The snow fell thicker now, whirling in flurries beneath each swinging lamp that lit the veranda. Their shadows swayed unsteadily as Ana hurried past them. The few guests who had been outside had retreated inside. Laughter and music and light spilled from the tall windows and open doors of the banquet hall, cloaking Ana’s footsteps as she ran. Down the marble steps, past the balustrades of the veranda—and then she was on the ground floor, behind a pillar that supported the balconies.
Her heart pounded an uneven beat in her chest as she hid in the shadows, watching. It was him—it was undoubtedly him, Ana thought, taking in the white of the man’s cloak, the smooth skin of his head, and the paleness of his fingers as he raised them to the skies. A silver Deys’krug flashed around his neck, and she recalled with sudden sickness that he’d worn almost the same outfit exactly one year ago, when he’d murdered Papa.
Tetsyev made a circular motion across his chest, the sign of respect to the Cyrilian Deities, and tilted his face to the sky.
Ramson had coached her on how to construct the perfect ruse—her as a messenger from Kerlan, asking Tetsyev to examine the Deys’voshk in Kerlan’s basement before the newest shipment of Affinites arrived.
But lies and trickery were how Ramson would conduct his scheme. They were not, Ana realized now, howshedid things.
Ana flared her Affinity. The garden lit up in shades of dark and light—and the flaming body of blood that was Tetsyev a dozen steps in front of her.
Ana strode forward. Tetsyev’s back was to her, and the snow muffled her footsteps. Her entire body shook. Something dangerous had coiled tightly in her stomach.
Her foot slipped; she muffled her cry.
Tetsyev turned. “What—” he began, eyes widening, but Ana threw her Affinity around him and tightened her grasp on his blood. Tetsyev made a choking sound, his eyes seeking out her shadow in the night.
“Do you feel that?” Ana gave another sharp tug on his blood, making sure to keep her face tilted away from the light. Tetsyev groaned. “That’s just a taste of what I can do to you. Now follow me quietly, and you’ll live.”
Her heart raced as she led him through the glass doors into the banquet hall, her Affinity tight as a noose around his neck. She walked a half dozen steps in front of him, but she could almostseehis figure outlined in her mind in blood. He trailed her like a ghost, his hands clasped tightly, his steps in tune to hers.
The huge brass clock in the middle of the banquet hall struck twenty-five past nine when they slipped from the ball into the maze of corridors in Kerlan’s mansion. Ana recited the directions Ramson had drilled into her—second left, first right, fifth left—and the map he’d forced her to memorize until she could find her way in her sleep.
The halls were eerily empty, and as they walked, the winding set of hallways grew narrower, the bare floors no longer covered in exotic carpeting. The expensive décor faded to plain marble, and walls became barren. An air of neglect hung in this section of the mansion, infused with an unnatural stillness that made her feel as though they were trespassing in forbidden territory.
When Ana swept the area with her Affinity, there was not a single guard or servant around. A feeling of unease crept up on her as they made their last turn and found themselves in front of a dead end of a passageway. An ordinary oakwood door stood before them, a round brass handle polished.
Taking a deep breath, Ana grasped the handle and began to turn it.Two circles clockwise, five counterclockwise, then three clockwise again.Ramson’s voice seemed to whisper by her ear, and she felt the ghost of his touch as he guided her hands through the motions.Then push.
A clacking and whirring sound almost made her jump. It came from within the door, like a series of gears grinding open. Ana threw her weight against the door and pushed.
It ground open inch by inch, and she realized that despite its appearance, this was no ordinary door. It was thicker than the length of her forearm, and as it swung open into the light, she saw the glittering black material on the other side, and felt coldness and a sense of weakness drape over her like a suffocating cloak.Blackstone.
A dark smear stretched from the stones at the tips of her shoes to the stone steps leading into darkness, as though someone had dragged a long brushstroke of ink from here to the depths below.Blood,her Affinity screamed.
“In here,” she instructed Tetsyev, and quietly, he began his descent. Ana grabbed the nearest torch from its sconce and Tetsyev drifted past her in the darkness, the white of his cloak reflecting her torchlight. Ana closed the door behind her and followed the alchemist. At the bottom of the stairs was a small room, the walls made of rough-hewn stone. A distinct set of chains stretched like a grotesque vine along the walls, and to the right of the chamber, a corridor led on into darkness.
Ana threw her shoulders back. After all this time, the man she had been searching for stood before her.
Tetsyev faced the tunnel stretching beyond the chamber, his back to her. He was so still he might have been made of stone. Ana remembered this very same outline, carved in monochrome by the bone-white moon, standing over her father’s deathbed.
“Turn around,” she said.
He did, slowly. His frightened gray eyes fell on her as she carefully set the torch in a sconce on the wall. “Do you recognize me?”
Beneath the flickering torchlight, Tetsyev seemed to tremble as he answered. “No.”
Anger stirred in Ana, white-hot. She unlaced the ribbons of her mask and slid it off her face. “Do I look familiar now, mesyr Tetsyev?”
Tetsyev’s eyes widened as they swept across her face, taking in her eyes, her nose, the shape of her mouth. “Kolst Pryntsessa Anastacya,” he whispered.
“I lost that title.” It was difficult to keep the snarl out of her voice. “In fact, I’ve losteverything.And you’re the reason for it all.” Her voice shook, and the wall she had built around that black well of grief threatened to crumble.
Ask him about Luka. Tell him you’re taking him back to Salskoff. And get out.
But different words, words that she had wanted to ask for so long, that she had dreamt of over and over again, clawed at her chest. Ana turned to her father’s murderer, her breathing ragged. “Why did you do it?”
Tetsyev’s face was twisted away from the torchlight. “I never meant to.”
