The room was suddenly too stuffy; the heat and the aromas and the cramped shelves were too much to bear, and she needed to leave, now. Ana stood. Her cheeks flushed with—with what? Shame? Disappointment? But what had she expected from Ramson? Had she really come into this room thinking he would spill his soul and secrets to her? That he would stop donning one mask after another for just long enough so that she could glimpse his real self again?
Or had that simply been another mask?
As Ramson stood, pulling on his shirt and turning away from her, she felt the sting of tears deep in her throat. And Ana wondered whether she had actually seen someone worth saving in that dark, dark fog, or whether it had been just a trick of light and shadows all along.
A tug of blood at the edge of her mind chased away all other thoughts. Ana flared her Affinity. Ramson’s blood burned bright and hot; the other Affinites’ ran steadily in the parlor as they slept.
But outside, there was something else. “Ramson.” She caught his arm, and he shot her a look of surprise. “There are people—”
At that moment, three faint raps sounded on the front door, in Shamaïra’s parlor. Ana sensed an Affinite getting up and reaching for the door.
A feeling of foreboding filled her. She’d barely let out a cry when she heard the front door slam open.
A scream, and the air exploded with blood.
Ana sprang for the brocade curtains, but Ramson caught her shoulder firmly, grunting as he pulled her back and clamped a hand over her mouth. “We haven’t been discovered yet.” His whisper was fast, urgent. “We need to use that to our advantage. Stay calm, assess the situation, and decide on the course of action.”
Glass smashed in the parlor; shouts and screams erupted, sounding disturbingly close in the small dacha. Ana’s breath caught, and Ramson carefully slid his hand through the curtains and drew one back, just a slit for them to peer through.
Past all the multicolored divans and clusters of blankets, the front door was open; a cold wind swept through the house. In the open doorway an unfamiliar man held an Affinite girl. A dagger glinted in his hands; he pressed it against her neck. “Move, and this girl dies.”
It was then that Ana saw Yuri, facing the door with his back to her, his fists clenched at his sides. The rest of the Affinites clustered behind couches and divans, fear carved into their features, nightmares that Ana couldn’t even begin to fathom haunting their expressions.
Nobody moved.
Suddenly, behind the intruder, from the depths of the night, a second man stepped into view. “I’m afraid I’m going to need all of you to return to the Playpen.”
The man’s pale blond hair caught the lamplight, and his eyes shone a bleached blue. It was as though all the color and life had been drained from him, and the sight sent a surge of fury through Ana.
It was the broker. She recalled the blackstone doors of the carriage that slammed in her face, the faint trace of May’s shadow over his shoulders as he’d carried her away.
He’dstood on that stage in the Playpen, watching countless Affinites forced to perform and fight to the death.
And then he’d ordered the attack on them backstage.Kill her, Nuryasha.
Ana thought of May’s body in her arms, so light and so helpless.
I want to live.
And now May was buried in the silent earth for eternity.
Wrath wrapped its white-hot grasp around her, and suddenly she was shaking, her anger roiling and pent-up grief spilling from her.
May would never live again.
And it was all…his…fault.
Ramson’s arms locked around her waist, but she hurled him off with a snap of her Affinity. By the time he slammed against the settee, Ana had thrown back the curtains and stepped into the living room.
She lifted the first broker bodily into the air with barely half a thought. She was one with her Affinity; it moved at her slightest thought like a phantom arm, an extension of her body. The broker’s dagger thunked to the wooden floorboards; he made a gagging sound as she seized the blood in his body, interrupting the natural flow to and from his heart.
She was all too aware that she was dressed in nothing but a slim black gown, her cloak and hood left in the backroom and her velvet gloves torn and discarded at the Playpen. The man in the air struggled, twitching like a broken puppet, his face slowly draining of color, his eyes rolling back into his head.
Ana flung him aside. He crashed into the far wall with acrackand lay still. Dimly, Ana heard several screams from the Affinites, saw Yuri dive for the Affinite girl and bundle her behind the settee.
Ana stepped past them.
The pale-eyed broker stood in the doorway. He held a single dagger, but it trembled in his hands as he beheld her.
