How easy it was to recognize a pain you knew.
“I’m glad you didn’t see the shadows,” I said and meant it. No one deserved that but especially not Elise. Especially knowing—actually knowing—the scars of our childhood still lived in her too. I smiled back at her. “But I’d like to hear about living with Our Queen and Lord del Contes and all. What’s life at court like?”
At least prying wouldn’t drag up all her bad memories.
“Hectic.” She handed me a new list of words. “Most of the high court lives here year-round, and everyone else is constantly coming and going. Lord del Contes likes to wander—I’d swear he knows everyone on the grounds.”
And yet I’d never seen him.
“How am I supposed to scare nobles into submission when I’m Opal if they’re not here?”
“So humble,” she said dryly.
“You don’t like me for my humility.” She liked me because I was dangerous and new to her. I was a mystery. Safe but dangerous enough to pique her rebellious interests.
“And yet.” She paused to correct my writing—too sharp again, a point where there should’ve been a curve—and held up another new list. It was a miracle she’d not shown me every word in existence already. “I am not fond of arrogance. Perhaps I don’t like every aspect of you.”
I frowned. “You flirt a lot for not liking me.”
“Get used to holding this but no ink yet.” She swapped out my charcoal for a brush pen. “I said an aspect of you. Everyone has flaws.” Tipping her chin down, she glared at me over her spectacles, somehow looking down at me despite both of us sitting. “Like my mistake earlier.”
Only nobles could be helpful and infuriating all at once.
“Flirting to get what you want isn’t a court thing. People do that all over.” I brandished the brush at her, completely unused to the thin grip.
She laughed. “Of course they do, but they don’t remember what perfume I was wearing when we first met.”
The memory of rosewater lingered. My memories of her lingered, but no matter how warm they were, they were dangerous. “But talking to you isn’t like flirting in court,” she said softly. “I like talking to you. And thank you for correcting me earlier.”
No one had ever thanked me for that.
“You’d be foolish to do more than flirt.” I tried to smile to clear the ache in my chest, the teasing tone in her voice helping. I must’ve hit my stitches. That had to be why I was feeling so unsteady over her. “I’m dangerous, and I could die at any moment.”
“Terrible combination.” She glanced at the candle clock in the corner and plucked the pen from my hands. “Wick’s out. I suppose we’ll have to continue tomorrow.”
Elise ran me ragged with words, but talking to her was pleasant.
At least I’d grabbed the charcoal. If Seve had anything useful to say before dying, I’d make him write it down.
I nodded. “If I’m still alive.”
I would be. Tonight, I’d watch Horatio del Seve, and tomorrow, he’d be dead.
“You’ll be alive.” Elise shuffled my papers into a pile and pushed them aside. “I have faith.”
From her lips to The Lady’s ears. A little extra luck wouldn’t hurt. Curling an arm around my side to quiet the ache in my chest, I stepped out of Fifteen’s way. He must’ve been her student studying numbers. A red glare shone through the leaves over his shoulder.
“Evening,” I said and bowed my head like Ruby had taught us.
Fifteen returned the gesture and stepped around me. The door slammed shut before I could even catch a word of Elise’s greeting for him.
Didn’t matter. She’d told me what I’d needed so far.
“You can’t make time for training, but you make time for tutoring?” Ruby leaned over till our faces were even. “And I had such high hopes for you.”
It took everything within me not to flinch away from his unnatural face. “You said training’s optional.”
“But highly recommended.”
“I went to yours.” I turned to face him, no need for any other unearthly creatures looming over me. The man behind Ruby lingered in the shadows. “I only skipped healing.”
“Medicine.” Ruby dismissed me with a wave. “It’s called medicine now. Has been for a hundred years.”
“You’re being awfully hard on Sal,” the other man said. He stepped forward, nearly twice as tall as me and drenched in runes—ink shaded the back of his one remaining arm, dripped down the arches of his bare feet, and lined the lids of his black eyes. Only two men bore those marks, and one was dead.
I bowed to Lord Nicolas del Contes just as Ruby had taught us.
“Don’t drop your shoulders. It’s rude.” Ruby huffed. “You will be in etiquette tomorrow, or I will nail you to a chair until you know all your table manners.”
Nails and table manners were the least of my worries if Nicolas del Contes was spying on me, but I nodded anyway. “Of course, Lord Ruby.”
“It would be rude to send a Nacean to study under Isidora—so much bloodletting.” Nicolas drew a finger across his throat, stopping at the same spot I’d stabbed Grell. “Curious that you’d even audition.”
I scowled. So they’d shared who I was, and he knew enough about Nacea to be annoying.
“Fine, fine.” Ruby dismissed me with a wave, walking away. “At least make good use of the time you have for skipping medicine. We’ll know.”
“Why are you spying on nobles?” Nicolas fixed me with a glare so cutting I was sure magic had returned if only to strip all my secrets bare. “Or are you just having some fun?”
“Exactly.” I bowed to him again and memorized everything about him as he swept away after Ruby. “Just having some fun.”
Twenty-Five
I wandered after that, half wanting to follow Ruby and half wanting to run back to my room and pretend it hadn’t happened. Nicolas del Contes couldn’t know what I was up to. And even if he did, he couldn’t stop me. I just had to be sneakier than him.
And thieves had been better at skulking about long before nobles even knew the word.
A muffled curse—the sound of words trapped behind a linen mask—broke through my annoyance. An auditioner. I peered around my tree.
Five.
Leaving his room.
He locked his door behind him and fiddled with something I couldn’t see. His servant, a nervous-looking girl lacking Maud’s straight back—too nervous to keep from mussing up her hair—trembled beside him. He tossed the key at her, and she tucked it into her chest pocket. She flinched with each move of his hands.
“Stay out.” Five flipped up the hood of his cloak and stomped away from her. “I’d rather have no servant than a useless one. Wash my clothes, fix my meals, and learn how to do your job.”
Bad luck getting Five. He was probably used to a herd of servants doing everything and anything he wanted, exactly as he wanted—not one new servant struggling to keep up.