Chapter 6
Six
You don’t survive for eight years on the streets without a swift set of wits. The second the massive man’s question rings through the air, my mind snaps out of shock and locks on to my story.
I take a small step forward, confident but not imposing, ignoring the stutter of my pulse. I shift my usual wording into the formal phrasing typical of the upper class. “I’m a friend of Julita’s. She asked me to attend this meeting in her place.”
The man cocks his head to the side with a subtle twitch of his head. It’s difficult to look away from his stunningly chiseled features.
He crosses his muscular arms over his equally muscular chest in a pose that sends a different twinge of familiarity through me. As if I’ve seen this man somewhere other than in that flash of Julita’s memories.
“Interesting,” he says in a drawl too cool to be totally casual. “And where would Julita be?”
In my head, adding to the conversation with an amused lilt to her voice.
Don’t mind him. Stavros has to indulge his bossing-people-around inclinations somewhere now that he’s not commanding entire armies anymore.
Her tone is dismissive, but my entire body stiffens. Stavros? Armies?
My gaze flicks over the looming man again and snags on one of his hands, tucked under his elbow. The hand that’s a little too stiff, a little too even in color to be actual flesh, as well as it matches his light brown skin.
With a sickening lurch of my gut, I realize why I recognize his stance.
I’m looking at General Stavros, military genius and leader of a quarter of the Crown’s soldiers… or at least, he was until an injury in battle last year knocked him from his pedestal.
Other than the prosthetic hand, which he’s needed since his sacrifice to the warrior godlen, Sabrelle, at his twelfth-year dedication, he appears hale and hearty enough. I had no idea he was slumming it with college students.
But that’s not what turns my blood to ice.
No, the real problem is that the one time I saw him before, two years ago—in a helm that hid his distinctive blood-red hair and with a much more distinctive metal prosthetic—he was presiding over the execution of the last riven sorcerer to be brought to justice before last night.
A riven sorcerer he personally hunted down and dragged to the capital.
When I blink, an image flickers behind my eyes: his tightly satisfied smile as the drugged woman jerked in the noose.
Great God filet and fry me, I might as well have draped myself on a chopping block by coming here.
The former general looks younger than I’d have imagined, late twenties at most, but that’s hardly a comfort. My fingers have curled toward my palms, my left hand itching to snatch up the knife hidden in my boot.
Of course, I’ve got nowhere to run to, and stabbing the former General Stavros is only going to land me in deeper shit than I’ve already stumbled into.
My magic prickles through my ribs, but I resist its demanding pinches. There’s no immediate danger because he doesn’t know what I am—but he sure as shit will if I start throwing my power around.
There’s nothing to do but continue the ruse until I can walk away. And fast, because all four of the men are looking sterner with every passing second of my silence.
“She couldn’t make it,” I spit out hastily, and manage to gather myself enough to even out my voice.
The plan, the explanation we worked out, it’s there in my head along with the woman’s blasted ghost.
“We met for dinner last night,” I go on.
“We know each other from back home—from Nikodi—I’m in Florian visiting my uncle.
She told me about your investigation, and that there was an urgent lead she intended to follow that would take her out of the city for a day or two, but she didn’t want you to worry.
So she explained how to find the meeting and asked me to come in her place. ”
By the desk, the masked man shifts his weight. He’s tall but much slimmer than Stavros, his lean frame covered in a moss-green tunic and brown trousers that are less flashy than the former general’s clothes but still clearly well-made.
Like the rest of the other men, I’d guess he’s around my age—a student, then—although with him it’s difficult to tell.
His gaze pierces into me through the holes in the deep brown leather of his mask.
The material covers one side of his face from beneath the black waves of his hair along his forehead down to his jaw, but angles up around his mouth and across his nose so that only the area around his eye and forehead is concealed on the other side.
I’m not sure what to make of it. I’ve never seen anyone from any level of society make a sacrifice that would only affect the surface of their face and not its features.
Those who prefer not to offer more than skin tend toward arm and leg areas and leave the mark on display. Those who want a more significant sacrifice might give an ear or an eye.
Maybe he’s suffered some kind of injury too, though I doubt it was in battle.
Even with that much of his features disguised, it’s obvious from the tapered slope of his jaw and nose, the fullness of his lips and the brightness of his eyes, that he’s plenty handsome himself. Julita apparently prefers her allies to be appealing to the eye as well as stealthy.
The masked man’s lips purse tight in the moment before they part. His voice comes out cold and flat. “You’re not a student here. How did you even get into the college?”
I force a smile that I hope looks at least mildly reassuring. “She told me the week’s passcode and the way to open the secret passage to this room. And she lent me this.”
I hold up my arm. Julita’s bracelet gleams around my wrist.
The blond man props himself against the side of the desk, a hint of his smirk coming back to his equally fine face. While not as huge as Stavros, he’s obviously well-built—and knows it, from the way he carries himself.
He’s turned his formal shirt provocatively casual by leaving it unbuttoned halfway down his chest—revealing the godlen sigil branded over his sternum. He’s dedicated to Kosmel.
The overseer of luck and trickery is an unusual choice for a noble.
And he’s missing the lobes of his ears. Both of them, cut off in a smooth diagonal line from what must have been a dedication sacrifice.
He’s got some kind of gift, though probably not a very large one given the minor offering.
“How do we know you didn’t just steal the bracelet from her?” he asks breezily, as if he wouldn’t care much even if I had.
Oh, Benny. I can practically hear Julita rolling her eyes. Remind him that I outdrank him at the Blue Hart pub the first night we met.
I arch one eyebrow, channeling my noble passenger’s attitude for all I’m worth. “Could I have also stolen the story of how she drank you under the table at the Blue Hart when the two of you met?”
The blond man barks a laugh and claps his hands together. “I like this one. I say we keep her too.”
Julita snorts. As if it wasn’t me who herded the bunch of them together in the first place.
Stavros shoots the other man an unimpressed look. The underlying coolness of his voice sends a shiver down my spine despite his languid tone. “Keep your pants on, Benedikt. She hasn’t even told us her name.”
“Ivy,” I say promptly. “Ivy Euridya of Nikodi.” Julita assured me that none of her friends were familiar enough with her birthplace to have any idea of what other semi-prominent families live there.
“Ivy,” Stavros repeats, in a tone that suggests it’s the most ridiculous name he’s ever heard. Is there really no chance I can get away with stabbing him?
The tawny-haired man who’s said nothing so far comes around the side of the desk by Stavros. Every movement of his sleek body emanates a feline sort of grace that speaks of both strength and poise. But the soft smile he aims at me is the warmest gesture anyone here has offered so far.
The other men may all be striking, but this one is so gorgeous my breath catches despite my wariness.
A trace of magic tingles through me. Did he work a gift on me?
He turns his dark green eyes toward the military man. “I think we should listen to her. Julita wouldn’t have sent her if it wasn’t important.”
As he talks, I catch the glint of red and blue in the back of his mouth. I have to restrain my reaction before both my eyebrows shoot up.
He’s replaced at least a few of his molars with gemstone substitutes. Rubies and sapphires from the look of them.
Teeth aren’t an unusual dedication sacrifice, though I’ve heard they’re one of the more painful options, especially if you offer more than one.
But usually only courtesans fill in the gaps with such eye-catching replacements, devoted as they are to beauty along with every other pleasure of the flesh.
It’s common enough that I’ve heard pliers of the carnal trade referred to sneeringly as “gaudy teeth” rather than their actual job title.
This is quite the motley group Julita assembled.
Of course Casimir would believe you first, she says with apparent amusement. Sweet Cas, always ready to serve.
Even though I’ve only just met the man, her patronizing tone raises my hackles.
Didn’t she say these men were her “friends”? She doesn’t sound as if she thinks all that highly of any of them.
Since I’ve now gotten three of their names, I have to assume the one in the mask is the Alek she mentioned who found the secret passage.
The slim man’s mouth has tightened again into a grimace, but he sets his hands on the desk with a determined air. “Fine. What did she ask you to tell us? What’s this mission she’s gone on?”
Benedikt nods with a swish of his sleek golden hair. “And why didn’t she let us in on the fun?”
He asks the question like a joke, but a faint crease has bitten into his brow. He’s at least a little concerned about her.
Which doesn’t seem to matter much to Julita, based on her dry tone. It is nice to be missed.