Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
I Sift inside Belladonna’s rooms the next morning and reform, stalking toward her bed with the intent of whipping the blankets off her. “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty. You want me to kill your groom? Then you have to—”
The blankets burst upwards, and two startled heads appeared.
My hand jerks back.
“What in the Cauldron’s name are you doing in here?” Belladonna hisses, as Anissa ducks back beneath the covers with a yelp.
I slam to a halt. A great many things suddenly make sense in hindsight. Letters. Oh. Those kinds of letters. “Well. Aren’t I a fool?” Mistmark’s imminent execution suddenly makes a great deal of sense. I circle the bed. “This is why you want your groom dead, isn’t it?”
Belladonna slips from the bed, icily cool even as she draws a silk robe on.
The expression on her face would be a threat if her hair didn’t look like she’d spent hours with her face between her lover’s thighs last night.
“What in the Shadow Lands are you doing in here? How dare you? If you think this gives you any leverage, think again. My cousin is well aware of my proclivities.”
She curls her fingers into claws, gathering her magic, and I Sift out of reach, wagging a finger at her.
“Relax, my lady. I have no intention of telling anyone what I saw here.” I glance toward the bed.
Anissa still hasn’t made a reappearance.
“None of this is my business. I was merely hoping to gain your assistance with a small task.”
Her eyes narrow.
We stare at each other like two cats entering each other’s territories.
Finally, Belladonna turns toward a bowl of water set out for her morning ablutions. She cups her hands within it and wipes them down her face. “You think I’m fool enough to fall in with your little scheme and name myself conspirator? Think again. I told you what you need to do—”
I pluck an apple from her breakfast tray and toss it in the air.
“Killing Mistmark’s a little more difficult than originally intended.
He’s protected far too well. Besides”—the bed appears to be moving; Anissa is clearly curious about this turn of events—“it’s not Mistmark you have a problem with.
Don’t you want to throw this mistake in your cousin’s face?
Don’t you want to see Malechus humbled before his entire court? ”
Belladonna stills. I have to admire both her restraint and her posture. Her shoulders are so square she makes even the effort of drying her face with a linen look arrogant. Tricking her is going to require the kind of play that makes my fingers itch.
But everyone has their weakness.
And Malechus is hers.
“What did you have in mind?” she finally asks.
Perfect. She’s on the hook. I snap my fingers, and as if she was waiting for this moment, Soraya shoves both panels of the bedchamber door open and stalks inside with her shoulders squared.
An enormous train of dark green velvet rasps over the floor behind her, and her sleek brown hair has been swept back with waxed hands, so that it falls in a straight line down her back.
Her sharpened nails are painted scarlet, and the gown brings out the malicious emerald glint in her eyes.
Belladonna gasps, which draws Anissa out.
“What do you think?” I ask Anissa, because she would know best, after all.
Her jaw drops open, and her head jerks between Belladonna and Soraya as if even she can’t tell the difference.
“Who. Is. This?” Belladonna demands, facing her exact replica.
I sink into a chair and kick my heels up on the small table in front of me, taking a bite out of the apple. “I think we’re going to have to work on your delivery,” I tell Soraya.
“Get your filthy boots off my table,” my sister tells me in an almost perfect rendition of Belladonna’s tone as she stalks toward me. “How was that?” Then she gives a little twirl before giving Belladonna a nasty grin. “You may remember me…. I had weeks to learn your mannerisms.”
The glamor bleeds off her until Anissa is scrambling from the bed, wrapping herself in the sheets as she cowers beside her lover. “Violet? What are you doing here?”
I exchange a knowing look with Soraya. “Violet? Really? Isn’t that getting a little old?”
She shrugs. “I retired Rose, and Iris was getting a little too well-known in the eastern courts.”
With every role she plays, she takes on an alias, and for some reason she likes flowers.
“Pretty. Potent. And sometimes deadly,” she once told me.
“I presume this has a point.” Belladonna’s voice drips ice.
I grin at the reluctant bride as her eyebrows hit her hairline. “This is what we call bait and switch.”
“You want to exchange me with my maid?”
“Technically—” Soraya gives her a little smile. “—I’m an assassin. Not a maid.”
Both she and Anissa grow pale, but Soraya saunters toward me, resting on the arm of my chair.
“Oh, relax,” she says. “I was never here for you. You were just an easy way to get into the court, once I realized your previous maid was bundled away to the country. Not that you’d know anything about that. ”
I feel like I’m missing a vital piece of information.
“The previous maid was working for Malechus.” Soraya reads me well. “So Belladonna removed her. She’s currently convalescing in the country.”
“Convalescing.” It’s an interesting word.
“I’m not the only one with a gift for poisons,” Soraya murmurs. Her eyes lock with Belladonna’s. “Although her ladyship’s a little less refined with them. You nearly killed her.”
Belladonna’s finger twitches as though she’d almost like to curse Soraya.
“Careful with that finger, my lady,” Soraya purrs.
“You’re still recovering from what you did to Zemira, I’m very well aware of the extent of your powers, and you’re days away from recovering the strength to commit a second curse.
But just in case, my knife will be in your throat before you can even twitch it again. ”
She definitely hasn’t told me everything.
Belladonna’s eyes narrow, and she takes a long time before she sinks into the chair opposite me, crossing one smooth leg over the other.
“I assume there’s more to this lovely little get-together than a chance to exchange threats.
” She drags Anissa down beside her, somewhat protectively.
“You have my interest. Proceed.” And then she smiles.
“Give me one good reason not to detonate the curse twined around your heart.”
“Simple.” I toss the half-eaten apple back on the plate and lean forward. “Two words: Malechus. Dead.”
“In a way that cannot lead back to you,” Soraya adds.
“I’m listening,” Belladonna purrs.
* * *
The plan is simple.
Belladonna conceded Mistmark isn’t her true target—merely a means to sidestep this marriage, since her cousin insists she must go through with it—but she’s not interested in lifting the curse or allowing me to avoid the terms of it unless it’s done.
Mistmark must die before she’ll remove the curse.
She will not marry him.
Someone has trust issues, though I daresay I can’t blame her after spending over a week in the Court of Blood. The only hint of softness the lady reveals is when she looks at Anissa, and she absolutely refuses to allow even the slightest chance this marriage will take place.
Which means we’re back to the beginning—but then, I never expected otherwise.
With Falion hovering attentively over Mistmark like a mother duck clucking over its ducklings, Mistmark is out of reach. If Soraya can’t see a way to do it, then it doesn’t exist.
But there’s one person who can get close to him.
One person who is expected to get close to him.
Besides, sometimes I can be a little theatrical.
Soraya and I sit in the rafters overlooking the grotto where the wedding will take place. The servants are hauling in boughs of mistletoe and bloodstar. Snow dusts the grotto floor, hiding any lingering remnants of lechery.
“Exits.” Soraya points. “One to the right, one to the left, and there’s the antechamber Malechus likes to use for his more private entertainments.”
I rub my hands together. The snow started last night, followed by a light rain. It was enough to wash away the snow in the garden above, but here in the grotto the protective overhang of rock shields certain corners of the room, and the overall effect is a little chilly.
It’s pretty though.
Especially against the backdrop of scarlet leaves and berries.
“Think you can go through with this?” I mutter. “If you mistime it, then Mistmark is dead.”
“Oh, I know I can.” Soraya doesn’t move, her hawkish eyes surveying the room. “And if he dies, then I can tell father I succeeded in my task.”
She doesn’t even flinch. But I learned long ago that my sister can lock away her heart as easily as breathing. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t occasionally bother her.
“I know you won’t kill him.”
“What?” She cuts me a look.
I blow into my cupped hands. “He got to you. Somehow. And you got to him.”
Color blooms in her cheekbones. “What do you mean by that?”
“You haven’t said a word about the fact Malechus used you to blackmail Mistmark into marriage.” My voice softens. “If he didn’t care, then he would have told Malechus to toss you off a cliff.”
Soraya stares across the grotto for such a long time I’m starting to think she’s not going to answer.
And then her lashes lower over her eyes.
“Then he’s a fool,” she says, but her voice lacks the chilliness I think she’s striving for.
“You can’t fall in love with a weapon. And that’s all I am. That’s all I can ever be.”
“Soraya—”
“And what about Keir?” Her voice hardens. “Since we’re speaking of complications. Is Keir going to be a problem? Because I know your heart is softer than mine.”
The problem with knowing someone as well as this is that they know all your tells. “He’s unaware you’re in play. I can keep him distracted.”
Her eyebrow arches.
“I can,” I repeat. “And don’t give me that look.”
“You’re fucking him.”