Elise de Farone. Unmarried. Daughter to the lord who ruled over the northeastern stretch of Erlend—Igna now—flush against the mountains and bordering the lands outside of Our Queen’s control. I’d heard nothing about her parents being involved in the massacre, but most of them used secret names.
All except two: Lord Horatio del Seve and his backstabbing merchant, Shan de Pau. Seve ruled the lands that had neighbored Nacea and begrudgingly served Our Queen, paying just enough taxes that she let him be. Pau had nothing to do with the massacre, but he jacked up the prices of everything after the war, fenced stolen Nacean property, and ran half of Igna into debt. Everyone wanted him dead.
No one had managed it yet.
“Nice to meet you, Lady Farone.” I nodded. Might as well play nice for now. “I’m Twenty-Three.”
She sniffed, glasses rising in distaste, and swept a curl behind her ear. “You really go by numbers?”
“We really do.” I twisted my gloved hands in my lap—I was still wearing her ring—and fought the heat curling in the pit of my stomach. She better not have noticed it. “Least you’ll be able to tell us apart.”
“I doubt I’d confuse you with anyone, Twenty-Three.” She fiddled with her papers, staring at me over the rim of her glasses. “You’re comfortable speaking Erlenian and Alonian?”
“Since I was a kid.”
“Let’s start with Alonian.” Elise pulled a thin book from her stack, hands only marred by smudges of charcoal and thin paper cuts, and laid it out before me. “It was the first language of Our Queen and has fewer conjugations. You’ll pick up Erlenian quickly after that.”
I grinned. “If I’m still alive.”
Elise dropped her brush pen. Soft-skinned nobles weren’t used to gallows humor, and Lady de Farone was soft all over—except for her tongue. Teasing her was the most fun I could have without risking death.
“Just joking.” I picked up the pen and set it near her hand. The chubby doodles of a smaller, younger hand decorated the pages. I’d fought more people than five times my age, yet I was learning out of a children’s book. I recognized the letters, but I couldn’t make sense of them jumbled together. “So how does reading work?”
“Letters,” she said without missing a beat. “Which ones do you recognize?”
I studied the alphabet. The pages were old, yellowed, and crinkled at the ears. I traced the curves of a cat, the left half a sideways arch.
“Cat.” The letters were twisted to form the animal, but I recognized the word. The Cat and The Fiddle was the most popular music hall in Kursk, and I walked under that sign near every month. “The ears give it away.”
“They do that.” Elise grinned. She made the hard sound at the start of “cat,” her fingers drawing the first pointy letter in the air before I could respond. “We’ll go over what sound each letter makes, and you’ll write them down in charcoal. Messier, but if you never learned to write, probably easier than starting off with a pen. You’ll learn the sounds and the shapes at the same time.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “All right.”
“It has two more letters that make the last two sounds.”
“The triangle and the corner.” I leaned across the table. “You’re being awfully nice to an assassin.”
“Would-be assassin.” She licked her lips and leaned back, tilting her chin up. “The triangle is the middle sound. Say it.”
I did, stumbling over where the sound ended, and plucked up the charcoal. “And the corner is last.”
“Good.” Elise wrote on my paper. The letters flowed and peaked in beautiful lines. “Hold it like a pen, not a knife. Glide, don’t stab.”
Hilarious.
I stared at the letters on the page and drew a terrible copy of her script.
“Your turn.” Elise clucked her tongue and repeated the sound. “Cat—like a burglar.”
I dropped the charcoal and narrowed my eyes.
“I’m surprised to see you here.” She grinned, only one side of her mouth lifting up in a twisted smirk, before tossing her hair over her shoulder. Neck bared and completely unafraid. “You couldn’t even rob me properly.”
I froze. The words I’d meant to say fell back down my throat.
“How?” I’d worn a mask. I wore one now. I’d new clothes, new dirt, and a new name. How did she know me?
Lady, don’t let her be turning me over to warrant officers.
“The mask.” She gestured to my face and lounged back in her chair. “I’ve only ever seen your eyes and mouth, a little bit of your cheeks, and your voice is the same.”
How was some noble girl from Erlend better at finding out secrets than me?
Elise reached across the table and picked up my hand, fingertips walking along my palm till they reached the ring.
“And I doubt you’re a member of Our Queen’s high court,” she said. “I’ll take my ring back, thank you.”
“Right.” I tugged off my glove—useless anyway, if she could see the sigil through the thin fabric—and offered her the ring. One thing from Our Queen and of course I couldn’t keep it. “Here. I washed it.”
She took it from me and slid it back onto her finger, grinning the entire time. “Why’d you wash it?”
I bit my cheek, fighting down my exasperation. Because I’d wrapped it in bloodied bandages and wanted to own something pretty for the first time in my life.
“Dirt.” I rubbed my left arm. “Filthy business, thieving.”
She looked me over—eyes going from muddy boots tucked under my chair to the dust clinging to the ends of my dress. “Undoubtedly.”
The ring fit her finger perfectly—a striking silver against her skin.
“Of the two of us, I’d say I know the most about the Left Hand and what they do.” Elise handed me the charcoal and wrote “cat,” waiting for me to copy her. “I grew up around Emerald and the previous Opal. I’ve known Ruby since I started studying under Lady dal Abreu. I know exactly what you and the other auditioners are doing here. What I don’t know is why you’re here.”
She did know everyone—everyone I needed to know. Maybe she was more useful for information, but she’d not tell me anything if I was an ass. I palmed the piece of charcoal, flipping it from my palm to the back of my hand and down my sleeve, and spread my empty hands out before her. She laughed softly.
Good.
“Auditioning’s better than getting arrested.” I dropped the charcoal back into my hand. “And tutoring, of course.”
Elise’s smile fell. “Then let’s get to it.”
Elise ran through the alphabet, and I followed her lead, leaving everything as it was and using the silence between writing to sneak glances at her. Smudges of charcoal darkened her delicate hands, wisps of curls at the base of her neck escaped from gold pins with every twist of her neck, and her pulse fluttered beneath the blue lace collar of her dress. She was clever and so caught up in actually trying to teach me that she didn’t notice she’d scrawled lines along her cheeks as well as the parchment when she brushed back her hair. She was nothing like any Erlend noble I’d ever met.
A knock rattled the door.
“Time’s up.” Elise dropped her charcoal back into the tin. “Same time every night. We’re supposed to be through the basics in a few days in case you make it through round one.”
Optimistic of them.