“It serves us all. Isn’t that the point?”
Kosika looked down at her own hands, crusted in blood. “And if the magic dried up again? If the power bled out of the world? Would they still follow me?”
“Oh, no,” said Nasi cheerfully, “then they would surely turn on you.” Only she could say such a thing with lightness in her voice. “This is London, after all. But you and I both know they will not need to. Because you would open your veins into the Sijlt before anyone tried to cut your throat.”
Kosika tried to manage a smile, but it fell short. “Go back down,” she told Nasi, nodding at the stairs. “Enjoy the feast. Make sure the Vir don’t go mad with power in my absence.”
“You should eat,” said her friend, and Kosika bristled, even as her stomach growled in protest, full of nothing but sugared buns and cider.
“Fine,” she said. “Send something up.”
She turned, only to feel Nasi’s hand catch hers, then the weight of something pressing into her palm.
“Happy birthday,” said Nasi, leaning in to kiss her cheek, and Kosika let herself blush, only a little, before she looked down and saw what the gift was: a marble figure, like the ones on the kol-kot board in the corner of her room. Kosika knew the rules now, had even beat Nasi half a dozen times. The figure was modeled on the game’s most important piece. The single faceless king.
Only this wasn’t a faceless king.
It was a queen.
It was her.
From the white cloak to the braided crown to the eyes cast in gemstone, one light brown, the other solid black. Her spirits lightened as her fingers curled over the token. She looked up to thank Nasi, but the girl was already vanishing down the spiral steps, toward the noise and revel of the feast.
Kosika turned the talisman in her hands as she continued up to her room, past the second landing and the third to the royal tower, past the two guards posted outside her door.
At last, in the quiet, she shrugged off the bloodstained cloak and pulled the jeweled pins from her hair, leaving the finery laid out like a ghost on the bed. She passed the silver ash tree that grew in the center of her room, brushed her fingers against the bark on her way to the game board that waited as it always did on its low, round table.
She sank onto a cushioned stool. The game was set, each king with a wall of soldiers in front, a set of priests behind. Kosika took up the silver-and-white king, faceless beneath his crown, then dropped it in the drawer, and set her own piece in its place. Her fingertips were tracing her stone features when something—someone—moved in the room behind her.
“Kosika,” said a voice, low and smooth.
She turned, and there he was, dressed in charcoal, one hand on the post of her bed and the other on the stained cloak, his long fingers as graceful as they’d been when she curled them around the single sugar cube in the Silver Wood.
“Hello, Holland.”
Part Seven
THE HAND THAT HOLDS THE BLADE
I
Red London
The city was full of pleasure gardens.
Some made the most of the long summer nights, and others burned away the winter chill, some were intimate and others grand, and all were dazzling in their own way.
But few held a candle to the Veil.
Like the rest, it catered to a wealthy clientele, and was known not only for its luxury but also its discretion, welcoming patrons with a wall of polished masks, to don as they came in. But unlike the others, it had no grounds, no walls, no roof, no roots. Instead, the Veil descended on a different house each night, and only its most devoted members knew where it would bloom.
Thus, its size and shape varied with the nature of its grounds—that was indeed part of its appeal. Sometimes the venue was large enough to host a ball, other times it was little more than a network of narrow rooms and curtained alcoves. It was a traveling circus, a fluid festival of fine wine and scented smoke, and every day, by dawn, it was gone.
The staging changed, but the rules stayed the same.
The servants of the Veil were set apart by golden masks, while the patrons wore ones that were either solid black, or solid white. It was a sea of faceless faces, and while most were engaged in one form of debauchery or another, some stood apart, choosing to watch without the fear of being watched, while others enjoyed the privacy the Veil afforded.
It wasn’t strange to pass a set of figures on the stairs, their covered faces bowed close in talk instead of want. Or a handful seated around a table, discussing forbidden magic or foreign trade. Or a room reserved not for plotting one’s enjoyment, but the downfall of a king.
A gold mask was hung on the door to show that it was being used, and in the space beyond, two guests sat waiting for the third. One’s mask was black, the other’s white.
“He’s late,” said the first, his features hidden behind the onyx guise, his scarred knuckles shining as they tightened on a pipe. There was a pale mark around his thumb, where a piece of jewelry had been removed. He was a large man, and when he reclined, his broad shoulders filled the high-backed chair.
The mouth of the pipe vanished beneath his black mask and a moment later, smoke plumed around its edges. “Remind me again why we bother with him?”
The second guest, her own face hidden behind a bone-white mask, inclined her head. She was slight, her body curving with the contours of the chair in which she lounged. “All tools have their uses.” She crossed her legs. “Speaking of, where is this persalis of yours?”
“On its way.”
Behind the white mask, she pursed her lips. “The next meeting is tomorrow night. If you don’t have it by then, the Hand won’t be able to—”
“I’m aware of how time works,” he warned. He had the kind of voice that pressed down, made most flinch, or look away. The woman did neither, only shrugged.
“It is your plan,” she said. “If you’re not ready, we can move on to mine.”
He shook his head. “The Long Dark Night is weeks away.”
“Too much time is always better than too little.” She always spoke like that, it seemed, in sculpted phrases, her tone as smooth as river stone.
The man said nothing. His gaze flicked to the clock against the wall. It would make no sound until the Veil drew shut at dawn, which was still hours off, but time’s hands were slipping silently down the right side of its face.
“Insolent brat,” he muttered, drawing on the pipe, only to find the fire had gone out. The woman held out her hand, producing a delicate tendril of flame, but he ignored it, rising to his feet to approach a lamp instead.
As he inhaled, the door flung open on its hinges, and the third member of their party strolled in, more a tumble than a stride, though it was hard to tell if he was drunk, or simply in good spirits. His gold mask shone, from the pointed chin to the spokes that curled into his burnished hair, but his clothing was rumbled and askew, as if it had been abandoned for some time, and only recently resumed.
“Apologies,” he said, a bottle in one hand and three glasses in the other. “I was detained a moment on the stairs. Business, you understand,” he added, gesturing to the room, and the Veil, which both belonged to him.
The Master of the Veil filled the glasses and handed them to his guests. The man in the black mask took the drink. The woman in the white waved it away. The Master shrugged, and poured the contents into his own. Then he drew the golden mask up just enough to tip it back, exposing a strong jaw, the line of his cheek. They knew each other’s faces well by now, and yet, the first and second kept their own masks down.
“Are we all set,” asked the third, refilling his glass, “for tomorrow night?”
“No,” said the second, as the first answered, “Yes.”
The host’s eyes danced behind his golden mask. “Dissent already? What did I miss?”
“He doesn’t have it,” said the woman.