He worked through it, the calculation visible in the set of his face; he was moving pieces on a game board and didn’t love where they were landing. He didn’t want to send me in.
“Tell me how to do it, and trust me to get it done,” I said.
Fear’s gaze moved over my face. Whatever he was looking for, he found.
“The knife will be secured inside. Obsidian takes their time. They’ll inventory, they’ll verify, they’ll ensure what they have is what they were sent for. They’ll also drink the owner’s wine and terrorize him a little. There’s a reason the queen only lets them off their leash when she doesn’t care about the target.”
“Fun,” Kiegan muttered. “Just where I want to send the kitten.”
“They’ll be inside for at least another hour. Long enough for a servant to move through the space unnoticedifthey do not have all the servants secured somewhere. But they likely have put them to work, gathering whatever else they find valuable and serving food.”
“I’m well versed in serving,” I said, and Fear cut me a wry look, as if he remembered my questionable serving skills back in Stonehaven.
“You’ll need to blend in and pretend to be unremarkable.” He held my gaze, already having sobered once again. “You need to locate the knife and take it without being seen to take it. If Obsidian sees the theft?—”
“They won’t see me,” I interrupted. “That’s the point.”
Fear inclined his head in acceptance, but would not be deterred from being heard. “If they do, you just need to stay alive until we reach you.”
Fourteen
Cara
Kiegan found one of the entrances, pushing aside moss to reveal a rough-hewn circle of a door, a space wide enough for an orc but entirely dark inside; the entrance slanted at a steep angle.
“I’ll lower you in.”
He held out his hands to me. It occurred to me that I was not coming back out this entrance without assistance, which was a rather grim thought.
Fear stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “If you can’t find the knife, come back out, and we’ll find another way. You do not risk yourself. Not…more than this.”
Thiswas clearly beyond his comfort, but he was tolerating the risk. Barely.
“I promise.” I moved before he could say anything else.
The old stone swallowed the light, and there was a musty scent to the air. I let my eyes adjust before I went the rest of the way through. I almost tripped over potatoes and onions piled up underfoot. I was in some type of storeroom.
The first true room I passed through was a kitchen, so smoky that my eyes watered. There was food in preparation spread across the table. I thought the room was empty at first until I saw two small figures, sprites maybe, peeling potatoes and chirping to each other in a language I didn’t know, sounding frantic.
I hurried through the kitchen, keeping to the shadows, and made it through the doorway.
The main hall resolved itself in pieces through the half-open doors. Obsidian moved through the space, where low Fae and mortal servants alike were spilling gold and jewels and weaponry onto the long tables. There were three I could see, but the voices of more were beyond. Dark armor, high humor. They seemed pleased with themselves and with each other.
That gave me my cover. I slipped into the next room I saw, a library, and swept up an armful of trinkets from a shelf. Priceless relics being collected for Obsidian, or at least my best attempt as a dull mortal servant.
Now I dared get closer to the hall.
King Nez sat helpless at the head of the table, his head bowed. He had a beaked nose and an angular set to his face, and his fingers were edged with feathers where they gripped the edge of the table as if he were on the verge of taking flight. He was slight, finely dressed like someone who had spent a long time ensuring their clothing announced they were notthatkind of low Fae, the kind one dismissed.
Standing at his side was an enthralled mortal. The mortal who had been his furniture once now held a knife to his throat, enchanted that easily to serve Obsidian rather than him. The mortal did not move; his eyes were dark, distant, lifeless, as if he were not entirely human anymore. It was because I glanced twice at the knife he held that I saw the gouges in his wrists, dug deep, to the bone. He had been chained.
Obsidian might be monsters, but I was not sure I was sorry for anything they did to Nez, who was looking at the mortal’s face as if he were seeing it for the first time.
The knife was on the table at the hall’s center, surrounded by other valuables but elevated by the thick cloth it rested on. One of the tapestries. There was a dark gray rectangle of wall where it had been torn down.
There were three Obsidian shifters in this room and more nearby, looking for things to steal. I needed a distraction.
I retreated with only the wisps of a plan and decided to pretend I had Fear’s confidence. Yet another storeroom gave me what I needed: a stack of linen that had been waiting in the corner long enough to have gone stiff, a worktable covered in musty books and papers, and a lamp that someone had left burning. It seemed as if half the castle had been given over to piled-up excess.
