I’d gone cold all over, but before I could respond, a dull thud sounded from somewhere above. My contact’s blue gaze flicked up to the ceiling. “We have to wrap this up,” he said, handing me two items. “The next part of your task is to make use of these.”
I stared down at the diminutive objects in my palm. Dark in color and exactingly made, they reminded me strongly of a hammer andchisel. Except the chisel narrowed to a wicked point, its tip made of a blacker, shinier material.
“Fashioned of pure nabyrium,” he said. “Designed to crack laconite in a very particular way.” He took them from me briefly, mimed tapping the chisel. “Just a few taps will cause hairline fractures…You can practice first. Get a sense of how long it takes. Eventually the laconite degrades, stops working. The stone’s so dark it’s hard to tell it’s damaged, but the family might notice if you do too much too soon. You’ll need to time it so the stones stop workingjustbefore we get there, on the sixteenth of Undalh. Pallwater. Makes it easier, with the tides. Oh, and don’t forget that when we get there, we’ll need whatever skeletons you’ve pried out of their closets.”
I looked at him, incredulous. Another date. Another deadline.
“Why didn’t you give me these in the first place?” I hissed. “I was there, in their rooms…I could have done itthen.”
“Three reasons,” he said brusquely, looking impatient. “First, we didn’t know if you were up to the job. We couldn’t risk your being caught—and with Cage tools on you. Second, we didn’t know how long Regent Dunlin had left. No point your getting started until we knew when we were coming.
“Third, and most important, we didn’t have your little tally. Didn’t have a clue what we’d be walking into. Turns out”—he tipped his head at my bodice, where I’d stashed my notes—“it’s not that much. Certainly not as much as some other Houses. Meaning, this plan is cranking into motion.”
He watched me carefully in the glimmer from the candle. I felt like a marionette twirling on a string, the Cage looming, blank faced, above me.
But I had to admit it: My choice was made. Had been as soon asI saw Zennia’s brooch. As soon as he said the tale I’d been fed was wrong.
I thought of Tigo and Rhianne’s shared glances. Of Llir’s watchfulness; his tenseness. Of Emment:“I’ve always thought I had a talent for acting.”I was sure they were still hiding something. I needed to know it.
“Okay,” I said, the word feeling weighty. The thought that the next time I saw my contact would be on Bower Island, with a group of Cage rebels, made my stomach churn with nausea.
And what then? After the Cage’s “visit,” after Rexim agreed to their demands…what ofmyfuture?
“But you need to promise me something in return,” I said. “That the Shearwaters won’t find out it was me. That you’ll keep your source for this information to yourself.”
A dark, knowing smirk tugged at his mouth.
“You’ll go back to trailing after the Shearwaters? You’ve found you like being a Hundred’s Orha?”
Right now I didn’t care what he thought of me. I needed to know I could get out of this alive—and with my sanctioned employment intact.
“Very well,” he said. “If that’s really what you want.”
“And what if I need to contact you?” I added. “If something unexpected happens?”
Another soft thump from somewhere above. His eyes flashed upward. “Same protocol as before. And by the way, the ‘K’ stands for Kielty.”
He was trusting me with his name. My work must have impressed him. I nodded, stowing the tools in my pocket. “The sixteenth of Undalh?” I said, squashing my nerves.
“The sixteenth,” he said. “Come on. I’ll see you out. Oh, and—” He glanced at the brooch, tossed it to me. I fumbled but managed tocatch it, heart leaping. “You can have that, I suppose. A reminder. To be ready.”
With a wrench, I shoved the brooch deep into my jacket, where its edges pushed comfortingly against my skin.
“This way,” he said, adjusting his mask. And I let him lead me out of the cellar.
21
I tossedfitfully that night, my dreams tense and confusing.
Zennia’s face melded into Emment’s and back, into Kielty’s lion mask, then the Veil’s blank-faced jester. In the early hours, I lay staring up at the ceiling, turning the brooch over and over in my fingers. I wished more than anything that Zennia was here, in a bunk above me, as she had been for most of a decade at Arbenhaw. I wondered, if our places were reversed, what she’d be doing. How she’d be feeling.
Zennia had always been the brave one.
An image popped into my mind unbidden: a lean-limbed girl, a full head shorter than me, with a world-weary air borne from a childhood among the Hundred. Thick black hair scrunched into buns, wrapped with cord. A round face that moved from scowl to smile in an instant.
My first week at Arbenhaw, I uttered not a word. Not even when the others called me Mouse, then Ghost. I had the bunk beneath Zennia in our first-year dormitory and the seat beside her in our history lessons.
Despite the fact that I rarely replied, she whispered to me of hermother, of her brothers, and how she’d always longed for a sister. How her house in Tresteny was filled with glass: a dozen crown glass windows, spun glass lamps in every room. How her mother’s customers—and some of her mother’s friends—hated people like us. Called Zennia “unfortunate.”
