She smiled at me delightedly, as if she’d done me a great service. My stomach dropped, and my face must have shown it, for she patted me reassuringly on the arm. “Don’t worry, it’s not a speaking part. They’re tableaux scenes, just poses in the background. But the banqueting scene…it just won’tworkwithout you.”
Her eyes were beseeching. I had no choice. Nothing could seem suspicious until the Cage came tomorrow. And if they didn’t, if they stuck to their original date, I had to endeavor to remain on the island…Rexim would decide on my future tomorrow, and an angry Vercha would surely sway his mind. I swallowed and nodded, forcing a fake smile.
“Wonderful. Meet us in the ballroom at eight.”
—
Eight o’clock rolled around far too quickly. The chimes were like a funeral knell as I dragged myself across the castle to the ballroom.
“Ah,” came Morgen’s voice as I entered. “There’s our spy.”
I stared at her in horror.
She laughed lightly. “Your role, in our banqueting scene. The informant who tells the heir his cousins are plotting to have him killed.” Her dark eyes glittered with amusement in the lamplight. “She looks like she’s being sent to her execution, Vercha. Should we spare her the ordeal?”
I sucked in a long breath.
Vercha pursed her lips, came striding toward me. “Come now, Corith. You’re doing us a great favor. Here. Put this on. And here’s your mask.” She handed me a neatly folded white bundle.
Two sets of wooden screens had been erected. One was tall and elaborately painted—a scene of hanging gardens, distant towers, curling vines. The second set hid what I guessed was “backstage.” There were leather cases spilling over with costumes, a rail of cloaks, a nest of thin swords. As Ferda loped past with an armful of more weapons—props, I supposed, for some battle scene—Vercha propelled me to a full-length mirror. There stood Llir in a mask and black shirt.
“Move,” Vercha trilled. “Corith needs to get changed.”
He caught my eye briefly, and my stomach gave a tug. “She’s takingthis very seriously,” he said in an undertone, and his sister swiped his arm with a fan as he strode off.
I dressed quickly. My costume was a long white gown, like something an ancient acolyte might have worn. My mask, too, was plain white, expressionless. As I fixed it to my eyes, surveyed myself in the mirror, it brought to my mind the jester at the Veil.
I shivered. I was glad of this false face tonight. I worried my treachery was painted across my features.
Before long, Catua made an appearance, trailed by the families’ remaining Orha and, at last, an already tipsy Emment. The heir seemed jovial enough this evening, but ever since our encounter after the ball, his jaunty veneer had begun to slip. Something within him seemed to have altered. I thought I could see doubts—a new, wretched darkness—and I couldn’t interpret his fixed, hollow stares as anything other than guilt about Zennia.
I’d found myself weighing up whether, when the Cage came, I could use the opportunity for a reckoning with him.
Rhianne and Mawre were tasked with special effects, helped by Orran, the incapacitated Gustmouth, who perched on a bench beneath an open window and coaxed in breezes for the scenes on ships’ prows. Rhianne had started a fire in the hearth. “Atmospheric lighting,” she murmured as she passed me.
A few other servants had minor parts, and they primped and paced, repeating their brief lines. Soon the ragtag audience arrived. The Brigant himself, closely trailed by his wolfhounds, settled in a gilt chair in front of the stage, pipe in one hand, wine in the other. A cluster of footmen perched behind him, and I even saw a gaggle of guards from the gatehouse along the back wall, bantering with each other.
“Ahem,” came a voice. A costumed Avrix Cormorant, his matchlock pistol strapped to his belt. Emment played a series of trills on the spinet.
“Cithre’s Folly,”Avrix intoned deeply. “A theatrical. Performed by Houses Shearwater and Cormorant. Long may they be allies.” He gave a sweeping bow, and on his way up, he cut a swift glance in my direction.
Rexim looked amused.
And thus it began.
—
Morgen was the eponymous Cithre, the Brigantess embroiled in an affair with her Orha. Emment played his nefarious role with great zeal, despite the effects of a few goblets of wine. I watched as lines tripped off his tongue with no prompting, his gestures expansive—he wore the character like a cloak.
Avrix was the tragic hero, the spurned husband, but there were subplots galore involving the others. Llir played the heir, Catua and Vercha his cousins. The girls took on their murderous personas with gusto, kitted out in helmets and swords. And scattered throughout the melodramatics were tableaux: still life scenes laid out behind the actors.
About halfway through, I was tuning out. The names were all blurring—Eulix, Aumar—and my thoughts were bent toward what tomorrow would bring. I was only jerked from my ruminations by Vercha hissing my name from the stage.
“Sorry,” I whispered, adjusting my mask. I hurried into the tableau. Rhianne brought up the light.
The scene was a sumptuous feast, an imaginary banquet. I was to walk across it and bend to whisper in the heir’s ear in front of Vercha and Catua: the traitors, the betrayers. Vercha held up an invisible platter, while Catua mimed taking a great gulp of wine.
It hit me suddenly: The heir was Llir. Cheeks burning—but hidden by my mask, with any luck—I approached him, bent toward him,held a palm to my lips. We all froze in place, holding the tableau, as Avrix and Emment strode into the foreground.
