Maybe Anissa wasn’t Soraya’s target, but that doesn’t mean that the constantly vexed brunette didn’t ensure Soraya went missing.
I eye my target over teacakes and scones.
Anissa is a minor scion of the Court of Dawn; a random cousin of the king there. Her gown bares her shoulders—which appears to be the latest of fashions—but it’s made from silk that looks like last year’s pattern. Cut down perhaps, in order to appear new, which tells me she doesn’t have as much wealth as she pretends, and yet, she’s desperate to mingle with the elite and pretend to be one of them. Gossip tells me she’s ventured to the Court of Blood several times this year, ostensibly on trade business. There’s some suspicion she’s got her eye on Malechus and may even be in his bed already, but when the prince himself appears, she doesn’t even glance toward him.
Considering she was seated at the far end of the hall last night, I have to imagine Belladonna—who would have laid out the dining arrangements—has little liking for her.
Few have surfaced after last night, and so I spend the afternoon adding names and faces to my repertoire.
There’s no sign of the Lord of Mistmark, who is someone else I want to acquaint myself with most desperately. Nor is the blushing bride here.
And Keir is currently making several women laugh. Maybe he said something outrageously funny, but I doubt it. The ruse is working. He’s barely looked at me. I am out of favor, left on the sidelines to my own devices. One of the women cuts me a sidelong glance as she daringly strokes his sleeve.
He didn’t return last night.
I know, because I spent half the night tossing and turning, before I finally slammed the pillow over my head and fell asleep.
I make my excuses and leave the tea party.
Before I punch her pretty white teeth through the back of her head.
Find what happened to Soraya, and you find the horn.
I haul my mask over my face as I climb through the window in my room, and then look toward the bridal suite in the eastern tower that the Lord of Mistmark has been given. The mask is glamored to make me invisible in the night, even when I’m not Sifting.
I barely saw the Lord of Mistmark today. Just a distant figure dressed in strict black as he swung a pretty blonde in a red gown around the dance floor tonight. There were too many nobles between us—every fae in the kingdom trying to gain his favor, for he’s the toast of the court this week.
Perhaps it’s a good thing.
I’m a little too curious about him.
What sort of man conjures mercy in my merciless sister’s heart? What kind of lord could even capture her attention, let alone any tender feelings?
I need to find out.
Night is the time I come alive. There is nothing more than shadows here, and they’re my home. I Sift toward the Lady Anissa’s rooms, flickering into being on one rooftop and then the next, until I’m sitting on her window ledge. There’s no one inside her rooms. I can tell when a room is empty, and so I dart along the ledge, leaping from window to window with effortless grace until I fetch up alongside the window that leads to the rooms Soraya was using.
I pick the lock and ease the window open. A second later, I’m inside.
Maybe it’s being in the Court of Blood, but I feel uneasy as I enter. A shiver runs over my skin, lifting all the tiny hairs on my body. Over the years, I’ve learned to listen to my instincts and they’re all telling me to run, but a swift visual inspection reveals no sign of a trap.
And I have the shadows if I need them.
Servants’ chambers are small and tidy, in general, but the sheets on the bed are rumpled. A trunk rests at the foot of the bed, clothes hastily strewn inside it and the lid slammed shut, with half a gown sticking out.
My sister is organized. Tidy. Not like me. Every morning she folds her clothes and makes her bed, until you’d barely know she’s even been in the room.
Something happened to prevent that.
I examine the trunk again.
Did someone search it?
I squat down to examine the lock, and that’s when I see a splash of something dark on the floor.
Blood.
It’s long dried, and as I lean down, I can see where someone’s mopped up more of it. The patch of floor in this corner is suspiciously clean, whereas hints of grime beckon along the rail that dissects the floor from the wall. They missed this one fleck.
Maybe it’s a whisper of sound or a glint of light beneath the door, but my senses suddenly scream at me.
I punch into shadows, hovering on the edge of form just as the door explodes open. There’s a knife in each hand.
Two shadowy figures sweep inside, garbed in cloaks. Women, I think.
One of them gestures with a hand—definitely a woman from those elegant fingers—and bloodied orbs of glowing light follow her around the room.
It’s the pretty blonde from the ballroom. The one who floated in the Lord of Mistmark’s arms.
Belladonna of the Blood Court.
The Blood Lily, they call her.
She lowers her scarlet hood, and I finally get a good look at her face. It’s like seeing her sister, Narcissa, in the flesh again. There’s an insolent curl to her painted red lips, and her blonde hair tumbles in elegant curls around her face.
“What is it?” whispers the ethereal brunette who follows on her heels. Lady Anissa.
Ah, so they’re friends or allies, or… working together either way.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Belladonna whispers. “Don’t you know who I am? I can burn the blood in your veins, little thief. And I know you’re here.”
I press my spine to the bed and stay still, barely feeling my heart beat.
Belladonna sweeps closer, her angry red orb floating over her shoulder hungrily. “That tugging feeling
