So long as there was nothing else weird in his drinks, I could slip the Lady’s Palm to Four easily. All I had to do was be there on time.
Which left me plenty of time to see Elise.
I checked my uniform one last time, opened the door to the nook, and grinned. Elise sucked in a breath.
“I will admit,” she said, rising from her chair and gliding across the floor to me, the fresh bite of lemon coming with her. She’d a stack of papers nearly tall as her, and she must’ve been working the night away while waiting for me. “While I would love for you to be Opal, I am very fond of your face.”
She touched my cheek, fingertips clean but a few stubborn smears clinging to her palm. I smiled and ducked. I’d no mask to hide my blushing now.
“Thank you for waiting for me. You must be tired.” I picked up her other hand and took a breath, ready to tell her everything she deserved to know.
“I’m used to it.” She ran a thumb along the back of my hand where she’d splattered ink last night, little dots still visible. “I’m sorry. I try to keep my mess to myself most times.”
I gestured to the smudge on the tip of her nose. “You can leave whatever marks you want on me.”
“I can’t say no to that.” She laced her fingers through mine and tugged me to the table. “One last chance to talk.”
I shuffled after her, gaze stuck on my hand in hers, and cleared my throat. “If I don’t die, I’ll find a way to talk to you again, even if it’s just a letter. You taught me to read and write, and I owe you for that.”
“You don’t owe me anything.” She hummed deep in the back of her throat and pushed me into the chair. I curled my fingers around my palm, desperate to keep her warmth on my skin, and she picked up her pen. “But I would be upset if you didn’t at least write to tell me you’d lived.”
I’d come here looking for revenge and found a home. I could have both.
I wanted both.
“I’m assuming you’ve not joined the noble ranks of our servants?” Elise dipped her pen and gently—always gently, always soft—pried my hands apart, turning one over in her palm.
“No, have to look the part today.” I tensed my fingers till the black line she’d drawn across my palm danced. “A meek little servant in a spotless uniform.”
“Then I won’t ruin it.” Elise smiled and tucked the top button of the collar. “Relax.”
“Ruin it?” My heart cracked against my ribs as her fingers slipped the buttons of the coat undone, one after the other, fingertips sliding down my chest. I held ramrod straight, painfully aware of her hands drifting lower and lower, the heat of her seeping through my thin shirt, and the brush of her hair against my chin.
“That’s better,” she murmured, pushing the coat off my shoulders and pulling my arms free. She smoothed a hand down my shirt and rolled up the sleeves to my elbows. “I’ll keep the ink under your clothes too. Just in case.”
I nodded, completely at a loss. Elise’s breathing quickened, and she dragged her nails down the inside of my arm. Her fingers paused above my racing pulse.
“What have the auditions been like?” she asked. “The transition here? I’ve wondered how you ended up a thief in an auditioner’s mask.”
“Exhausting.” I should’ve let Five kill me in the forest. At least it would’ve been faster than this slow death under Elise’s steady hands. “Life here’s better.”
“Even with all the death?” She wrinkled her nose, and I’d a vivid flash of her face the first time we’d met as tutor and auditioner. I was so foolish—of course she didn’t like me for my dangerous mystery. Maybe a little, but after I’d become Twenty-Three, she’d preferred me. “I heard about the forest.”
“The shadow kill?” I shuddered and gripped the table’s edge with my free hand. This was tender, intimate, and totally new. “I saw it. How’d you hear about it?”
Elise glanced up, brush dripping ink into the pot. The sound slithered into my ears, and I shivered. She ran a warm hand up my arm.
“The whole court heard about it. It’s an assault against Our Queen’s promise of safety. If she can’t keep the children sent to learn in her court safe, then no one will trust us. It’s only one step from visitors killing visitors to visitors killing nobles, and if word got out—even if it were false—that the shadows were back, she’d lose her right to the throne.” She pushed her glasses up her nose with her wrist and sighed. “I was worried it was you.”
I shook my head. “Harder to get rid of me than a boy with some knives playing shadow.”
She tapped her pen once and slid the brush over my arm, ink raising gooseflesh up my arms. She swirled the thin black line into a delicate curl of letters and flourishes, her other hand holding my arm firmly in place as I tried to hide my trembling. She finished off the word with a long twisting tail circling my elbow, raised my arm to her lips, and blew the damp ink dry.
Heat blossomed in the pit of my stomach, writhing in my chest till I was sure it would burst from my skin. I stared at the crown of her head—jeweled pins placed like river stones next to the sea-green ribbon running through her curls—and squeezed my eyes shut. I needed to remember all this, every touch and every breath, in case it was my last good memory.
It was certainly one of few.
I shifted, arm still in Elise’s grasp, and managed to mutter, “What did you write?”
“Opal.”
I laughed, the low pitch catching me off guard. “Optimistic of you.”
“I’m an optimistic person—the thief who would be Opal.” Elise pulled my arm into her lap again and leaned out of her chair till our knees were pressed together. I could taste the sharp black tea on her breath. “And if you die today, I want to remember you in every way I can. Especially since I don’t even know your name.”
“Sallot.” It escaped me in a rush. She wanted to think of me when all was said and done, whether I was Opal or not. It filled me with a desperate need to move and speak and scream it to the rising sun. “Remember me as Sallot.”
“A name and a face,” said Elise. “Good farewell presents.”
I laughed again, and Elise raised a hand to my face, fingers skimming my jaw. The sound died in my throat.
“I wish I’d met you properly.” We’d met days ago, and I’d thrown all that time away. I wanted to close the gap between us and know if she tasted like tea, memorize the line of her fingers and subtle flick of her wrist as she wrote, listen to the soft, delicate sound of her breath between each word. I wanted all the things I thought I could never have.
“Sallot.”
The sound of my name on her lips cut through every last barrier keeping my words inside my head. “Elise, I like you.”