Chapter 30
The following afternoon found me in the corridor with the statues. I was strung out like wire, my whole body aching. My lack of sleep was catching up with me.
I’d managed to train in the cove in the morning—an hour in the predawn shadows and stillness—but it wasn’t enough; the archwater waves were growing fiercer.
Over the past week, I thought I felt a tenuous connection, a disgruntled acceptance of my grovelling apologies, but it was frail. The tide was still capricious.
The previous day, I’d been Avrix’s lookout again.
Much of his time was taken up rehearsing, or lounging in the snug or parlor with the Shearwaters, but yesterday he feigned a headache and left—“A glass too many last night, I fear.” I lingered, jittery, within earshot of the others as Emment and Vercha argued about a scene.
In the end, none of them set foot near West Tower, and Avrix reappeared later, face unreadable.
Now, as I manually washed down the floors, I stepped close to the statues, to their laconite eyes.
The faint ringing I’d by now grown accustomed to seemed quieter, intermittent, almost forlorn.
Would the other Orha servants, or Llir, notice?
I had to hope they’d learned to tune the noise out by now.
And then there was the treacherous sliver of me that hoped that someone would notice. That this reckoning would never come.
When I peered closely at the eyes, I could see Avrix’s damage: hairline cracks, barely visible in the stone, spiralling out like spiderwebs. I thought of the armory, the bedchambers, even the gatehouse…all that laconite rendered weak, near useless.
Soon the only working laconite on the island would be the smallest beads, which were difficult to crack.
In anticipation of the Cage’s arrival—the turmoil that would hit the island in a day—Avrix and I had pilfered some each: two bags of gems from the backs of dusty drawers, which I fervently hoped wouldn’t be missed before tomorrow.
“Corith!”
I jumped, dropping my washcloth. Vercha was striding determinedly toward me, and I clasped my trembling fingers behind my back.
“There you are.” She was bright-eyed, turned out perfectly in black sable. “The Cormorants’ Gustmouth has wrenched his ankle. He was out with the twins shooting birds this morning. Quite lame, poor thing. But it means we need you.”
I opened my mouth, but she pressed on, gaze glinting.
“We’re putting on Cithre’s Folly tonight—you know, our little theatrical? But their Gustmouth can’t walk, and he had a small part…I said you’d be more than happy to stand in for him.”
She smiled at me delightedly, as if she’d done me a great service.
My stomach dropped, and my face must have shown it, for she patted me reassuringly on the arm.
“Don’t worry, it’s not a speaking part. They’re tableaux scenes, just poses in the background.
But the banqueting scene…it just won’t work without you. ”
Her eyes were beseeching. I had no choice.
Nothing could seem suspicious until the Cage came tomorrow.
And if they didn’t, if they stuck to their original date, I had to endeavor to remain on the island…
Rexim would decide on my future tomorrow, and an angry Vercha would surely sway his mind.
I swallowed and nodded, forcing a fake smile.
“Wonderful. Meet us in the ballroom at eight.”
—
Eight o’clock rolled around far too quickly. The chimes were like a funeral knell as I dragged myself across the castle to the ballroom.
“Ah,” came Morgen’s voice as I entered. “There’s our spy.”
I stared at her in horror.
She laughed lightly. “Your role, in our banqueting scene. The informant who tells the heir his cousins are plotting to have him killed.” Her dark eyes glittered with amusement in the lamplight. “She looks like she’s being sent to her execution, Vercha. Should we spare her the ordeal?”
I sucked in a long breath.
Vercha pursed her lips, came striding toward me. “Come now, Corith. You’re doing us a great favor. Here. Put this on. And here’s your mask.” She handed me a neatly folded white bundle.
Two sets of wooden screens had been erected.
One was tall and elaborately painted—a scene of hanging gardens, distant towers, curling vines.
The second set hid what I guessed was “backstage.” There were leather cases spilling over with costumes, a rail of cloaks, a nest of thin swords.
As Ferda loped past with an armful of more weapons—props, I supposed, for some battle scene—Vercha propelled me to a full-length mirror.
There stood Llir in a mask and black shirt.
“Move,” Vercha trilled. “Corith needs to get changed.”
He caught my eye briefly, and my stomach gave a tug. “She’s taking this very seriously,” he said in an undertone, and his sister swiped his arm with a fan as he strode off.
I dressed quickly. My costume was a long white gown, like something an ancient acolyte might have worn. My mask, too, was plain white, expressionless. As I fixed it to my eyes, surveyed myself in the mirror, it brought to my mind the jester at the Veil.
I shivered. I was glad of this false face tonight. I worried my treachery was painted across my features.
Before long, Catua made an appearance, trailed by the families’ remaining Orha and, at last, an already tipsy Emment.
The heir seemed jovial enough this evening, but ever since our encounter after the ball, his jaunty veneer had begun to slip.
Something within him seemed to have altered.
I thought I could see doubts—a new, wretched darkness—and I couldn’t interpret his fixed, hollow stares as anything other than guilt about Zennia.
I’d found myself weighing up whether, when the Cage came, I could use the opportunity for a reckoning with him.
Rhianne and Mawre were tasked with special effects, helped by Orran, the incapacitated Gustmouth, who perched on a bench beneath an open window and coaxed in breezes for the scenes on ships’ prows. Rhianne had started a fire in the hearth. “Atmospheric lighting,” she murmured as she passed me.
A few other servants had minor parts, and they primped and paced, repeating their brief lines.
Soon the ragtag audience arrived. The Brigant himself, closely trailed by his wolfhounds, settled in a gilt chair in front of the stage, pipe in one hand, wine in the other.
A cluster of footmen perched behind him, and I even saw a gaggle of guards from the gatehouse along the back wall, bantering with each other.
“Ahem,” came a voice. A costumed Avrix Cormorant, his matchlock pistol strapped to his belt. Emment played a series of trills on the spinet.
“Cithre’s Folly,” Avrix intoned deeply. “A theatrical. Performed by Houses Shearwater and Cormorant. Long may they be allies.” He gave a sweeping bow, and on his way up, he cut a swift glance in my direction.
Rexim looked amused.
And thus it began.
—
Morgen was the eponymous Cithre, the Brigantess embroiled in an affair with her Orha.
Emment played his nefarious role with great zeal, despite the effects of a few goblets of wine.
I watched as lines tripped off his tongue with no prompting, his gestures expansive—he wore the character like a cloak.
Avrix was the tragic hero, the spurned husband, but there were subplots galore involving the others.
Llir played the heir, Catua and Vercha his cousins.
The girls took on their murderous personas with gusto, kitted out in helmets and swords.
And scattered throughout the melodramatics were tableaux: still life scenes laid out behind the actors.
About halfway through, I was tuning out. The names were all blurring—Eulix, Aumar—and my thoughts were bent toward what tomorrow would bring. I was only jerked from my ruminations by Vercha hissing my name from the stage.
“Sorry,” I whispered, adjusting my mask. I hurried into the tableau. Rhianne brought up the light.
The scene was a sumptuous feast, an imaginary banquet. I was to walk across it and bend to whisper in the heir’s ear in front of Vercha and Catua: the traitors, the betrayers. Vercha held up an invisible platter, while Catua mimed taking a great gulp of wine.
It hit me suddenly: The heir was Llir. Cheeks burning—but hidden by my mask, with any luck—I approached him, bent toward him, held a palm to my lips. We all froze in place, holding the tableau, as Avrix and Emment strode into the foreground.
“Faithful steward! Mine eyes see true now.” Avrix twirled one of the swords, advancing. “Hold! Thou shalt get thy requital.”
Llir had stilled with his face tilted toward me.
His mask was silver, the eyes edged in black, the nose slightly pointed: an owl’s snub beak. I could see every strand of golden-brown hair, slicked back for the role but curled around his ears. I stared at the stubble dusting his jaw, the pale skin peering from beneath his high collar.
Though he didn’t move a muscle, his eyes slid to mine. He could probably feel my warm breath on his ear. I held it in, gnawing my lip reflexively, and his gaze flickered downward to my mouth. He blinked.
“Woe! Oh, torment!”
Emment had “stabbed” Avrix, who lay groaning and twitching on the ground. Rexim chuckled. Morgen hovered on the sidelines.
The scene broke up. The tableau was over.
The four of us at the banquet jumped into motion, and as I moved away, my leg brushed Llir’s knee. I stole off the stage with my heart banging wildly, the skin on my thigh tingling, my damp gown clinging to me.
As the final act of the play unfolded, I donned a cloak and hid backstage. Morgen had taken the floor for the finale; her rich voice rang out like an orator’s under the rafters.
My thoughts were whirling. What was happening to me?
I didn’t seem able to be anywhere near Llir Shearwater without a zinging in my skin, a stutter in my pulse, a burning need for him to look at me, to notice me.
It had worsened since I’d discovered he was Orha. He was like me. I wanted to speak to him again. To know about his childhood, his relationship with Rexim. I wanted to know his fears, his desires…
His desires.
At that thought, and with trembling fingers, I decanted a measure of wine into a tumbler. It was impossible. Foolish. Llir was Hundred. I was Orha.
And the possibility remained—stark and bone cold—that tomorrow, absolutely none of this would matter.