like a hot summer sandstorm. Am I pulling off the mask, or my face? I try again – but it’s not happening. I sag against the copper tub, weak and exhausted. Not today. Not now.
What did the Contessa steal from me, the day she lifted me from one life and placed me in another? What if my parents are out there? A whole family, even? What if there’s another destiny waiting for me – the destiny I should have had?
And shouldn’t I find out before I run away forever?
When Nurse returns, I’m sitting at the table, dressed in the clothes she left out for me. Trews, shirt and jacket. Boy’s clothes – for safety while travelling, she’d said. She stops in the doorway, pushes back her hood, drenched with rain, her eyes suddenly sad as she examines me.
‘Once your hair is up under that cap, you’ll do,’ she says softly. She wipes her eyes. ‘Sorry, dear. The last person to wear those clothes was my son. He died of the fever that took my husband too – over seventeen years ago, now.’
My hair is damp around my shoulders. I shake my head, forcing the words ‘I’m sorry’ through my lips – although my own grief is too raw for me to feel hers too.
‘Right,’ she says briskly, now bustling into the room and shutting the door. ‘I’m glad you’re already dressed. I’ve arranged a berth on a good ship, but it leaves in two hours. We’ve got lots to—’
‘I’m not going,’ I interrupt quietly. ‘Not yet, anyway.’
Nurse’s face falls. She walks over, sits beside me at the table. ‘Why, sweetheart? I know it’s frightening to leave everything you’ve known but … Don’t you see how much danger you’re in if you stay?’
‘I’m not frightened. I have to speak to the Contessa – I need to know who I am, Nurse.’ I stand and walk over to the window to watch a torrent of furious rain lash the marketplace, the sea beyond. I press my hand against the glass. ‘I can’t start a new life without knowing what I’m leaving behind. And I need to ask her why she did what she did. If I don’t get answers now, I never will.’
‘Bambina, this is … You can’t …’ Nurse’s hands are trembling as she fiddles with the material of her skirts. ‘The Contessa is weakened, but she is surrounded by a huge household of guards. You won’t be able to get close to her. Besides, word is she’s leaving at dusk tonight – to seek help from the King.’
‘I have to try.’ I pace to one end of the table and back again, mind racing. The upheaval of the Contessa leaving might work to my advantage. ‘If I can somehow disguise myself as a guard, it shouldn’t be too difficult to get to her … The fact that she’s leaving could actually help. The palazzo is probably in disarray …’ I stop as an idea occurs to me. ‘The Ornamentals and the Bestials will be destroyed, now that my sisters are gone. But the Grotesques should still be functional, as I’m still alive. I’m going to guess that the Contessa has surrounded herself with Grotesque-wearing True Masked guards. If I can sneak into the mask room, get one for myself … of course, it won’t be matched to me – it won’t move. But I can tie it in place. Perhaps, in low light, I can blend in for long enough to get close to her.’
Nurse stands up and when she speaks, her voice is firmer than I’ve ever heard it. ‘Beatrice, this is foolish. If you go ahead with this plan, you’ll put yourself in terrible danger. You should leave while you can. You may not get another chance!’
‘I’ve made up my mind.’ I lift my chin, sounding braver than I feel. ‘Are you going to help me or not?’
After a pause, she says, very quietly, ‘I suppose the one thing you’ve not been allowed to do, my dear, is choose. So I must let you have that at least.’ She glances out of the window, which is rattling in the wind. Sea spray is whirling over the market – its reluctant vendors battling through rain to pack up their wares – and thunder roars. ‘Do the masked guards wear the same uniform as the ordinary guards?’ she asks at last.
‘Yes, they do. Why?’
‘My husband was a guard. It was how the Contessa knew of me – why she hired me to look after you. His uniform is still in his chest. It’ll be big for you, but perhaps …’
My heart leaps. ‘If I have a uniform and a mask …’
She smiles sadly. ‘Then perhaps you’ll have a chance.’
I straighten my trews, shirt and jacket as I step out into the street, my hair tucked under a cap. The storm is spent, now, the sun glancing out from her watery veil. Everything feels calm – but not me, not inside. My heart is like the thrashing, restless sea. Thoughts, memories and imaginings churn in my mind. But I have a purpose – I have direction – and so I push everything aside, hitch the battered leather backpack over my shoulder and start walking.
Hands in my pockets, I pick my way through the streets towards the palazzo square. I hesitate as I reach it, my heart pounding at the changes wrought by the past night. The remains of the puppet theatre have been partially cleared, but some larger items destroyed by the blaze – the blackened posts and a number of angular, ruined seats – remain cordoned off from the public, stark against the watery sky. I shiver, imagining a ghostly audience sitting there, waiting for a show to begin in which we, the living, are the puppets. The storm has left the scorched wood sodden and stinking, and those who hurry past, heads down, press handkerchiefs to their noses. The library steps are emptier than usual – the few students clustering into small groups, voices lowered – and no one is attempting to clean up the black graffiti all over the walls.
The whole place, the heart of this city, has a disconcerting air of abandonment. Where are the Contessa’s men? I shudder, then pick my way towards the mask room. Here, outside, I hesitate in the shadows for a few minutes, wondering if anyone is watching this place – but it doesn’t seem like it. And so I slide my old key into the lock, open the door, and walk down the staircase.
This time it’s different as I descend the steps into the soupy, cold darkness. This time, for the first time, I’m alone – and I feel my sisters’ absence like a physical pain, acutely aware of the missing footsteps in front of me and behind.
But they weren’t my sisters anyway – and somehow, that makes it even worse. As if they’ve been taken away from me twice over: by death and by the truth.
When I open the mask-room door, thin light filters through from the windows at street level far above – it’s barely enough to see by, but it’s enough that I can tell there’s something wrong. That the neat, orderly rows of masks have been disturbed. I know my sisters’ deaths will have stolen the Bestial and Ornamental masks’ powers, but I don’t know how that will manifest itself. My hands are trembling as I light the oil lamp by the door and hold it aloft – the scene leaps out at me as its golden glow bursts forth.
The floor is littered with masks. I step forward, carefully nudging aside a smashed Ornamental, its face caved in as if crushed by a heel, glittering cheeks catching and reflecting the light of my lamp. Further along, a Bestial snarls up at me with sharp canines, a crack running down its forehead. I lift the lamp higher. On the walls, the Grotesques alone remain, grinning and leering and grimacing from their hooks.
That’s what I’m here for, I remind myself. No need to linger – just get a mask, change into the uniform in my bag, and hurry to the palazzo before dusk, when the Contessa leaves. Demand my answers. I don’t have long – the shadows were already lengthening when I descended the mask-room steps.
But as I’m picking my way through the debris towards the wall, I hear the sound I’ve dreaded the most: footsteps on the stairs. Someone has followed me. I flick off the lamplight and feel my way across the mask-strewn floor towards the antechamber. Softly, I shut the door and press my eye to the keyhole. I feel a shiver of sorrow as I remember the last time I spied on the mask room in this way, my two sisters bi
ckering at my side.
The shadows shift as light spills through from the stairwell. Then, two young men enter the room. The first is tall, broad and dark-haired – handsome with a sharp stubbled jaw. He holds a lamp high over his head as he enters, examining the scene with an expression I can’t quite fathom. The second man is slender, shorter, paler, and he wears a gleaming pair of spectacles.
‘Gods … it’s just like my vision,’ says the first man, running a hand anxiously through his hair. Then he freezes. ‘Except …’ He walks over to the wall, where the Grotesques hang intact. ‘Gods …’ he breathes again. ‘Now I know what Grandmother was holding back when she told me to destroy them …’
Destroy them? My eyes widen.
‘What is it, Livio?’ the second man asks, hesitating by the door. He glances up the steps, as if he, too, is afraid of pursuit.
Livio. The heir to the Contessa?
Suddenly the pieces fall into place. The silhouette I once glimpsed in the carriage. Livio Santini, Valentina had said. A young man with instructions from his grandmother – the Contessa – to destroy the mask room.
To cover up the evidence of her crime.
My anger burns brighter, answering sparks lifting from my fingers. No. I press my hands into my sides, gritting my teeth as I push the energy down, down into the pit of my stomach until nausea sings through my skull. I need to stay hidden – for now. I press my eye to the gap and watch.
‘The Grotesques … they’re intact. Elisao … one of the mask-makers must be alive,’ Livio says.
‘But … how can that be?’ Elisao says, his voice taut. ‘I thought they always died at the same time? Look, if we’re going to do this, we should hurry. I swear someone was following us round the palazzo square.’
‘Right,’ Livio says. ‘Let’s get some more light in here. We need to set this fire and get out.’
Fire? They’re going to burn the masks? I take a shuddering breath, my eyes running over the wood-panelled walls, the desks, the boxes of flammable material. This place will go up like a bonfire. What am I going to do now? If I don’t think fast I’ll be trapped in here.
Livio holds out his hand, frowns as a flickering mage-light appears on his palm. He breathes deep, as if the spell is costing him considerable effort – but slowly the mage-light brightens and lifts up into the air.
The floating pale purple light illuminates the scene brighter than lamplight – but in its cold glow, everything is ghostly and colourless. Elisao isn’t watching the staircase any more – he’s watching Lord Livio, a tender smile playing at his lips. And that’s perhaps why I see the dark shadow before he does – a few steps up, through the half-open door. The shadow holds out its hand and—
I have to stop myself from crying out, clasping my palm against my mouth. Instinctively, I jump away from the keyhole, stagger against the bench at my back as a purplish-red flash illuminates the room, light shooting through the gaps in the door.
The colour of that mage’s magic is seared into my memory forever. All at once, I feel as if I’m back in the nursery, the night after the Inheritance, hearing soft footsteps in the dark.
The assassin is here.
NINETEEN:
Deception
Livio
I spin around when I hear the thud – every muscle in my body wound up tight.
Elisao is lying on the floor. I rush towards him, kneel at his side. His chest is rising and falling – he’s alive – but I can see lightning-like scars creeping up his neck … the scars of a magical attack. But from who? My stomach lurches as I glance up at the open doorway.
A dark shape is descending the last few steps as I watch. My heart hammers. I rise to my feet, my muscles tensing.
‘Shadow?’ I breathe.
The figure laughs – a male voice to match the tall physique, taller than mine. His face is hidden, I realise – like the assassin on the rooftop, a plain black mask covers his features. But I recognise his tightly curled black hair, his tall, broad build … No. It can’t be.
The figure reaches up and removes his mask. Beneath it, he is dark-skinned and handsome – a strong, determined jaw, high cheekbones, beautifully curved brows. And when he smiles, a gem flashes on one of his canines.
‘Hal?’ I choke out the word.
‘Lord Livio. There you are,’ he says, his voice softly accented.
Hal. My heart is racing as – at last – I realise how I have been deceived. A new recruit, a stranger, assigned as my personal bodyguard – unusually friendly, even seductive. Somebody told him to get close to me. I feel my cheeks colour. Now Elisao is caught up in my trap, out cold on the mask-room floor.
‘Gods,’ I say, my voice as calm as I can manage, though I’m shaking with anger. ‘You were working for Shadow all along.’
‘There are no gods here, Lord. Not any more. Only Fortune.’ He smiles – dazzlingly, cruelly. ‘Now, are you going to come quietly?’
I’m not done. I step forward, closer to him – to the door. ‘You tricked my grandmother into hiring you,’ I say.
He shrugs. ‘I am one of the most skilled mages from Mythris’s temple in Port Regal – I never lied about that.’
‘She trusted you.’ My mind is racing. ‘You did everything you could to get close to me, to gain my trust. The assassin on the rooftop that night … was it some kind of set-up?’
‘’Course. I was supposed to save your life from the assassin. If the damned sandwolf hadn’t interfered, I would have.’
‘And what about that kiss? What was your plan, Hal?’ I’m shouting now. ‘To make me trust you, then persuade me to … what? What is Shadow’s game?’
Hal glances at Elisao, lying on the floor among the broken, smashed detritus of a thousand years of tradition. His lip curls. ‘Not for me to say, Lord. Besides, you’ll soon find out.’ He steps closer to me – so close that I can feel his breath teasing my hair as he says, ‘Are you ready to embrace your fate?’
‘Why don’t you just kill me here?’ I ask, tilting my chin.
Hal laughs. ‘You think Shadow would go to all this trouble just to kill you?’ His eyes gleam in the mage-light. ‘No, we could have done that in an instant. That’s not your fate, Lord. Come with me, you’ll see.’
I step back. ‘I won’t.’
Hal’s expression shifts, growing mean and determined. ‘Oh, you’ll come, Lord, willing or not,’ he says, opening his palm as he summons a sparking ball of purplish-red magic. ‘We both know you can’t beat me.’
I clench my fists, drop down. My body is readying itself for a fight – but not a magical one.
I can’t help it. Old habits die hard.
Hal notices it too, his eyebrows rising. ‘When will you learn?’ he says. ‘You can’t beat me with your fists.’
‘I can try.’ I swing a punch, fast and true – colliding with Hal’s jaw. I feel a jolt of pure euphoria. Everything slows down. I watch Hal raise a hand to his face, scowl at me. The mage-light floating overhead casts weird shadows as Hal summons a spell, throws his attack.
I leap aside, faster, roll on the floor – masks crushing under my body. The force of the spell pushes me, skidding, against the wall. My head bangs against smooth stone – pain exploding through my skull. I’m vaguely aware of a spell bursting through a wooden door opposite the entrance, shattering it entirely, and then—
And then the room falls strangely silent and still. I blink, my ears ringing, feeling hot wetness on the back of my head, my knuckles throbbing where they connected with Hal’s jaw. Hal stands across the room, hand pressed to his face, but his head is turned away … He’s watching …
Someone else. A figure is staggering out of the small antechamber once hidden by the broken door, coughing, falling to their knees. Someone dressed in boys’ clothes – but when their cap falls off, long straight hair unravels about their face. A girl. Around my age.
She glances up, fear written in her dark eyes as they lock on Hal’s with unmistakeable recognition. I try to
push myself up to a seated position, but the room spins, and I fall back against the wall. I hear a groan. Elisao is nearby, a few paces away, stirring. If I can reach him, somehow – if I can help him out of the door, up the stairs, while Hal’s back is turned …
But when I try to stand, the ground pitches like the deck of a ship, and the room turns black around the edges.
As the dust settles, I watch as the girl’s expression shifts from fear to pure rage. ‘You tried to kill my sisters,’ she screams at Hal. She holds out her hand in front of her, palm facing Hal. ‘Now I’m going to kill you.’
Magic bursts from her palm – a strong, true attack, glittering green. But Hal is ready. His shield deflects the spell, which skitters harmlessly into a pile of masks. Then, he holds out his hand. Purple-red magic glitters around her throat – she gasps, clutching her neck. He’s strangling her. I try to push myself up, but I slump forward, dizzy.
‘The last mascherari,’ Hal says. He peers at her curiously. ‘One of a kind, aren’t you, now that your sisters are dead?’
I gasp silently at the revelation, watching as the girl’s face turns red, and real pain flashes in her eyes.
Hal pulls his Bestial True Mask from his jacket, tosses it on the floor with the others, all the while holding his choking spell steady. The mask-maker’s lips are losing colour. ‘These ones might be useless … but as long as you’re alive, the Grotesques work just fine. Maybe … maybe you could make more. Would you like that?’
The girl falls to her knees, swaying.
‘Yes,’ says Hal softly. ‘I expect Shadow would like to see you too.’ He lowers his hand, the spell breaks, and the mascherari lets out an ugly gasp.
‘I’m going nowhere,’ she rasps, pushing herself to her feet. She holds out her palm as if to attack again.
‘Oh?’ Hal raises his hand, twists his fingers. I watch as the girl’s wrists are pinned magically together behind her back, as if fastened with invisible ties. She tries to run but stumbles – falling hard on her knees without her arms to break her fall.