Chapter 14
Why we need a heavy to steal from a practically immortal being who’s made entirely of shadows, I have no idea.
However, when I brought this to his attention, the Nomad insisted that every heist needs a heavy. So here we are. In the city of Miinar, the capital of Irethden, about to infiltrate the palace of the most prosperous kingdom in the world.
This will end well.
“You seem nervous,” says the Nomad, leaning down to whisper in my ear. He’s dressed in a dark blue suit, complete with coattails and a vest, which brings out his eyes and makes them even more eerie than usual.
I shift restlessly in my gown. It’s not that I’m uncomfortable wearing gowns like these.
In fact, I rather enjoy dressing up. I’d gotten a glimpse of myself in the window of the coach, and I have to admit: I look quite dazzling in the glimmering gold dress that makes my tanned skin and golden hair shimmer as well.
It’s what’s underneath the dress that bothers me. The Nomad had a special binder made for me, one that keeps my wings wrapped securely around my waist. It’s tight enough that my wings are invisible underneath my dress.
Which would be great if it weren’t for the minor issue of breathing.
Corsets might have gone out of fashion ten years ago, but this benefits me none.
“Nervous?” the Nomad asks.
I glance down at the leather pad he procured for this very occasion. I’d be less nervous if we were trying to steal the crown jewels.
“I’d rather you not put that in writing.” He nods toward my parchment. “It’s rather condemning if we get searched.”
I offer him a rather caustic smirk and make a show of ripping the paper, popping it into my mouth, and swallowing in an exaggerated manner. If I’m being completely honest, it tastes better than I expected and dissolves easily.
Apparently, the Nomad keeps ample stores of edible paper. Strange, but I must admit, rather useful.
We wait outside the palace. I delay linking my arm through the Nomad’s until the very last second, when it’s unavoidably necessary.
As I slip my arm through his, my disgust must be evident, because he says, “One would think my arm was hairy and one of a set of eight.”
Though I would never admit it to him, the truth isn’t far from that. Even through the layer of his jacket separating us, his touch is practically noxious.
Thankfully, since my arm is occupied, it gives me an excuse not to answer him. I’ve been practicing my signs, but so far what I’ve learned is more useful for tactical commands than snarky retorts. And if I can’t be clever, I’d rather not communicate at all.
“Invitation,” says the steward at the front of the line. His nose turns up as we approach. I wonder if he looks that way at all the guests, or if it’s because he doesn’t recognize us.
The Nomad produces a sparkling invitation from his pocket and hands it to the steward for examination. The man peers down through his spectacles, and I fight the urge to roll my fingers together in a fidgeting rhythm.
When the steward finally says, “Very well. Welcome, Lord and Lady Thereal,” I remember that the Nomad isn’t notorious for nothing. I take it forgery is another of the many skills he’s honed over his long career.
“Impressed?” asks the Nomad as we walk through the halls.
I roll my eyes and, instead of answering, take in the marvelous palace around me.
Everything is crimson.
Red curtains drip down from the sconces fashioned to look like soldiers, which gives the illusion of them bleeding.
Queen Rische has never been the violent type.
That was her mother and her grandfather before her.
In fact, the most recent queen’s ascension to power has been broadly celebrated not only by her people but also by neighboring kingdoms for bringing peace to our age. Well, for humans, at least.
Most of the fae are still on the edge of society, the reason for the circlets on my and the Nomad’s heads—a rather convenient fashion borrowed from the kingdom we’re pretending to hail from, given that they cover our pointed ears.
Queen Rische claims to desire peace for fae, as well, but I can’t help but be skeptical. After all, the new queen might have ushered in a new set of politics, but she left the rather violent décor intact.
Guests file through the halls, following a servant dressed in flowing crimson robes. Eventually, we are led to a set of mahogany doors, which, at the clap of the servant’s hands, spread wide to reveal the ballroom.
It’s the Night of Undying Love: a commemoration of the night the queen’s late husband sacrificed his life to save her from an assassin.
A rather dark reason to celebrate, in my opinion.
It seems like the type of holiday that would be instituted centuries after the tragedy by descendants who never knew the late king.
But I suppose everyone has their own way of mourning.
The ballroom is outfitted much like the rest of the palace, but to the extreme.
Wine pours from a massive fountain set up in the center of the room.
The guests wear one or both of the kingdom’s colors, crimson and gold.
The golden face paint—likely made from faerie dust, which again has me skeptical of the queen’s intent toward the fae—is reserved for the royal family, smattering their jawlines with a faint glitter.
But it’s not the royal family that arrests my attention.
It’s the man standing next to the queen, his chin held high, his face somber.
He looks like the type who would never deign to touch alcohol to his lips.
He has dark brown skin and his head is shaved.
A tattoo of a dragon wing cuts across his left cheek.
“I take it you found what we’re stealing?” the Nomad says.
You have got to be kidding, I write. Earlier this evening when the Nomad explained the plan, I’d been reticent. But now, looking at the man—he looks about as likely to join us as a woman under vow at a convent.
Sensing my doubt in our plan, the Nomad flashes a mischievous grin. “Unpleasant options become exceedingly more appealing when they’re the last resort.”
I would know, I write. Given my situation, I can confidently assert that my last resort is as unappealing as ever.
One of the benefits of writing is that, once he’s glanced down at the parchment, the Nomad can’t pretend he didn’t hear me.
Still, I can’t help the pit widening in my gut. We’re about to ruin this man’s life. Acel Vindicue came from a long line of farmers before joining the queen’s army and ascending in rank, extolled by his superiors until he finally earned a position as the queen’s personal bodyguard.
It’s got to be the highest-paying soldier’s position in the entire world, which, I suppose, is why we can’t just buy him off or hire him for a one-off job.
Still, now that I’ve seen him, I’m even less certain than I was before.
His arms are casually folded in front of him, but something tells me this stance would not keep him from drawing his scabbard faster than I could blink.
He scans the room steadily, carefully, with clever, discerning eyes noting each of the guests.
He looks like the type of man who keeps a running inventory in his brain, the type that’s filled with unsavory details and the weaknesses of potential enemies.
This might be less intimidating if it weren’t for the muscles.
“Something have you concerned?” asks the Nomad.
I take out my notepad and write, When you said we needed a heavy, I wasn’t picturing someone quite so—
“Heavy,” the Nomad says slowly, as if hoping that wasn’t what I was about to write and that, if it was, he would be incredibly disappointed.
Discerning-looking, I scribble, offended.
“You don’t become the queen’s foremost bodyguard by being dull,” the Nomad says.
I hadn’t thought so, but still. My hope had been that if we were going to frame this man, he wouldn’t be able to figure out it was us who had done it. My guess is that he’s already labeled us as “most likely to frame me” in his mind.
This is never going to work.
Even if he wouldn’t automatically figure it out, he also looks like the type that values honor enough that he wouldn’t work for us anyway, even if he was a disgraced member of society with nowhere else to go.
You don’t get into that kind of position without being trustworthy, especially when your employer has already lost her husband to an assassination attempt.
Being the queen’s right-hand man, Acel doubles as both her bodyguard and cupbearer—though why you would want to waste your best man on potential poison is beyond me.
But Acel won’t be wasted. Not with the poison we’re using. The Nomad paid some apothecary a heavy sum of money to formulate the poison so that it would only affect women. When I asked the Nomad where he had gotten the idea, he had been rather opaque about it.
The music shifts. Guests pour out onto the dance floor. Shades of red whirl in cascades of satin and silk, the long trains of the women’s fashionable gowns twirling around them.
“I’m afraid I must choose between asking you to dance and garnering unwanted attention.” The Nomad is holding a hand out. I stare at it for a moment. Take in the twin scars that run up the back of his hand, separating it into threes, reminiscent of a crack in a mirror, a crack in the ice.
I glance around the room, hoping for any excuse not to dance with him, but there’s no excuse to be found. The Nomad is correct; everyone else is dancing. Where there might usually be a hedge of people unwilling or unable to dance on the outskirts of the dance floor, there is empty space.
“Here it is considered offensive not to participate in a dance,” explains the Nomad. “It implies the ball is not to your fancy, and more importantly, that the hosts have poor taste in music.”
I glance up at the queen, who is scanning the room. I take the Nomad’s hand before her assessing gaze can land on me. His skin is smoother than his scars would indicate.
But of course, I already knew that.
They’ve caressed not just my hand, but my neck, coaxing the air out of my throat one too many a time for me ever to forget the feel of them.
Nonetheless, I steel myself through the shiver that runs through me and the nausea that crawls its way under my abdomen.
The Nomad leads me out onto the dance floor, and though the music grows more lively, it’s drowned out by the roaring in my ears, by the sound of rushing water and its gentle spray.
“I have something I’d like to show you,” he’s saying, but not here, not in this ballroom. My body is here, but my mind is elsewhere, transported to a dream. One of the recurring ones.
He’s leading me to a waterfall, then pulls me through, my laughter manic as the press of the cold water soaks my dress and shocks my system.
Later, I’ll regret this. I already woke up with chills early this morning.
Mother didn’t want me to come to the dance, fearful I was falling ill.
But I’d promised my friend. And besides, I can survive a little sickness.
So that’s not the reason I’ll regret this.
I’ve only just met this man, at a dance a village friend’s parents threw for her birthday. I’d been in another man’s arms when I’d first seen him standing on the edge of the dance floor, his eyes glittering as he watched me.
“Are you going to ask me to dance or not?” I’d asked after the fourth suitor had disappointed me with the question.
“Not,” he’d said, to which I’d bristled. “At least, not in here.”
When I’d raised a questioning brow, he’d nodded his head ever so slightly to the side, beckoning me outside of the barn.
“This feels suspiciously like being lured,” I’d said, the cold brushing my bare shoulders as the moon peeked over my friend’s farm.
“That’s the intention,” he’d winked. “If we’d stayed in there, I’d have to pass you off at the end of the song. This way, I don’t have to share you.”
“You speak as if I’m yours,” I’d said, running my hand along the knobby fencepost.
He hadn’t answered that.
But now he’s pulled me behind this waterfall and is kissing me like he knows the curve of my lips by heart. Warmth fills my chest as he slips his hands up my neck to cup my jawline.
My heart flutters, but he deepens the kiss.
And his grip on my neck.
“Ouch,” I say playfully. “Is this how you…”
He presses his fingers into my throat harder.
My heart pounds in my chest. My lips search for his name, only to realize he never told me.
“Stop it,” I gasp, but I’m barely able to get even these words out.
I look up, stare into this man’s eyes. I don’t know what I’m expecting—a crazed expression to have overtaken him?
But there’s nothing crazed in his expression. Nothing to indicate insanity. Nothing to indicate he’s doing anything other than memorizing my features, the curve of my nose, the rosiness of my cheeks.
The light leaving my eyes.