“Please,” Stathis cried, pressing himself flat against the gallery wall and shaking his head wildly. “I don’t want the mask! You—you can take it. Just let me go. I won’t tell anyone, I swear it!”
One of the housemaids ran past the open door, shrieking at the top of her lungs. A naked man blistered with tumors came leaping after her, bounding on all fours. He paused in the doorway, turning his toad-shaped mask and wide, mad eyes to regard Stathis. The man’s engorged tongue waggled out through a slit in the mask; then he turned and jumped out of sight. A moment later, the maid’s screams went silent.
Vassili shook his head. “Sorry. We can’t accept your offer. The mask doesn’t belong to us.”
A roach tried to climb up Stathis’s leg. Frantic, he shook his foot to flick it off.
“Who then?” Stathis’s voice rose, shrill and breaking. “Who does it belong to?”
“Me,” said an icy voice that coalesced from the air around him.
The balcony doors blew open on a gust of frozen wind. Autumn leaves rolled in across the polished floors, red and orange and dying. The Owl followed.
A feathered cloak hooded her straight black hair and cascaded down her shoulders, draping her in layer upon layer of tawny down. Eyes that could cut diamonds glared out from behind the pupils of her owl mask, locking on Stathis as she strode across the room.
“Please,” Stathis babbled. “I didn’t—I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t even—”
“Quiet,” the Owl snapped. She paused, crouching and scooping up the squirrel mask with one velvet-gloved hand. The tips of her fingers glinted in the light; tiny metal points were set into her gloves, the hint of claws.
“She was only thirteen,” the Owl said, studying the mask. “Did you know that?”
“W-who?”
The owl mask turned to face him.
“Squirrel. The Witch of Kettle Sands. My apprentice.”
Stathis opened his mouth, then closed it. His eyes brimmed with tears.
“I didn’t know,” he managed to whimper. “I didn’t know.”
“She was blindsided by a miserable pair of bounty hunters, delivered up for ‘trial’ bound and gagged, and forbidden from speaking a single word in her own defense for fear she might ‘cast a hex upon the magistrate.’ In the end, all she could do was scream through her gag while they burned her alive.”
“I d-didn’t know.” A tear trickled down Stathis’s pudgy cheek.
“Tell me: where are Werner Holst and Mari Renault?”
“I don’t—I don’t even know who those people are! I’m just an art dealer, that’s all—”
“Where,” the Owl said, “is the book?”
“What book? There is no book. I just bought the mask, that’s all. Eckhardt didn’t have anything else!”
Despina nodded. “He’s telling the truth. We wrung his little friend dry. The mask slipped onto the black market a day after Squirrel was murdered. No book.”
“Then the hunters took it for a trophy,” the Owl mused. “They must be terribly proud of themselves. So terribly proud.”
She paced the gallery floor, cradling the mask in her hand, her feathered cloak sweeping out behind her. Down below the gallery, the last scream of the last servant died at the end of a wet, meaty thump.
Stathis turned and pawed at one of the portraits, fumbling for a catch under the gilded frame. It swung on a concealed hinge, revealing a safe set into the wall.
“Wait,” he begged. “Wait, I’ll show you—”
It took him five tries, but he finally managed to turn the dial properly and unlock the safe. Inside was a smattering of treasures: a ruby necklace, more rings, a fat accounting ledger, and a fatter sack of purple velvet. The sack jangled as he yanked it out and thrust it toward the Owl.
“I have money! See? Gold, good papal gold! You can have it!”
The Owl stopped pacing.
“Of all the things you could offer a witch in exchange for your life,” she said. “Knowledge, a service, a boon, something real…you promise me pieces of shiny metal. You can’t understand. Men like you never do.”
“Money is the most real thing there is! Y-you can’t survive without money, you can’t eat without it!”
Amusement glittered in the Owl’s dark eyes.
“Is that so?” she said. “Let us put your claim to the test, shall we? Worm. Shrike. Take him.”
Despina snatched the sack of coins from Stathis’s hand while Vassili pinned the fat merchant’s arms behind his back, wrenching one shoulder so hard it snapped out of joint with a sickening pop. When Stathis opened his mouth to scream, Despina grabbed his jaw and forced it wide.
“That’s right,” the Owl said. “Feed it to him. One coin at a time.”
Vassili giggled behind his mask, holding Stathis in an iron grip. Despina echoed the sound as she held a gleaming coin up to the merchant’s terrified eyes.
“The great tragedy of your life,” Despina said, “is that all these years, you thought you were a real person. Did you seek meaning in your riches or just ephemeral pleasure? Did you learn anything at all?”
“You created nothing,” Vassili whispered in Stathis’s ear. “You believed in nothing. You were never real. Don’t worry, though. My sister and I are here to help. To give you something real in your final moments. To enlighten you.”
Despina pressed the first coin against Stathis’s tongue and pushed it toward the back of his throat.
“If a life of pleasure has taught you nothing,” she said, “let’s give pain a try.”
* * *
The Owl paced the gallery floor, cradling Squirrel’s mask in her hands and gently stroking its cheek with her fingertips. The merchant’s agonized choking and sobbing fell away into the background. Torturing the man was pointless, but she knew Worm and Shrike would enjoy it. Let them have their fun, she thought.
They had more work to do, after all. Squirrel’s book was out there somewhere, in enemy hands. Just like the girl’s mask, it needed to come home.
And then, Holst and Renault. The faces of the two bounty hunters were seared into her mind. The memory was fresh as the day she’d spotted them across the Kettle Sands town square, taking their blood money from the mayor. Collecting their precious silver while a child burned.
They didn’t know what pain was. They couldn’t possibly understand how she had felt, standing there helpless, disguised as one of those pathetic cattle while the cursed townspeople cheered her apprentice’s death. They couldn’t imagine how her heart broke when Squirrel stretched one blackened, peeling arm toward her, begging with ash-flecked tears for help. Help the Owl was powerless to give.
No, Holst and Renault didn’t know what pain was.
But she would teach them.
Chapter Four
The docks of Mirenze were no place for a gentleman, but under the murky moonlight Felix looked like any other eager wanderer out for a night’s pleasure. His hand-me-down cloak swallowed him up in warm folds of wool, staving off the chill and the faint mist that clung to the air. The sky still rumbled with the threat of a storm, but it held back its fury for now.
He knew the route by heart. All the way down to the end of Peregrine Street, where tall ships bobbed in the harbor and the moon’s glow gleamed off jet-black waters. A mouth harp trilled in the distance, accompanying the muffled, drunken sounds of a sea shanty as a merchant’s sloop slipped away from the dock. Not far up the lane, orange lights glowed behind scalloped glass windows. The sign for the Hen and Caber dangled above the door—a ruffled-looking bird painted on clapboard.
A fire’s warmth and a jaunty reel of lute song rushed to greet Felix as he stepped inside. He wiped his boots on the muddy thatch mat just inside the door, while his eyes adjusted to the flood of lantern light from every knife-scarred wooden table and bar shelf. The inn’s common room was rough but friendly, mostly dockhands coming in to relax and spend their pay after a hard day’s hauling. Some of the men played primiera, shouting,
tossing tarnished coins, and slapping their bad cards down on the ale-stained wood, while others simply got down to the serious business of drinking. Nobody gave Felix a second glance as he made his way to the edge of the crowded room, finding an empty table and a rickety chair to sit in.
A barmaid meandered over. Heavy rouge streaked her shallow cheeks, the color of a sunburn in the lantern light, and Felix could make out the faint ravages of pox scars under the pigment.
“Evening, Zoe,” he said with a smile. “How’s the pheasant tonight?”
“Oh, you don’t want that,” she said, leaning in with a theatrical whisper and putting her hand to the side of her mouth. “The cook’s been fearsome sick tonight and coughing up a storm back there. How about you let me bring you a hunk of bread from the pantry? It’s yesterday’s, but it’s still perfectly good.”
“You are a marvel and a beauty, as always,” he said.
“And you’ve got a devil’s tongue, you have. I’ll let you-know-who know you’re here.”
She tapped her finger against the side of her nose, winked, and slipped into the crowd. Felix leaned back in his chair and soaked in the music and the swirl of conversation around him. The anonymity felt as warm as the hearth fire. It was nice to disappear for a while, and try to forget the wolves at the door.
Not much later, as he bit into a crusty chunk of bread, a young woman in a white linen tunic and a heavy apron appeared at the edge of the crowd. Her rust-red hair was done in a braided twist, and she flashed a brilliant smile when she caught his eye. She held up five fingers on one hand, two on the other, and disappeared back behind the bar.
Felix waited seven minutes before he slipped outside.
He strolled around the building, hands in his pockets, and tried to look nonchalant as he glanced over his shoulder. Behind the inn was a narrow alley where the cobblestones glistened under a spray of mist. He was halfway down the passageway when hands darted from a shadowed alcove, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him into the darkness.
His alarm gave way to sudden heat as warm lips pressed against his, hands stroking his shoulders and curling in his hair. He wrapped his arms around the woman’s waist and pulled her close.
“Renata,” he breathed, kissing at her chin, her throat, whispering her name as the tip of his tongue flicked against her earlobe.
Renata opened his shirt, fingers urgent as she tugged his collar to one side, while his hand slipped beneath her tunic and fumbled at the laces of her thin linen shift. His fingers slid past the laces, sneaking under the filmy fabric, and she bit at his neck as his fingertips caressed the soft curve of her breast.
“Did you talk to him?” she murmured, tugging at his belt. Felix nodded, quickly, bending down to kiss his way along her collarbone. Every touch of her hand burned under his skin, stoking the fires in the pit of his stomach.
“I leave tomorrow,” he whispered. “Back in two weeks, no more than three.”
Felix’s belt clattered to the cobblestones, and her hand slipped inside his leggings. Her slender fingers curled around his hardness and drew a strangled gasp from his throat.
“Renata, we—we shouldn’t—”
“What’s the matter?” she whispered, giving him a fiery smile as her fingers slowly stroked up and down. “Afraid someone’s going to catch the heir to the Banco Rossini fucking a barmaid?”
“No, but—”
She clasped her hand around the back of his neck and squeezed, hard, as she lifted one foot and hooked her leg around his waist.
“Two weeks is a long time without you,” she said and guided him inside her.
Then there was no time for words, no room for them, just two lovers clinging to one another and leaning against a crumbling stone wall as they rutted like beasts. Renata bit down hard on his shoulder, her muscles tightening like steel coils as she crescendoed, and he let out a hoarse cry as he followed her over the precipice. They held each other close, sweating, panting, feeling each other’s pounding hearts.
“I love you,” he whispered.
They sank to the damp cobblestones together, their legs too wobbly to stand.
“Two weeks,” he said, “and I save the Banco Rossini. Money, pride, a place at the bargaining table. My brother and my father can run it from there.”
“Without you,” Renata said.
“Without me,” Felix said, “and I can walk away knowing they’ll be all right, with my honor intact.”
Her fingers curled around his, twining, holding tight.
“Do you think they’ll come looking for us?” she asked.
“When they find out I eloped with a ‘commoner’? Father will be furious, but Calum will calm him down. He always does, and the money will soothe any open wounds. Besides, let them look. We’ll be all the way to Kettle Sands before anyone notices we are gone.”
“I heard back from the owner of the Rusted Plow,” Renata said. “You wouldn’t believe the hoops I’m jumping through to keep my parents in the dark. He agreed to our offer. I’m starting to think we can pull this off.”
Felix smiled. “An inn by the shore, someplace peaceful and warm, just for us. You can tend the bar and I can cook. It won’t be easy, but we’ll make it work.”
She looked in his eyes, and her smile faded just a bit.
“Felix?”
“What is it, love?”
“You once told me that there are no sure things when it comes to business,” she said.
“You know that as well as I do. You practically run the Hen and Caber yourself, not that your drunkard of a father has ever given you a lick of credit for it.”
“What if you fail?” she said.
He looked down at their twined fingers and shrugged.
“If I fail, the only way I can save the family business—and keep my father from dying in a debtor’s prison—is by marrying Aita Grimaldi. So that means there is only one possible outcome here.”
“What’s that?”
He gave her a lopsided smile. “I don’t fail.”
* * *
A light rain fell from the midnight sky as Felix returned home. He ducked under the columned porch and let himself into the dark villa, shutting the door behind him as softly as he could. Metallic plinking sounds echoed up the empty halls as raindrops leaked through rotting boards and down the edges of warped window frames, landing in the battered pots and pans that littered the mildewed rugs.
I will never set foot in this house again, he thought. A bitter pain gripped his heart and nearly drove him to his knees.
The door to his father’s study hung open, the candles doused, the hearth cold. It brought him back to the day he’d told Albinus about Renata, almost three years ago. Before the pox had shriveled his father’s body, when Albinus could still swing a fist strong enough to break his son’s lip and loosen a tooth.
Felix remembered standing there in shock, blood running down his chin as Albinus ranted at him.
“Your mother died giving birth to you, you ungrateful shit! This is how you want to repay her memory? By dragging our family name into the gutter? By making us the laughingstock of the city?”
“I thought you would be happy—” Felix had said.
“Happy? Why? Because my son is fucking a piece of dockside trash? You are a Rossini. A nobleman! I’d rather see you dead than dirtying yourself with a commoner.”
The room was silent now, but he could still hear the fury in the old man’s voice, echoing from the worm-eaten wood.
“Well, Father,” Felix said to the empty fireplace, touching his bottom lip and reliving the memory of the pain. “It looks like we both get what we want, in a way.”
Another man might have stormed out that night, and sometimes Felix wished he’d been that man. Then he’d taken a look at the crumbling villa, the family business on the brink of ruin, and the old man who could be so loving when he wasn’t in one of his rages, and left his bags unpacked. Ever since that night he’d had two goals: to steal every minute with Renata
he could, and to find a way to reverse the Banco Rossini’s fall from grace.
He’d save the business. Save his family. Then he and Renata could disappear.
Felix padded to his bedroom, wincing at every creak of the floorboards. He undressed in the dark and slipped under the piled quilts. They cocooned him in velvety warmth, the dark stirring memories of his lover’s touch.
Chapter Five
Mari woke up screaming.
Werner jumped up from the armchair he’d been sleeping in, feeling a fresh whiplash of pain in his lower back as he loomed over the small rented bed. He knew the routine by heart, keeping a safe distance as she shrieked like a cat with a sliced-off tail and threw wild punches at the air.
The fit passed as suddenly as it began. Mari sat upright, the sheets and her cotton nightgown soaked and freezing. Icy sweat made her bangs cling to her pale brow as she gasped for breath.
“You’re awake,” Werner said softly. “It’s all right. You’re awake now.”
“I don’t know that,” she hissed. She closed her eyes and shuddered, forcing herself to take deep breaths.
“You’re safe,” he said, his voice gentle. He still didn’t dare come closer. “You’re safe, and I’m here, and everything is going to be all right.”
She nodded once. Hiccupped. Her shoulders slumped.
“Can I sit down?” Werner asked.
She nodded again. He sat on the edge of the bed, keeping his hands where she could see them.
“You want to talk about it?”
“It was her again,” Mari said, not meeting his gaze.
“The witch.”
“The girl.”
“Mari, we’ve talked about this—”
“That was no witch. That was a child, and we murdered her, Werner.”
“We did nothing of the kind. Mari. Listen,” he said, and now he did take hold of her shoulder. She flinched and yanked away from him. “Listen. We did not kill that girl. Witch or not, guilty or not, it was those motherless fools in Kettle Sands who denied her a trial. If we had known what they were going to do…we wouldn’t have taken the job. We wouldn’t have.”
Winter's Reach (The Revanche Cycle Book 1) Page 3
