“What do you mean?”
He sprawled into the chair in the middle of the safe room, rubbing his jaw as he studied me. When he didn’t answer for a long moment, I went to sit on the table, catching Zagger’s eye. He’d brought his twin revolvers down with him today, making a big show of cleaning and loading them while Kor and I talked. Something about his loathing for Kor I found terribly amusing, especially because of the way Kor just ignored his smirks and ill-timed coughs and muttered commentary.
“You’re a Mask,” Kor said, drawing out the words as if he could taste them. “But if you tell them that and they suspect you at all, they’ll kill you. They’ll kill you. They won’t believe for a second that you’re not a royal agent. You need a different gift.”
Zagger loaded the last bullet into one of his revolvers and spun the chamber a little too dramatically.
“That’s not going to work,” I told Kor. “What if they wanted to test it? I can’t just pretend that I can do something I can’t.”
“They’ll know you’re a Jixy. That might be enough.”
I rubbed my hands over my face. “I can’t count on that. Isn’t that something you would tell me?”
He shrugged, annoying me. Behind him, Zagger mimicked the motion and I fought back a laugh.
“I don’t even know all the different gifts they can have,” I admitted.
“How are you with mind-reading?”
I did laugh then, in surprise. “What? There are Jixies who can do that?”
“Mm,” Kor said. He thought a moment, then slouched back in his chair. “Well, stars, I don’t know. But you’d better think of something or you’ll never last.”
“What about being a Shard like you?”
He bent over his knees, and a moment later I realized his shoulders were shaking with laughter.
“No.” I bristled, thinking he was insulting my fighting skills, but then he looked up at me and the cold anger and burning grief in his eyes cut straight through me. He said, “Trust me, you don’t want to claim that gift.”
“Why not?”
He said nothing, but never took his eyes from my face. Behind him I saw that Zagger had stopped fiddling with the revolvers, and was watching Kor with the strangest expression on his face. I shifted and stared down at my hands.
“What if I said I was a Mask, and then took on a third face if they asked me to prove it?”
“You can do that?”
I pushed back to lean against the wall. “Never tried, honestly. I don’t see why I couldn’t.”
“Don’t know about it,” he said. “You could still be suspected.” He studied me closely for a long while, curiosity tempering his usual belligerence. “Can you impersonate someone?”
“Take on a real person’s face, you mean?” I asked, startled.
“Yes.”
I shrugged. I’d never even thought about it.
“I’ve never met a Mask,” Kor added. “I’d like to know if it’s possible.”
“I’ll let you know.”
He shrugged. “All right. Well, what face are you going to show them? Will you try that?”
I shifted, suddenly self-conscious. I’d only just gotten the courage to Mask my face in the privacy of my room. The idea of shifting in front of Kor made me feel horribly exposed, but…I wanted his opinion. Maybe I even wanted his approval. So I closed my eyes and cleared my thoughts, then began to imagine the face I wanted to assume. I’d imagined it in so much detail already, mentally staring at every feature from every angle, that I knew it almost as well as the lines of Griff’s face, or Samyr’s.
The hair was always easiest, so I started by picturing messy light brown hair, almost blonde. Then I imagined away the narrow point of my chin, giving it a heavier, squarer look. My dark eyes turned grey, my nose shortened just a touch, then my eyebrows leveled out a little. All small changes, but I knew in the end I looked like a completely different person.
“Interesting,” Kor said. “And the rest of you? Stand up.”
I slid off the table and straightened up. The idea of changing my height or body-type had never occurred to me, but I couldn’t imagine it would be terribly difficult. I let my eyes drop shut again and focused my energy on the rest of my body. Much as I wanted to make myself taller, I pictured myself an inch shorter than my normal height. Pain ground through all my bones in response. My one indulgence was imagining muscles I’d been trying to achieve for years—not too extravagant, but enough that I looked as if I could handle myself. Even my skin turned pale, matching the fairness of my hair.
“Well. That’s something,” Kor said, sounding like Griff.
I opened my eyes and found him studying me thoughtfully. I tried not to glance at Zagger.
“Can you actually use those or are they just for show?” he asked, nodding at my arms.
I flexed my elbow, feeling only my own muscles underneath. They weren’t anything to be ashamed of after years of crew and ring fighting, but they still lacked the bulk of my imagined form. And, disturbingly, I noticed that as I flexed my arm, nothing was happening to my Masked muscles.
I pushed out with my thoughts, as if I could drive my nerves straight into empty space and feel the new muscles, because Kor was right—if I couldn’t use them, it was pointless to have them.
A sudden surge of strength tore through me, like pain or fire. My hands knotted, a strangled cry hung in the air, carrying my voice. I dropped onto my knees as blood pounded at the corners of my eyes. Vaguely I saw Kor’s hand stretching out to me, but I swiped it away as I staggered back to my feet, lacing the air with every obscenity I knew.
“I take it that was a new experience,” he remarked.
I bent over my knees, dragging in deep breaths. “That’s the last time,” I panted, glaring up at him. “The last time.”
“Right. That’s better, anyway,” Kor said. “Kind of horrifying to see you twitching your arms with your muscles just sitting there like dead things.”
I nodded. “So, is it all right?”
“You’ll just stay that way now?” Kor asked. “You won’t suddenly snap back to Tarik Trabinis if I punch you?”
“Please don’t try it,” I said, rubbing my still-sore mouth and wondering if I could imagine away wounds. “As far as I know, I’m trapped here until I decide to unMask.”
“Well. Let’s fix some things. See what you can do.”
“I just told you—”
“Tarik.”
I groaned and lifted my hands like a shrug.
“Lighten your hair a bit.” I gritted my teeth and made it as pale as Zagger’s, but still he scowled at me. “Oh, hell. Just shave it off. You’ll look tougher.”
“Am I supposed to be a thug or a street rat?”
He grinned, savage. “Not much difference these days.”
I shaved the hair.
“Now, can you give yourself a mark?”
“A what?” I cried, before I could stop myself. “That’s…”
“A criminal thing?” Kor asked, lip curled. He got to his feet abruptly and turned around, pulling the collar of his shirt down so I could see the clockwork tattoo etched in bronze and gold at the nape of his neck. “Yes.”
I swallowed. “What sort of person am I pretending to be?”
“The kind of person they’ll want around,” he said, covering the mark as he faced me again.
I pondered that, abrading my lower lip with my finger, then finally I sighed and nodded. “But I don’t know anything about tattoos.”
“In the underground, every mark has a meaning. A tattoo on the inside of your arm means you’ve spent time in prison. One on your neck…” His voice trailed off, and he flashed me a look that was all danger and veiled threat. “Some mages like to flaunt their gifts instead of hide them, so a mark can indicate a magery gift if it’s placed on the body part associated with the gift—actually or metaphorically.”
“Such as?”
“A Sculptor might put a tattoo over his he
art because he shifts emotions. A Knack—a reader—might tattoo the skin around the ear and temple. You could tattoo your face, or just your eyes, in the shape of a mask.”
I shuddered. The idea of having a mark was bad enough. Having one marring my face, even just my Masked face, was nightmarish.
“What colors? Even metals?”
“Even metals, but Jixies might not like that so much.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, though he kept his face stubbornly turned aside. “You’re a Jixy.”
“Yes.”
“Care to explain that?”
“No.”
I frowned, but Kor’s expression was caged, and I knew I’d get nothing else out of him. Finally I shrugged and closed my eyes. This was harder—I wasn’t much of an artist. But I had an image in my mind, and I tried to catch it and examine it before it faded away. It was a mesh of lines and arcs spiderwebbing around just my right eye, drawn in an icy white that gleamed a little in the light.
“That’ll work,” Kor said, sounding impressed. “It’s better than a scar.”
“Is that supposed to make me happy?”
He laughed, and for the first time I didn’t feel as though he was mocking me. I drew a breath and glanced over at Zagger. He leaned back in his chair, arms folded, with some expression on his face that hovered between fascination and disgust.
“What do you think, Zag? Will it do?”
“Stars,” he said, and dropped his head in his hands.
I flinched and went to crouch down in front of him. “Zagger, listen. This is what I have to do. This is…this is what I am.”
“No,” he said, firmly. “You’re the Crown Prince. Don’t ever forget that. This—” He waved at my face. “This is just a mask.”
“The Crown Prince has never been a Jixy,” I said, quietly. “If the world knew…”
His jaw tightened and he turned his head away.
“I wouldn’t be allowed to keep my crown.”
“Just stop,” he said. “Don’t.”
I stared at him, fighting the grief in my heart. For all he protested otherwise, he had to feel betrayed. I didn’t blame him. I felt like a traitor.
“This is the first time you’ve seen what I really am,” I said, quiet, sitting back on my heels. “I can’t ask you to stay if you despise me after all.”
His gaze snapped back to my face—my foreign face—but his eyes pierced straight through that mask to the real me inside.
“You know I don’t,” he said. “I told you that once already. I know I have to get out of your way and let you do this, but…it’s because I trust you. Not because I don’t. I’m always going to be with you, even if you don’t know I’m there.”
I smiled. “Thanks, Zag.”
He shot a strange glance across at Kor, curious or angry, I couldn’t quite tell. Finally he said, “You’ve made him look Istian.”
I winced, but Kor just smiled smugly. “That was the idea.” He waved me toward him. “Come on. It’s time for tea.”
* * * *
Kor led me out through the servant’s entrance, back around by the kitchens. I flinched every time one of the few remaining servants crossed in front of me, but none of them cast me more than an idle, disinterested glance. As we emerged out into the rain, we found Zagger waiting for us in a plain brown overcoat and hat. The clothes made me stare at him as though he were a stranger, because for as long as I could recall, I’d never seen him in anything besides his black uniform.
“Did I invite you?” Kor said, stopping shoulder-to-shoulder with him. “You’re the only one of us with a public face, remember?”
“Nobody looks at the bodyguard,” Zagger snapped, shoving Kor aside. “And I’m disguised enough that no one will recognize me anyway. I’m not staying behind.”
“I don’t—”
“Shut up, both of you,” I said. “He’s coming. Deal with it.”
And I strode past the pair of them, walking toward the servants’ gate because I couldn’t ride in the motorcar and I certainly couldn’t ride my horse, which I rather thought was more popular than I was. By the time I reached the gate, Kor and Zagger had stopped bickering and stalked behind me, keeping an exact distance from me that I doubt they even realized.
“Would you stop tailing me like you’re security?” I asked, shooting them a glare over my shoulder. “I should probably be the one following, since you two are so old.”
They both grinned, looking like a pair of mad cats. I rolled my eyes and slowed down, letting them take the lead. The sudden downpour didn’t seem to faze Kor, so I pretended it didn’t bother me either. I’d switched my suit for a pair of trousers and a shirt that I sometimes wore for crew, topped with a long wool coat and a newsboy cap that made me entirely forgettable.
It kept me dry enough, anyway. When Kor stopped in front of a diner I’d never even heard of—not being the sort of place the Crown Prince ought to visit, after all—I only mildly resembled a drowned rat. Zagger had the worst of it, because his coat was plain cloth, and it had gotten thoroughly soaked.
He hung it in the cloak room and followed us, damp and grumbling, into the restaurant. I swallowed my distaste. The air reeked of grease and beer, and bits of damp newspaper made patchwork of the floor. Most of the booths were empty, and no one tended the bar. A few grubby workmen occupied one table near the door, drinking and talking too loudly, laughing too much. Oily light and cigar smoke smothered their table.
Kor ignored all of it and strode up to the counter, leaning his arms straight into a patch of slick grease I’d spotted from the doorway. I made a face and followed. I almost started to dust the crumbs from the counter but caught myself at the last moment. Kor had seen the grease too. He’d given me an example, much as I hated to admit that I needed it.
So I leaned onto the bar beside him, propping one foot on the metal rung near the floor. Kor tapped his coin on the bar, then spun it like a top, and tapped it again. Tap. Tap-tap. Tap. I wanted to break his fingers.
After a moment I heard shouts beyond the kitchen’s doors. A woman’s voice rose above the rest, too loud and harsh, and the doors slammed open. I expected a dried up and bitter old jill to appear, but instead a young woman swept into the bar. She wore a look that could curdle milk, though, until she glanced at the three of us. Something like real pleasure lit her face then, and she smiled and headed straight for Kor.
“Kor!” she cried, tucking bits of stray red hair back under her cap. “Weren’t expecting you so soon. What’s it today, doll?”
She swept a glance over Zagger, then me. I stood rigidly for her inspection, my cheeks warming as she sidled closer to the bar. I could smell her perfume now, some cloying floral scent that mixed badly with the stench of grease and smoke. She couldn’t have been more than about twenty, but the purple lines under her eyes made her seem much older.
“Eh, who’s your friend here, Kor?” she asked, still studying me under her lashes. “He’s kind of cute.”
“He’s also standing right here,” I said, before Kor could say something snide.
She grinned at me. “Why, yes you are.”
Zagger made a noise in his throat.
“Oh, I see you too, handsome. Kor comes by and bothers me all the time, but we don’t get a whole lot of other fine-looking lads in here. So, uh…” She flicked a glance from me to him. “You planning on coming regular now? Maybe I’ll see you boys around again?”
“They’re just passing through town,” Kor said, sounding cross.
“Oh, don’t worry, doll,” the girl said, snatching his hand. “You’re always my favorite.”
I grimaced.
“So, what’s your fancy?”
“Beer, for me and my mates,” Kor said. He shot me a glance and added, “Or maybe milk for that one.”
I glared death at him, but the waitress just laughed and turned away, saying, “I’ll bring it straight. Go ahead and have a seat.”
Kor jostled me as he passed, sliding into a boot
h in the corner of the diner. His precaution seemed idiotic to me—besides the workmen, the place was empty.
“This is what you meant by tea?” I asked, flicking a few crumbs from the table. “This place is disgusting.”
“It’s a first-class—”
“Dump,” Zagger interrupted.
“We need to talk,” Kor told me. “Tell him to keep his mouth shut.”
Zagger grinned and settled back, staring fixedly across the table at Kor, but Kor just folded his hands and turned to me as if Zag had disappeared.
“Listen,” he said. “What do you know about working undercover?”
I shrugged and picked at the table. “Not a lot, I suppose.”
“You’ve never done anything like this,” he said. “I pray you never have to do anything like it again. It’s the most thrilling and the most…and the most terrible thing you can imagine.”
I swallowed, taken aback by his earnestness. The waitress appeared before I could reply, and we all sat silently as she set down three worn mugs of beer. As soon as she’d swept away, I gestured at Kor to keep talking.
“Look, you need to get this through your head right now, before you ever head down to the streets. You’ve got to start seeing the world like one of them. This joint, for instance. What did you notice when we walked in?”
I arched a brow, but he didn’t let me even start my list.
“You saw the filth, right? You saw the dirt on the floors, the cracks in the mugs, the smell of alcohol and overused grease from the kitchen. You saw the workmen, you saw all the flaws in Astel’s face. Did I miss anything?”
Mute, I shook my head.
“Now, what would you notice if you were a street rat?” When I just blinked at him, puzzled, he slapped the flat of his hand on the table. “Think!”
I scowled. “The smell of food. And it’s warm and dry in here.”
“All right. Not bad. And?”
I frowned, scanning the room, trying to imagine I’d never been in a place like this—much less any place finer. “I’d notice the electric lights, I suppose. They don’t have them southside yet, do they?”
The Madness Project (The Madness Method) Page 14
