Somehow, this snapped Annara out of it. She kicked Mercan’s corpse aside and dove for the stairs as the monster thrashed behind her. Its claws left deep scratches in the floor, spraying dust and fragments of stone over the bloody scene, but it couldn’t reach farther than the foot of the stairs. The chains yanked it back. They hit its skin with the clatter of metal against metal.
Annara sat on the stairs to catch her breath as the creature struggled. She stayed that way for a long time— maybe minutes, maybe hours, as the pain from her slashed palm slowly made itself known. The creature’s face changed shape from foxlike to snakelike to glistening and flat like something dredged from the sea.
Eventually, its frantic movements started to slow. It slumped against the wall and diminished until it was shaped like a person with thin limbs and long black hair.
Annara sat forward. “Senne?”
Senne brushed the hair out of her eyes. The manacles dropped off her human-sized wrists, leaving rings of bruises in their place. Annara had never seen her look so tired.
Senne’s gaze sharpened as she noticed the headless corpse and the bandage around Annara’s hand. “What happened?”
“I don’t— I ran in here to get away from him. I have a key. I’m sorry.”
“Did I hurt you?”
“No, that was him.”
Senne stood, joints cracking, and went to look at the corpse. She turned its head over to look at its face, which was discolored but still frozen in that look of perpetual surprise.
“This gentleman is Mercan of Ervon, I presume,” she said.
Annara stared. “How did you know that?”
“It’s a long story,” Senne said wearily. “I thought something like this might happen. Perhaps I should simply have explained everything from the very beginning.”
“Senne, what’s going on?” Annara swallowed. “What do we do now?”
“We clean this mess up as best we can, I think. Let’s go to the kitchen. You can wait there while I find someone to take care of the body, and then we’ll see what we can do about your hand.”
Senne’s voice was soft and deep and strangely soothing, like velvet on bare skin. Annara felt a hard knot of tension and fear start to dissolve.
“Alright,” she said.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Annara sat on the kitchen table, watching a lantern spread warm honey-colored light across the room. It was late. The sun was long since gone, and the stars were out, making the sky look candied with white sugar. Little fragments of sky glowed in the windows. The burning pain in her hand had subsided to a dull, throbbing ache.
She heard Senne’s voice speaking Seichrenese just outside the door, smooth and polite but too fast for her to follow. Someone else responded. The floor creaked like a single whisper from a violin. Then the kitchen door opened and Senne walked in, yawning.
“It’s taken care of,” she said.
“Who cleans up Lord Wraith’s messes?” Annara wondered out loud.
“Heron and I aren’t the only assassin nobles in the Royal City. The other assassin houses are ranked lower, but that doesn’t mean they’re entirely useless.”
“Won’t you get in trouble for killing a Crescentian national?”
“Depends on the Crescentian national. For Mercan, probably not. He was supposed to be a prisoner, wasn’t he? How did he escape?”
“Ervon is the most corrupt island in the Crescent,” Annara said. “Someone probably paid his way. I didn’t think he’d make it all the way out here. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” Senne paused. “Actually, it might be your fault, but it was much more inconvenient for you than for me. I’ll draw you a bath.”
“You don’t need to do that. I don’t need a bath.”
“Annara, you’re covered in blood.”
She looked down at her hands to find them crusted with drying flakes of red, like chips from rubies. Over the last few years, she had gotten so used to grime that the sick tightness on her skin hardly registered anymore.
“Right. A bath would be nice. Thank you,” she added belatedly.
Senne helped her up, even though Annara didn’t need it. “Come on, then.”
She took her to the bathroom, which was on the first floor and heated by a wood fire that Senne lit as Annara sat on a stool near the wooden tub, examining the fraying makeshift bandage on her hand.
“Can I help?” she said, watching Senne bustle around.
“No. You’re hurt.”
Water splashed against wood. By the time Annara looked up again, the tub was full of water, half-hidden by a wooden screen. It steamed gently and smelled somewhat herbal, the sparkling scent of mint rewriting the slight smell of blood in the air. A single lantern cast a pale golden glow over the shimmering surface of the water, the color of an apricot in summer.
“Go ahead,” Senne said, turning to face the wall. “I won’t look.”
Annara undressed quickly, throwing her clothes into a crumpled pile on the floor. It wasn’t how she had pictured getting undressed in front of Senne. Not that Annara ever pictured getting undressed in front of Senne. She was both too busy and not quite careless enough to think that way about someone she was destined to kill.
She let her last undergarments fall to the floor and stepped into the tub. The water was deep enough to slip up to her neck when she sat, just the temperature of a human embrace, with a bright, minty smell that smoothed away the tension in her forehead. She sighed heavily without really meaning to.
“Your hand,” Senne said. “You can just stick it out past the screen, and I’ll treat your wound. I won’t look.”
This was getting a little ridiculous. “No,” Annara said, sitting up straight. “It’s fine. Come sit on the stool.”
There was a long pause. For a second, Annara thought Senne had left. Then she settled on the stool and carefully arranged her long black coat behind her. Her hair was still loose, swept over one shoulder in a waterfall of jet tendrils. It looked very soft.
She carefully took off her silk veil so that she could see Annara’s hand better. Underneath, she looked very tired, with exhaustion written into the curves of her mouth. The color of Senne’s eyes hit Annara like it was her first time seeing them: brown like bronze, holding the light from the lantern like honey.
“Let’s take a look,” she said softly, and took Annara’s injured hand into her lap and started to unpeel the bandages.
Annara shifted uncomfortably against the pain. “How did you know about Mercan?”
Instead of answering, Senne reached into the wide pocket of her coat and produced a file. Annara propped it up against the side of the tub to read it one-handed, frowning. It contained the details of every crime she had committed in the last five years, and a fair few she hadn’t.
“Where did you get this?” she said.
“Heron,” Senne said.
“How the hell does Heron have so much information about crime in the Crescent?”
“He won’t say.” Senne gently ran her fingers over the wound in Annara’s palm. “It’s mostly stopped bleeding. I think it looks worse than it actually is. Can you move your fingers?”
Annara wiggled her fingers absent-mindedly. “I didn’t even do some of these. The bank robbery in Midion wasn’t related to me at all.”
“But the Atheonian one was?”
“Well, I had to make money somehow. Ow! What’s that?”
“Disinfectant,” Senne said, applying a dark paste to the wound in Annara’s hand. Her dark eyes were fixed firmly on the task at hand. “Does it hurt?”
“Not much.”
“Take this. It’s a mild painkiller. I assumed you wouldn’t want a strong one.”
Annara preferred a clear head at all times. She hadn’t expected Senne to guess as much. “Thank you.”
“You don’t need stitches, but I’m going to rewrap your hand to keep it clean. Don’t do anything too strenuous, or you’ll reopen the wound.” Senne wrapped a c
lean white bandage around Annara’s palm. It was firm without being painful or restricting, just like every other time Senne had ever touched her. “I’ll help you change the bandages. It’s hard to do on your own.”
“Thank you.” Annara hesitated. She had a policy of always accepting help when she needed it. Even the slightest advantage could be turned into some sort of power. And yet… “I don’t deserve this.”
“I don’t know about that.” Senne tucked the end of the bandage in neatly, near Annara’s pulse. Their fingertips brushed. “But even if you don’t, I’ll still take care of you.”
Annara’s breath shouldn’t have caught. She sat forward in the tub, placing the file on the ground and resting both hands on Senne’s knees.
“What happened tonight?” she said, because it was the easiest question to ask. “What are you?”
Why are you like this? Why are you being so gentle with me?
Senne returned her gaze. Their faces were close enough that Annara could feel her exhale. “What did you do with the money?”
Annara puffed out a laugh. “I guess we both have questions we’re not willing to answer.”
“Mm. The water must be getting cold.”
It was. Annara stood shakily, feeling droplets streak down her back. Senne reached out to help her out of the tub, and Annara leaned forward and hugged her.
The assassin tensed. Annara froze, wondering why in the name of the goddesses she had done that. Cold air prickled across her back. Then Senne’s arms came up to hold her, one hand supporting her lower back and the other cupping the back of her head. Annara’s mind filled with the fact that she was being held, Senne was holding her. It was like sunlight, like butterscotch, so sweet and warm she could no longer see beyond it.
“I’m sorry,” she said, muffled by the soft wool edge of Senne’s coat. “I just...”
“It’s fine,” Senne said.
“Can I stay with you tonight? Just this once, and then I swear it’ll never happen again.”
Senne hesitated for a moment, then she absent-mindedly smoothed Annara’s disheveled hair. “Yes.”
She helped Annara step out of the bath and wrap herself in a midnight-blue robe. Then she helped her upstairs and into Senne’s room.
Despite all Annara’s attempts to snoop, she had never actually made it into Senne’s room. It was decorated in soft shades of oceanic blue and pale lilac, with a large four-poster bed in the center of the room and short bookshelves lining the sides. A vase of white chrysanthemums stood on her bedside table, with their delicate petals arranged over the cracked blue porcelain.
“I’ll sleep on the floor,” Senne said, helping Annara into bed.
“No need.” Annara patted the pillow next to her. “It’s a large bed. You won’t have to come near me if you don’t want to.”
“That’s not what I—” Senne bit her tongue and sat on the other side of the bed. Her wool blankets painted a valley over the space between them. “Don’t you want to know what I am?”
“I did ask, you know. You just countered with a question about my secrets, so I thought it best to let it go.”
“I see.”
Clothing rustled as Senne took off her coat and changed into her nightclothes. She wore wide-legged pants and a shirt that gaped at the neck, showing the curve of her neck and a long strand of black hair curling over her collarbone. Annara hurriedly blew out the candle.
What am I doing? Annara thought, watching Senne settle onto the pillows next to her. Once the candlelight was gone, silver moonlight started to suffuse the room, turning the soft folds of the blanket and the curve of Senne’s cheek to something bright and precious. A breath of cold night air blew in through the open window, carrying a trace of untraceable sweetness from some flower outside.
Annara was fine on her own. She would be fine on her own, always. She never let sentiment cloud her judgement. But sometimes it seemed like the world was so much kinder to other people— different, better people who got to fall asleep next to someone every day of the rest of their lives and wake up to a world where they could be held or kissed or touched whenever they wanted, and it wasn’t fair.
Cloth rustled as Senne shifted. She turned over to face Annara. In the pale silver light, her skin could have been made of mother-of-pearl.
“You saw what I am,” she said quietly. “Inhuman.”
“Why?” Annara said.
“The surgical procedure that made me into Lord Wraith gave me the ability to control memory steel, as I’m sure you’ve seen. It also enhanced my physical abilities. Made me stronger. And about once a month, I involuntarily transform into a wolflike creature of steel and bone.” Senne’s voice was flat and clinical, as if it was something she had read in a book.
“What surgical procedure?”
“Even if I remembered it clearly, it would be a state secret,” Senne said. “All I know is that it had something to do with my heart.”
“Is there any way to stop the transformation?”
“I don’t know. Heron has full control of his abilities, but he says his memories of the last time he transformed involuntarily are… confused. He doesn’t know exactly what happened, only that it was the only time in his life he ever killed someone accidentally.”
“I’m surprised, given his lengthy career.”
“He’s disciplined in all the ways I’m not,” Senne said.
Annara shifted so that her uninjured hand rested on the cool surface of the pillow next to her face. “I think you’re fine the way you are.”
“Am I?” Senne whispered. “Sometimes I think I don’t deserve things like this. To be around people. I became a monster willingly for the crown.”
On impulse, Annara reached out and took Senne’s hand. She held it to the base of her throat, so that Senne could feel the warmth radiating off her chest and her pulse beating just beneath her skin. Senne shifted closer until they were both wrapped in warmth.
“If you’re a monster, so am I,” Annara said. “Everything I’ve done, everything you’ve seen me do, has been for my own personal gain. For political power, or for revenge.”
Senne’s breath fluttered against Annara’s cheek. “Are you going to tell me why you needed the money?”
“I don’t need to tell you,” Annara said, feeling her grip on Senne’s hand tighten. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
“Maybe we could be monsters together,” Senne said. Her voice was heavy with sleep. Annara wondered if she knew what she was saying. “Not forever, of course. Just for a little while.”
“For a little while,” Annara repeated. “I wouldn’t mind that.”
“I could make you breakfast.”
“You already do, remember? I’ll make you dinner.”
“You already do that, too.”
“Then maybe we can just stay as we are for a little while,” Annara said.
“Mm. For a little while.”
They fell asleep like that, both of them together, hands entwined. Despite everything that happened that day, Annara felt safe for the first time in a long time. She felt like she might, if she was very lucky, be able to spend the next night like that too, and the night after that.
That’s what a single taste of gentleness could do to you, she thought later. The slightest hint of something sweet and suddenly you felt entitled to sweetness for the rest of your life, so much sweetness that you’d never see the last of it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Early the next morning, before the sun rose, Retired Lord Wraith surveyed his estate. Behind the house, a small, clear creek rustled and murmured over a bed of stones. A very old willow tree trailed its fingers in the water. Heron sat in the hollow of its roots, watching small gray fish flash in and out of the pale predawn light.
A woman in a Seichrenese messenger’s uniform pulled a curtain of willow leaves aside, red-faced and breathless. “My lord, there you are.”
“Looking for me at this hour of the day?” Heron stood, retrieving his can
e from a loop of roots. “What happened?”
“It might be nothing.”
“I sincerely doubt it’s nothing, if you were willing to come all this way. You must have rode through the night to get here. What is it?”
“It’s the Minister of Industry, my lord. You know how he was backing that mining expedition in the Core, just to the northwest of the Crescent?”
Heron frowned. “That was a memory ore mine, was it not?”
“It was. The Minister received reports of a huge deposit of memory ore. The miners got it out, my lord, and shipped it to Seichre. It disappeared somewhere along the way.”
Heron’s frown deepened. It was serious, then, as he had suspected. “Are we certain the Minister wasn’t mistaken about the deposit? Isn’t there a chance we can write this off as typical Industry incompetence?”
“As I said, my lord, it might be nothing.”
“Hm. Come with me. Have you written all this up in a report?”
The messenger jogged to keep up with him as he strode back towards the house. “Rudimentary notes only, my lord.”
“Then I will have to keep you a little longer. How much memory ore was it, exactly?”
“A mass the size of a horse, apparently. I suspect that might be exaggerated, but...”
“If it’s accurate, we’re all in trouble. How active was it?”
“According to the sailors, it was highly volatile. People who got too close reported hallucinations of people they’d known who had died.”
Heron bit his lip, throwing open the door to his kitchen. “I’d offer you something to drink, but there seems to be very little time. Which port was the ore supposed to land in?”
“The Royal City, my lord. Er, can I ask you something?”
“Feel free,” Heron said curtly.
“I was surprised when I got the order to deliver this information to you. I thought you were supposed to be retired.”
“I am retired, didn’t you see my vegetable garden?”
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