My jaw tightens as the memories unfurl in my mind. Not a day goes by where I don’t think about the Maskmaker. I would have been better off if he had left me in that wretched pit. My sisters might still be here.
“Then what happened?” Sonam urges.
“Then he showed up.” The back of my throat burns. “He was the one who pulled me free.”
“And he was the one who made your mask?”
I nod slowly, bringing a hand to the burnt side of my face. With the mask’s magic at work, it feels as though those scars don’t exist at all, perfectly concealed to sight and touch. “He was.”
“Can he make a mask of any face?”
“I believe so,” I confirm. “Both the living and the dead, so long as he’s seen it once before.”
“If he helped you, why are you after him?”
I ball up my fists, studying the way my knuckles turn white and my nails bite into my palms. How much can I get away with telling him? I can’t lie, but that doesn’t mean I need to give him the whole truth. He’s already pried more from my lips than I ever thought possible. Sonam’s growing familiarity with me is jarring, to say the least. At this rate, there will be nothing left to hide—no distance left to keep me safe.
“Does this have something to do with those women we saw in the Court of Temptation?” he asks. “Your sisters, correct?”
“Yes,” I murmur.
“He killed them?”
I chew on the inside of my cheek. “Yes. And for that, he must die.”
A blanket of silence falls over us. Fragile and thin, but not as uncomfortable as it could be.
“Thank you,” I mutter after a while. “For saving me from the boar demon. He might have killed me were it not for you.”
Sonam stares at me as though I’ve grown a second head. He nods once. I don’t think he was expecting words of gratitude, especially from me. “You held your own quite well,” he replies. “Impressive.”
“You, too.”
“Good work figuring out how to get into the Jade Palace.”
“Thank—”
“Though I’d appreciate a warning next time you have one of your little ideas. Damn near soiled myself.”
I can’t help but grin. “That’s not a very princely thing to say.”
“I’m no prince,” he grumbles, though he doesn’t seem wholly upset.
“Why is that?”
We fall into silence again. He very clearly doesn’t want to tell me, so to change the subject entirely, I mumble, “Show me that notebook of yours.”
If Sonam is irked by my request, he does an excellent job of hiding it. He produces his notebook and runs his fingers along the outer edges, almost bashful. It’s a strange emotion to see on someone normally so stoic.
“They’re not very good,” he says while clearing his throat, but hands it to me all the same.
I flip it open to the first page, taking great care not to tear any of the pages or smudge the charcoal. The first entry is dated several decades ago, a detailed sketch of a water dragon so lifelike I’m convinced it could fly off the page. He’s captured every single scale, every hair upon its flowing mane, and even the sharp hook of the creature’s front and hind claws.
“You saw a dragon?” I ask, astounded.
“My brother, actually. Far out east in the uncharted lands. He told me he was only brave enough to observe them at a distance. Said they were a family of three—one blue, one red, and one green. Rare, to find a whole family. He drew that one before handing the book down to me.”
I flip the page. Sure enough, there’s a substantial difference in the art style. Where the dragon was constructed of confident lines, the next entry was clearly the result of shaky, inexperienced hands. Oddly enough, I find myself smiling at the thought of a young Sonam trying to illustrate with pudgy, childish fingers and the tip of his tongue poking out between his lips in concentration. It seems that the second creature he added to his hunting log wasa forest spirit. I’ve encountered a fair few in my lifetime. Harmless little buggers, easily mistaken for a patch of weeds, though they have a nasty habit of trying to burrow into your ears and root themselves in place.
