Flora stepped forward to greet Ambrose, and I took advantage of the distraction to slip into an adjoining alcove unnoticed.
I breathed a sigh of relief, finding the room occupied by only a handful of people. No one paid me any mind as I casually lowered myself to the ground and slipped beneath the safety of a table, the tablecloth obscuring me from view.
Thomas would recognize me, of course. His tormenter. I would be surprised if he didn’t choke the life out of me upon first noticing my presence. I would have to avoid him, at all costs. But would I be able to manage that for the entire evening? People would miss me if I didn’t show my face. Ambrose had asked for a dance. Would he take it as a snub and eject me from the competition?
I felt a bead of sweat gather at my brow and swiped it away angrily. How undignified, cowering beneath a table like a sniveling human.
I closed my eyes, imagining myself elsewhere.
“This is so dull,” Raven sighed, voice petulant as she stared at the chessboard, where I’d slowly picked away at her pieces, toying with her to draw the game on longer. I could have ended it in less than ten moves if I’d had the mind.
“You must learn strategy,” I told her, reaching for my knight. “And patience.”
“Strategy?” she echoed, watching me remove one of her rooks from the board with a scowl. “I’ve seen little strategy or restraint in our outings. You pick someone off by themselves, then play with them like a cat with a mouse. It’s as predictable as … well, as you winning chess.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “It may be routine, but it’s safe. It will prevent us from getting killed. Tell me what would happen if you picked a man behind a bar, and then five of his friends were suddenly on you? It would only take one to take command of the situation, to know what he was doing, and drive a stake through your heart.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she murmured, pondering the board. “And how was ordering your servant to drag Konstantin’s coffin outside of the castle keeping us safe?”
I glanced up, surprised. “Is that what’s bothering you? Konstantin? I assure you, his death was a long time coming.” A long time. Ever since my maker had killed my classmates and forced this life upon me.
She closed her eyes. “And yet I hear his screams in my nightmares. When he opened that coffin, locked outside …” She shuddered as her eyelids fluttered open once more. “How can I know that won’t be my fate one day? That I won’t find myself lifting my casket lid to the sun?”
I smiled thinly at her. “Because I like you, Raven. I chose your company. I never chose his, and I found that I could no longer stand for it.”
“I suppose Helena agreed he had to go?”
Now I genuinely was surprised. “Oh? You disapprove of Helena now?”
Raven glanced around the room, as if we might be overheard, but of course we would hear any humans in the vicinity. “She doesn’t like me. Never has. Are you certain she didn’t manipulate you into doing away with him?”
I laughed. “Helena? Manipulate me? Don’t be absurd, Raven. Helena is human.”
Raven leaned back, looking put out. “She may be human, but she’s too observant for her own good. She sees everything.”
I shrugged. “She is my eyes and ears during the day. She is necessary.”
“For now. Just promise me you won’t … turn her.”
I lifted an eyebrow.
“I know you’ve promised her eternal life,” Raven hissed. “Don’t deny it.”
“Of course I have. As I’ve promised it to every human servant who came before her, and every one who will come after. It’s incentive. We need obedience. That is how we keep them loyal, with sweet words.”
“And when she finds out you’re lying?”
I shrugged, although the thought sent a tremor of regret through me. “Then her services will no longer be necessary.”
I let the words hang in the air, and Raven seemed satisfied by my answer for the moment.
We played a few more moves, but I could tell her heart wasn’t in it. I watched her, noting her hesitation, as if she were building the courage to broach a subject. I sighed. “What is it, Raven? Spit it out.”
She ducked her head. “It’s just … now that Konstantin is no longer in the picture, I was thinking … perhaps it was time to introduce a new companion to our lives.”
I blinked. “Raven, we’ve talked about this. The more of us there are in one place, the more attention we attract. Humans are not stray cats—we don’t collect them.”
“I’m not saying an army. I know that most of them aren’t worth our time, but we would choose carefully. The deserving. Just a few friends. A small community. Then this castle wouldn’t feel so … desolate and drab. Don’t you tire of the quiet? The endless solitude?”
