Yet as Ana gave him a wide-eyed look, the curiosity on her face open like a book toward him, a part of him faltered.
What do you want?
To right my wrongs. What doyouwant?
I told you. Revenge.
It had been his motto for the past seven years, even when the molten fire of his anger had cooled to cold steel. Revenge, for what his father had done, for all the broken flaws of this crooked world.
For Ramson’s own flaws, which had cost Jonah Fisher’s life.
Yet as he turned a palm up against the dying light of the fire, he could almost see the ghostly outline of a compass. Jonah’s words whispered in his ears.You can achieve everything in this world, but if it’s for someone else, it’s pointless. Live for yourself.
Ramson almost turned, as though expecting to see Jonah slouched against the wall next to him, watching him through those dark, half-lidded eyes.
Ramson snapped his fist shut. The ghosts vanished, and there was only the witch, sitting before him, her head tilted against the wall as she drifted to sleep.
Such easy prey. He would gain her sympathy, manipulate her into trusting him for his own gain.
That would make it easier for him to hand her—the infamous Blood Witch of Salskoff—over to Alaric Kerlan. A better Trade, the best Ramson had ever made, in exchange for a clean slate.
Yet as he settled on the hard floor, using his own arm as a pillow, he wondered why something that should have been made easy had, instead, seemingly become harder.
It took them five days to reach Novo Mynsk: a sprawling mass of a city in the north of the Empire. It was a city of extremes, where white marble houses and gilded roofs oozed opulence, towering over dark alleyways in which the wet smell of gutters lingered like death. The cobblestone streets were lined with glass-paned storefronts boasting lush silk kechyans, gold jewelry inlaid with precious stones of all colors and sizes, and trinkets that winked and glittered as they passed. Fur-cloaked nobles swarmed the streets, bellies and coin pouches bulging, just steps from the dark alleyways in which half-clothed beggars crouched.
Ana kept close to Ramson as they wound their way through the streets. It was late afternoon and the sun slanted over the marble mansions. Five days of travel had worn her out; she gratefully collapsed on the cold bed of the room they rented in one of the hundreds of pubs scattered throughout the city.
Ramson had purchased fresh clothes for them with a portion of the coins she had taken from the bounty hunters. After a quick meal of beef and onion pirozhky pies, Ana cleaned up and quickly slipped into the new outfit. The destination for the night: the Playpen.
The silks and chiffons slid smoothly over her skin, and Ana shivered as she turned to look at herself in the cracked glass mirror of her rented room. The clothes were extravagant—finer than anything she had worn in the past year. Ramson had mentioned that only the affluent could afford such lavish entertainment; to get in, they had to look and act the part.
Her dress, in her opinion, bordered on suggestive. The midnight-black evening gown draped over the curves of her body like the cool caress of water, pooling at her feet. The back plunged to her waist, and she was thankful for the fur drape that Ramson had bought her. Still, she felt almost naked without her hood.
Ana braided her hair and twisted it into a bun, in an attempt to reproduce some semblance of what her maids at the Palace used to style for her. She dabbed some rouge on her lips, brushed powders on her cheeks, and traced kohl over her eyes. It had been so long since she’d looked in a mirror, and dressing up felt like a strange game she was trying to play, an imitation of a past she could never again have. Her skin had grown rough over the past year, crisscrossed with tiny scars where she’d fallen or where branches or the elements had chipped at her, her lips dry and cracked.
She leaned back, and it felt as though she were staring at a ghost in the looking glass: an echo of the Crown Princess Anastacya Kateryanna Mikhailov she’d been.
A knot formed in her throat at all the possibilities of how her life might have turned out, the could-have-beens if the smallest thing had just gone differently.
Ana shoved those thoughts to the back of her mind. She pulled on a new set of black velvet gloves. Drew a deep breath. Lifted her chin.
Three sharp raps sounded on her door. And, just like that, their plan was in motion.
Ana barely recognized the young man who stood in her doorway. Ramson was clean-shaven, his hair slicked back, his sharp black peacoat fitted perfectly to his lithe figure. Dressed like that and grinning arrogantly, he could have passed for a nobleman’s son or a haughty young duke, come for a night of trouble in Novo Mynsk.
They stared at each other for a heartbeat, and she wondered whether Ramson found the sight of her in fine clothing just as strange. Heat rushed to her cheeks; she grappled for something to say as she turned away. No matter how well the con man cleaned up, she couldn’t make the mistake of thinking his character had changed as well. He was still dangerous: a wolf in sheep’s skin. One slip of her focus, and he’d have his jaws around her neck. “You clean up nicely for a criminal.”
“Darling, you’d do well to remember it’s often the criminals who are the best-dressed.” Ramson strode in and dumped what he had been carrying onto her bed. “Papers,” he said. “Keep them on you at all times.”
Anna scanned one of the papers.
“ ‘Elga Sokov, water Affinite’?” she read skeptically. To Ramson’s credit, though, the document looked authentic, stamped and signed with the proper formatting of legal documents she’d studied.
“I figured after Kyrov, it would be best for you to have proper documentation, just in case,” he replied, and then pointed to a second set of items. “I also purchased masks. It’s tradition at the Playpen.”
Ana tucked the papers into the folds of her cloak and picked up one of the masks, holding it to the candlelight. It shimmered with silver glitter, faux-gold swirls fanning out from each of the eyeholes. The gold-painted lips stretched in a cruel, mocking smile.
Ramson held up his own mask. A thoughtful look passed over his face as he examined it. “Some think their actions are more forgivable if they hide their faces.”
