I tugged my mask from my cloak.
The queue was long and moved slowly. It seemed to take an age to reach the door. In that time, I was acutely aware that no other Orha here was unaccompanied.
“You with them?” one doorman grunted with a frown, nudging his chin at the nobles behind me. Their expressions must have told him I wasn’t, for he shifted his bulk in front of the door. “No Orha without their employer,” he stated, eyeing the crest stitched onto my breastbone. The squawking shearwater finally registered, for he raised an eyebrow, glancing at my face. “You, of all o’ them, should know that rule.”
“I stopped off a moment to run an errand,” I said, hiding my fingers, which were clammy and trembling. “Lord Shearwater said he’d meet me inside.”
Both doormen assessed me, faces like stone. “You can either wait here while I go in and check,” said one, “or piss off till he comes out and gets you himself.”
I pressed my lips together, eyes flicking over their shoulders. It was no use sending them in to ask Emment. It would only raise the Shearwater’s suspicions of me.
At the impatient clearing of throats behind me, I nodded and stepped away from the doors, but the doorman who’d spoken kept his stare trained on me, and eventually I sidled back to my alley.
Hells.This hadnotgone well. Whatever Emment was doing in there, whatever he was saying, perhaps revealing…I’d never know. I flopped down onto a barrel.
I had no pocket watch to track the time, but hours must have passed as I sat there brooding, not wanting to leave in case Emment emerged. The distant music grew louder and messier. The shouts turned angrier, the laughter wilder. Behind me in the alley, rats tugged at old refuse.
By now, fatigue clawed at my eyes, and patrons were trickling out of the Veil. It had to be getting on to midnight, or past it. But there was no sign of Emment. Had he gone out the back?
Cursing softly, I slipped out of the side street. If he’d left fromthe rear, I’d have missed him entirely. Perhaps there was somewhere I could see both exits. Or maybe I could sneak in again, like last time.
As I walked, I peered into the Veil’s burning windows, but the scarlet drapes hid its interior from view. I wondered if my infuriating golden-haired contact was working tonight. I wanted nothing more than to march back in there and demand to hear what the Cage knew about Zennia. But I knew it would be useless. First I had to give him what he’d asked for.
As I skirted the Veil and approached its rear, I could tell immediately that something was different.
Voices—boisterous, with noble, clipped tones—floated out of the high-walled backyard. The archway I’d entered through last time was blocked by a woman in leathers, thick arms folded. She looked tired and bored, but her eyes still roved, watching for anyone trying to get near.
I shrank into shadow, heart kicking up a flutter.
“Shearwater!” I heard a familiar voice caw. “Don’t tell me you’re going to sitthisone out.”
I’d last heard that voice in the Veil itself, and before that, at Rexim’s luncheon on the island.
Why were Turnstone and Emment out back? Whose were those other murmuring voices? And why was this woman guarding the yard? From memory, it held only a well and some barrels.
If Emment gave an answer, I didn’t hear it. There were only raucous cheers; the scraping of boot soles. Pulse picking up, I moved through the darkness. I had to find somewhere I could see what was happening…
The Veil itself was choked with ivy, but so were the outbuildings arranged around the yard. One, a low, single-story structure, must have been a stable or storehouse of some kind. Thick vines grew up it,trailing to its roof, and—astonished at myself—I found myself climbing them.
The ascent was nothing compared to the cove’s cliffs, the creepers easy to hook my feet onto. They must have been colonizing these walls for years, as their stems were almost as wide as my wrists. Only a few hauls took me up to the shallow roof, where I crawled to its edge, keeping my head low.
From there, peering through a cluster of vine leaves, I had a good view of the Veil’s backyard and its occupants: a circle of chattering nobles, mostly young men in various states of disarray. Turnstone was there, clutching a goblet of wine, and I soon spotted Emment beside him, hair askew, collar unbuttoned, brandishing a palmful of winking regals.
“That’s more like it.” Turnstone grinned as a man in a black mask patrolled, collecting coins. “Don’t worry, Bryce never lets me down. You’ll see.”
A liveried figure stepped into the circle: dark-green tabard, tall, bulky frame. It was the Orha I’d seen with Turnstone before. His bruised eye was healed now, but he still squinted slightly, flexing his fist as he paced a few times.
Opposite him hovered a rose-clad woman with pointed features and darting eyes. She had an elaborate crest on her livery: a bird of prey with a rat in its talons. Some of the men were smirking at her, a few exchanging snide-sounding murmurs, but she ignored them, slowly circling Turnstone’s Orha.
“To first blood,” barked the black-masked overseer.
“First blood!” the other revellers echoed, sloshing their drinks, a few cheering loudly.
Ice lanced through me as I picked out Emment. He was hood-eyed, propping himself against a barrel.
“Put her down, Brycey,” a blond man heckled, and Turnstone’s Orha began to mutter.
As I lay there, the damp seeping through to my knees, a wind whipped up, blowing leaves from the gutter. It swirled around the yard, making some of the men yelp, and blasted right into the liveried woman.
