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The girl’s hair still remembered the heat of the sun, but it was an unwelcome gift in the cold cellar where they now gathered. Amadis felt much like an unhappy snake here in her dark domain, and she did not appreciate coming face-to-face with another reminder that her chilly vigil was far from over.
“I tried telling them you should join the Teia-look-alike squad,” the girl said sympathetically over her shoulder. “There’s enough work for four Andarateia’s tonight—but Viago simply wouldn’t let you go, Amadis.”
The half-hearted offering went ignored.
“The hairpin is a backup,” Amadis said, removing her hands from the girl’s fountain of curly hair. “If, for some reason, the toxin does not take effect in time, a single prick will do the trick. Be careful not to confuse which end is which. Now, stop shivering and sit still.”
She came round to the girl’s front, two tiny vials clutched in one palm. As she waited for them to take on her body’s warmth, she studied Andarateia Cantori’s body double carefully. Between the ornate, oversized butterfly mask and the body glitter, it was next to impossible to determine which of the Cantori girls sat before her. Teia had molded them into her perfect mirrors, right down to their sashay.
“At least you don’t have to spend the evening in these shoes,” complained the second body double. She sat on a wine cask nearby, waiting her turn. Her bare shoulders were drawn all the way up to her ears, and her ample bosom was flecked with gooseflesh. The black dress that Andarateia had chosen to wear with her magnificent butterfly masks was hardly meant for the early spring temperatures preserved by the wine cellar, and the colorful silks draped down their backs like closed wings hardly added any warmth.
Amadis kept her face schooled in an expression of focus, though she very much wished to curl her lip. If she had been trusted with such a mission, she would not be caught dead complaining—at least not to a Crow from another House.
But, she had not been chosen. In fact, she had been sent into the courthouse’s basement long before the festivities ever began. Listening to the hired musicians do their warm-ups while Viago gave her a lecture about how important her role was to the joint Cantori–de Riva operation tonight? It was a torture she did not deserve, and she had tuned it all out for the insult it was. Any of their fledglings would have done a perfectly adequate job.
She uncorked the first vial and removed some of the warmed oil with a clean applicator, spreading it across the Cantori girl’s plump red lips.
“Don’t move,” Amadis reminded her, then tutted sharply to prevent the girl from apologizing.
She switched to another applicator and stirred up the shimmering vial of toxin. “You must begin walking as soon as this goes on,” she said. “It degrades immediately. If you wait too long, your mark will simply fall ill, and they will know something is wrong. Dead or alive, bring them back here and I’ll hand them off to the crew. Are you ready?”
The girl nodded.
Amadis looked over her shoulder at the second, slouching girl. “I have your dose ready when you need it. Viago said your mark might take some more work to warm up. Do you have any idea how long it will be?”
“I will have the old man wrapped around my finger before the night is through,” the girl said wearily. “It will probably take just that long.”
“Alessandra,” scolded the first. “Do it quickly, for Amadis’ sake. Maybe if we finish early, she can enjoy the party.”
“Viago assured me he would kill me himself if he sees me outside this dungeon,” Amadis said dryly. “Never mind that. Now—”
She swiped a generous layer of toxin over the girl’s protected lips and blotted the excess with a kerchief.
“Both of you, go.”
Gone was the slouch, the pout, the sympathetic glance. Two perfect simulacra of the Seventh Talon stood before Amadis, ready for their duties.
She did not watch them leave. As she tidied her tools, she listened for the distant swell of music that would signal the door opening at the top of the stairs. It was difficult to hear over the slosh of water, but her ears honed in on it nevertheless.
Nothing made her senses quite as sensitive as a slight, and she was certain that was exactly what this role was meant to be.
She scowled to herself and took up Alessandra’s now-vacant seat on the wine cask. She hoped the girls would not keep her waiting long. There was little else to keep her preoccupied down here: to her left, the underground canal echoed softly with the tide; to her right, rows upon rows of party supplies that had been brought in straight from the port. The more time that passed, the more her mind strayed to the bottles and casks of wine.
The first body double—not Alessandra, Morosina—returned with her mark before Amadis could commit to stealing from House Cantori’s stock. She recognized the unconscious young woman immediately despite her costume: the opera starlets, sisters Adelina and Patricia Corday, were to be the main act of the evening’s entertainment.
“I suppose Adelina the Red will be doing a solo act tonight, then,” Amadis said dryly, helping Morosina lay the White Lady down on the ground near the waterside.
Morosina hummed under her breath. “Poor Patricia simply does not have the fortitude to be the star,” she said with mock solemnity. “An older sister, doomed to be an understudy forever.” She gave Amadis a smile. “I actually prefer Patricia’s voice, but I am not paid for my music taste.”
“Jealousy, our greatest customer.” Amadis shook her head. “Go back and enjoy the party, Morosina.”
“Really, Amadis, you should find your way upstairs before the night is through. Calling it a party is not enough—it is a festival! Teia has put on a celebration that’s infected the entire city, and Antiva celebrates as if it is free.” She reached out to brush a curl out of Amadis’ face. “I have never seen it so alive. Put on a dress and a mask and join us! Viago doesn’t have to know.”
“That’s very kind,” Amadis replied. “I’m happy to hear spirits are high, but I’ll stay here, keep an eye out. We are not free of the Antaam yet, and this canal leads straight to the bay. Someone has to be on guard.”
Whether or not Morosina believed her did not matter; the girl’s mood had soured when reminded of the occupation, and she let the topic drop immediately.
“How did Alessandra’s contract seem to be going?” Amadis asked.
“She might be here sooner than you think,” the body double said. Unfortunately, she did not seem inclined to provide any more gossip, and she gathered her skirt in one delicate hand. With the other, she plucked out the hairpin that she no longer needed, and she dropped it into Amadis’ lap.
“Goodnight,” she said curtly.
Amadis sighed. She had hoped to get at least a little more information about Alessandra’s mark before making her move, and now there remained only one more shot.
It was not long before the gondolier, Prosper, came up the tunnel, the strokes of his oar nearly—but not quite—indistinguishable from the lap of water in the canal. He exchanged no greetings with Amadis, waiting as silent as a fear demon for her to lay Patricia Corday in the bottom of his boat. He drew a sheet over the unconscious opera singer and pushed off from the dock once more, taking the unfortunate singer off to whatever fate her sister had paid for.
The whole exchange had taken no time at all, to Amadis’ disappointment. It was time, then, to break into the wine.
A small bottle of port became her companion for a time, sweet and tart like cherries and chocolate. She examined the label as she savored her first sip and realized that, though small, the bottle was likely to be missed. It was a Dellamorte vintage—the kind of top shelf aperitif served when a high profile contract was complete.
Oh well. She might never get the chance to enjoy such an occasion, if Viago kept giving her jobs like this.
The sugar coating her mouth simply worsened her appetite for action. Morosina’s contract was inconsequential family squabbling, and she guessed that Alessandra’s was just as petty. These were not the contracts that would liberate the north country and save Antiva, and Amadis’ role in them was utterly replaceable. It was hardly what she would call a “joint operation” between Houses. The longer she thought about it, the more insulting it seemed that Viago would attach his name to these contracts after talking with such grandiosity about how the fate of Antiva lay in the Crows’ hands.
He could not possibly be concerned about an opera singer, and he could not be concerned about Amadis.
She was well and truly stewing by the time Alessandra came down, her voluminous curls in a bouncing spray about the edges of her butterfly mask.
“Quickly,” she gasped, nearly tripping on the last step into the cellar. “He will be looking for me any moment, I cannot lose his attention now.”
“Alright, alright,” Amadis said, reaching for the protective oil and the toxin she had prepared. As Alessandra took her seat and pursed her lips impatiently, Amadis’ mind raced with possibilities. Who in attendance could be so difficult for Andarateia Cantori—even a fake one—to seduce? Alessandra had mentioned that her mark was old, but that left half of the merchant princes, bankers, brokers, and aristocrats of Antiva as suspected marks. Few of them could possibly be immune to Andarateia’s swaying hips and deep coffers.
A scent caught her attention when she drew closer to Alessandra; it was a strange, metallic odor, like the head of a mage’s staff after channeling lightning. It was the slightest whiff, and then it was gone, replaced by Teia’s borrowed perfume and the familiar smell of canal water.
Alessandra’s target was a mage, then.
She coated the girl’s lips dutifully with the protective oil and fanned it with her hand to dry faster.
“It’s cruel to keep you down here, Amadis. It’s so much warmer upstairs! What does Viago think you are to keep you on ice like this?”
Amadis bit her tongue. She could see where the motion of Alessandra’s lips had thinned away the oil, and her hand twitched, ready to apply more. But at the last moment, she reached for the toxin’s applicator instead.
“He’s trying to make me as cold as his heart,” Amadis teased. She blotted away the excess toxin with her kerchief once more, then offered the body double her hand. Her heart raced with uncertainty, with a thrill of excitement—was she really doing this—but she kept her smile placid. “Don’t worry about me, Alessandra. You have a job to do.”
She watched carefully as the girl fled back upstairs. She held her breath as the clack of heels on stone grew quieter, and she waited for the music to swell…
But it did not. Instead, she heard a very loud thud.
Amadis’ heart stopped. For a moment, she listened to the silence, hoping Alessandra would get up again—but when she did not, Amadis tucked away her vials and ran up the stairs. Two-thirds of the way to the top, she found Alessandra sprawled on the stone, the toxin in full effect.
She should have touched up the protective oil. She knew it wasn’t enough. She knew the moment she put on the toxin that this would happen.
She could not wait to put on that dress.
She cursed herself some more, even as she dragged Alessandra’s dead weight into the cellar and began to strip her of her costume.
“Well, now you can rest your feet,” she told the Cantori girl under her breath. She shrugged on the slip and black dress, the colorful silk cape, and the ostentatious butterfly mask. As she pulled the long black gloves all the way to her upper arms, she told herself that this was only right.
Viago had designed Andarateia’s masks with care, an ironic warning to all who looked upon then. But of them all—Teia herself included—Amadis was the only true poisonous butterfly.
She fluffed her hair and tossed it to the same side Alessandra had worn hers, and she mounted the stairs to the party.
The courthouse was awash in color and sound like nothing Amadis had ever seen before. Vibrant banners fluttered in the evening breeze that swept through the stone halls, and between the guttering lights and the festive milieu, Amadis’ eyes had a difficult time identifying the exact costumes of individual partygoers. They seemed to flit around like jewel-toned fish in a murky pond, this masquerade of demons and beasts and figments brought to life in paper, ivory, and silk.
Amadis was prepared to put her nose to the ground and hunt down Alessandra’s target, though she knew she had her work cut out for her trying to find a single mage in all of this mess. But Lady Luck seemed to smile upon her; she hardly made it more than a few yards away from the cellar when a particular tang entered the air.
It was strange, she thought, that a spellcaster would smell so strongly of magic in a place like this. Could they have been casting spells so constantly this evening that the smell clung to them? If so, where had they been at work, and how had it gone so unnoticed?
As the smell enveloped her, a shiver danced down her spine, she came to a sudden dreadful realization: what stung the back of her throat was not the smell of magic after all but something far, far more dangerous. Sour and bitter, like burning sickness… Amadis had not smelled red lyrium in years.
Perhaps at least one of the Cantori contracts had some real significance, then.
“There you are, signora! Have you found a suitably private location for the transaction?”
Amadis turned with a smile that was so worthy of Andarateia’s charm, it would have dropped Viago dead where he stood.
“Indeed,” she said, holding out a gloved hand for the older gentleman. His costume was the kind of gaudy, cheap ensemble that was sold on street corners to tourists on festival days, and his mask was as generic as they came. A foreigner, by his accent and his dress, dared to bring poison into Antiva City.
“No deal in Antiva can be honored if it is not sealed with a toast,” she said. “Come, I’ve sent some servants to prepare the tasting room for us.”
“Splendid!” said the gentleman, kissing her knuckles and placing her hand on his arm. “I have waited to sample the finer offerings until our business was completed, but my appetite has only grown over the course of our negotiations.”
The husky tones of his voice were as much a mask as the one he wore over his face, and the words were delivered poorly from his script. The old, apparently celibate, scoundrel might have had only business in mind—or perhaps he thought he really had taken the Seventh Talon for a ride. Amadis had learned long ago that no man was too proud or too stupid to believe his luck would never run out.
She closed her eyes and tilted her head in wordless assent, rather than let him see the roll of her eyes.
When they entered the stairway down to the cellar, she let him take a slight lead, hoping that the slight drag of her hand on his elbow would become an accustomed touch—a forgotten weight that he would not know to fight, until it was too late.
When she made her final, sharp tug and spun him around, his gasp of surprise took the shape of arcane words, but they did not escape his lips before the edge of her palm hit the apple of his throat. His choking splutter grew worse when she stabbed him with the hairpin she had reclaimed from Morosina. She let him lay on the floor, hairpin sticking out of his thigh, until his wheezing began to fade into the familiar breaths of an unconscious target.
She knew what came next. She would drag him downstairs and hand him off to the second boatman, Scipio. Scipio was more chatty than the first gondolier, and therefore more likely to realize that ‘Alessandra’ was not quite as knowledgeable about her mark as she should be. Amadis could only hope that she could mask it all behind Alessandra’s usual stream of complaining.
With a sigh, she heaved the red lyrium dealer over her shoulders and set off down the stairs again. It was not the first time she had disposed of a body while wearing heels as high as the Antivan Circle’s spires, but it was one task that never seemed to get easier with practice.
She ended up dropping the man unceremoniously at the bottom of the stairs, not out of fatigue but rather out of genuine shock.
The gondola had arrived early, and it was anchored to the canal’s edge by a body draped haphazardly between the pilot’s seat and the cold cellar stone. The tiles were stained almost black, like the dark Sagrantino produced by the vineyards of Seleny—but Scipio’s lifeblood was unmistakable, stained down the front of his coat.
Amadis did not hear her own footsteps as she approached his body, hairpin once again in hand. She did not sense danger nearby, but she had not yet developed a sixth sense for the alchemically-enhanced stealth of the Antaam’s spies. No shadows moved to strike as she examined the scene of the murder, but she held her breath nonetheless.
Despite the blood, it had been a tidy job. The skin was bruised, but the tear was precise, and there were no footprints left behind. Quick, deep, expert.
Amadis’ knuckles burned with the memory of metal wire, bowstring, even fishing line, wrapped around her hands as she pinned dummies to the ground and counted the seconds until her simulated victim fell unconscious, then died.
A Crow.
The Qunari did not drill their assassins to perform such clean executions with garrotes the way the Crows did. The House of Repose and their bards, likewise, favored other weapons by far.
Whoever had killed Scipio was a Crow… or wanted to send a message to them.
Amadis’ knees cracked as she straightened up and smoothed out her dress. With deliberate steps she moved around the room to where she had left Alessandra’s body, hidden from view. She was prepared for the worst, but to her surprise she found the girl unharmed—except by the toxin she herself had applied.
Why had Alessandra been spared, but Scipio suffered such brazen violence? Amadis frowned and glanced back at the corpse behind her. The Massimos were such a minor house that it was difficult to believe even the most conniving cuchillos would make them a target. That left the most likely scenario: poor Scipio had gotten in the way of something far, far bigger than him.
She ascended the stairs quickly, silk fluttering in her wake. How had this happened so quickly? She had barely left the cellar empty for more than five minutes before she returned with Alessandra’s target, yet that had apparently been enough time for the assassin to kill Scipio, ascend the stairs, and slip out the door unnoticed.
The likelihood of this being a move against House Cantori was vanishingly small. Anyone targeting them would have known to target her generals, Alessandra among them. No. Diamond of Treviso though she was, Andarateia remained Seventh Talon only. But Teia was far from the only Talon present at this carnival, and Amadis found it easier than she liked to construct a painfully rational hit list.
She closed her eyes and tried to reconstruct the very moment Alessandra’s red lyrium dealer had approached her. What masks had she seen as she surveyed the immediate area? Did any of them remain near, and could any of them have seen Scipio’s killer leave the wine cellar in that vanishingly small window of time?
There had been a wyvern mask nearby, frills of silk spread wide between delicate shafts of wood on either side of their face; they had been facing directly toward the cellar while Amadis spoke with the old man. As she opened her eyes now and scanned the crowd, she caught sight of the vibrant colors she was looking for.
She prayed that this party goer had been paying attention.
They bowed low to her as she approached. “Signora,” they said. “Is it my honor to feel the bite of your wit, or the sting of your talons, on this festive night?”
“That depends on your answer,” purred Amadis.
“I brace myself for the question.”
“Your eye was on me as I came in and out of the cellar,” she said. “Did you see anyone exit it behind me?”
“Ahhhh.” The man’s sigh was one of savored relief. “I did indeed. They wore a mask with many horns, though the horns were all I really saw over the crowd. I believe they ducked in to the parlor.”
The wyvern mask fluttered as the guest turned his head toward a salon that, during normal operation, served as a place to interview eyewitnesses and gather testimonies in comfort. For the evening, it had been converted into a smoking room.
“Grazie,” Amadis breathed.
The man bowed again. “It is my pleasure to have spoken with you this evening.”
Amadis slipped into the crowd and let herself drift among the silk and tulle and papier as she prepared for what she might find in the card parlor. It very well could be a morbid tableau: the infiltrator’s unlucky mark cornered with a surgeon’s precision and a maestro’s timing. There could, instead, be an ongoing game, and the Seventh Talon’s apparent arrival would surely interrupt the smoky stream of conversation and charm.
She braced herself to perform to her utmost, or to protect her life, as she crossed the threshold into the dim parlor.
No immediate threat revealed itself, and she drew further into the room, letting her eyes adjust to the lamps. It was warmly appointed, more than suitable for lounging and conversing for an evening. A senior banker who had perhaps indulged too heavily lay slumped in a very comfortable leather armchair, his mask dangling from his fingertips and ash on his knee from a dropped cigar. A pair of young lovers were taking advantage of the quiet, oblivious to their new witness.
Amadis cleared her throat, and they jumped apart. The banker continued to snore without disturbance.
“My apologies,” Amadis said with a laugh baked into her smile. “I thought this was meant to be a betting room tonight. Have you seen where my dealer may have gone?”
“Dealer?” asked one of the youngsters.
“Someone came in a bit ago,” said their partner. They did not bother closing their shirt, impatiently waiting for Amadis to leave. “They left quickly.”
She ignored the pointed remark. “Which way did they go? And what mask did they wear?”
“Through there.” She received a lazy gesture toward a set of stained glass doors. “They were a demon of some kind, I think? The one with the horns?”
“No, it was a dragon,” their partner said, as if it were painfully obvious.
“How am I supposed to know a dragon from a demon?”
Sensing the familiar swell of a lover’s quarrel, Amadis abandoned her interrogation and made for the doors. They were heavy, but not locked, and led to the central garden in the courthouse square. As she let them fall closed behind her, she noticed a flutter of fabric to her left—curtains, signaling an open window.
She hurried down the length of the garden to reach the window, simultaneously navigating the courthouse interior blueprint in her mind. If she had recalled the layout correctly, the window would lead in to one of the two chapels that served the building. The chapel was unlikely to be a destination in itself; it was merely a conveniently unobserved turn along a longer route. But this chapel specifically had access to the second floor via the upstairs sacristy where the Chantry sisters dressed for their services. The question now was where the next leg of that journey would lead: back into the party, or upstairs?
The second floor of the courthouse primarily consisted of offices, libraries, and consultation rooms—suitable for a private assassination, and easy enough to lure a target into. But when Amadis stood in front of the chapel window and its billowing curtains and considered following the infiltrator’s path, she hesitated.
Something that sounded suspiciously like Viago’s voice niggled at the back of her mind: a direct search of each and every room on the second floor would take too long. Her target could scope out their mark from the second floor, return to the party, and lure them upstairs again all in the time it would take her to search a handful of rooms. Amadis needed to narrow down the possible targets—and intercept the assassin before they could even make their first move.
She slipped inside the empty chapel and followed the sounds of the celebration on the first floor. The door, when she opened it, appeared to have been roped off with a simple silk sash; it lay innocently on the ground, one end sheared in a single, clean stroke.
A nearby server had noticed her sudden appearance and bowed low, presenting a platter filled with wine glasses. Amadis plucked up one of the offered chalices and raised it to her lips, hiding the question she wanted only the server to hear:
“Did a man in a horned mask come out of this door?”
“Moments ago, signora,” the server said in an equally low voice. “He set off in that direction.” They gestured surreptitiously. “May I be of any other service?”
Amadis did not answer, whetting her lips with wine as she set off on the prowl, scanning the crowd for high profile targets and the horned infiltrator alike. The Talons were quite easy to spot, as she had been briefed on their costumes weeks prior to the event, and she herself had helped coerce Viago into the one Teia had sent for him.
It had been amusing to see the rancor rise in his face as he removed the superfluous layers of packing, only for it to all drain away into bemusement, then poorly hidden affection, when he saw the truly humble, yet elegant, costume. The only thing he really muttered about was the mask, though it was far from the gaudy accoutrement he had clearly feared.
Amadis spotted his wireframe mask easily; the silver covered both eyes and hooked around one side of his head in rays that quite subtly alluded to the curve of a crown. He was glaringly under dressed compared to everyone around him, but Amadis figured that Teia had picked out his outfit not for how it would look here, on display, but how it would look on her bedroom floor. Either way—he was definitely alive, at least for now.
She thought she saw a set of horns bobbing through the crowd in his vicinity, and her heart leaped to her throat. She nearly ran straight through the crowd, but she forced herself to skirt his periphery, following the path she thought the infiltrator had taken while doing her best to avoid Viago’s notice. It would not end well for him to realize she had left her post in the cellar, even if she had good reason for alarm. If she was empty-handed and derelict of duty, that was just as bad.
The infiltrator had seemed to duck into another adjoining vestibule, so Amadis stepped out of the crowd and into the small statue courtyard. Various gossip rings were clustered around the statues, each preoccupied with their own chatter, backs turned toward the rest of the party.
Amadis circled the perimeter, certain already that her horned target had vanished again—if they had ever been here in the first place.
At the far side of the room, she was gratified to find proof of her quarry. She would never have seen it, had she not come all the way to the wall and turned around again; certainly, none of the other party goers had noticed it. But for however much it confirmed her tracking instincts, the clue the infiltrator had left behind was unsettling.
The heroic Crow immortalized in the stone had been slapped in iron manacles, blood-stained around the cuffs. The heavy chain links between them were weathered from age, and Amadis could only conclude that they had been used on someone. By itself, the shackles were a jarring, if abstract, statement.
Combined with the new mask gifted to the statue, they were a clear and damning message.
Amadis had never seen this mask in person, but she recognized it instantly. Viago had not spared her lessons in history, and especially after the recent themed massacre of Talons, he had drilled her on such knowledge even harder. No other mask had been made like this, before or since, and to her knowledge it had been safely kept in the Dellamorte estate for an age.
Now it sat before her, its hammered silver surface polished to a mirror finish. Made from broken swords and still razor-sharp at its points, the mask was itself a weapon.
The Mask of All Talons: a mask commemorating when nations realized the Crows were Antiva. Before the contracts, killing was the message.
Amadis stared into her own reflection and tried to steady her breath. She had to fight every muscle in her body to counter her instinct to fly away. The pieces were falling into place; messages were being received. A Crow with a vendetta against the guild was not entirely uncommon, especially in times of turmoil, as had sprung up after Emil, Giuli, Lera, and Dante’s deaths. But one who moved so expertly? Who had apparently infiltrated the Dellamorte estate itself? Who had made such a pointed statement about the Crows’ rule of Antiva?
She purposefully caught the eye of one of the nearby gossips. As they smiled and opened their circle for her to join, she tossed her hair and prepared to turn on the Teia charm once more.
“Signora,” their new friend cooed. “So gracious of you to—” they hiccuped “—grace us with your presence! What a marvelous party you’ve put on!”
“The first of many,” Amadis said proudly, “each grander than the last, until Antiva is free!”
Everyone around her cheered and raised their glasses.
“I am afraid not everyone is quite as charmed,” Amadis admitted with a pout. “There is a man in a horned mask who came this way. Have you seen him sulking, by himself? Or has he finally found someone to celebrate with?”
“Oh, never let it be said that the Diamond of Treviso is not a good hostess!” the guest crowed. “He did stop here briefly, but I’m afraid our chatter may have turned him off.”
“Are you certain it’s the same man?” Amadis asked. “Can you describe him more?’
“Oh, it was hard to get a look. He had the most luxurious fair hair, that’s all I really noticed.” The guest and their companions tittered on that point, their jealous wishes for golden hair rising up in a drunken chorus. “I think he was an elf? Yes, yes I think so, an elven gentleman in a dragon mask. Was that your unhappy man, signora?”
Amadis nodded. “You have my thanks,” she said. “I must go see what I can do to lift his spirits, then.”
“Maybe he was just hungry, signora,” they said. “He went around the corner to the kitchen!”
Amadis sashayed off at a measured pace, though her pulse was anything but. What fair-haired elf was this, who killed like a Crow and would deface a statue of their heroes? There was only one possibility.
The Black Shadow.
She glanced back at the party. Viago was still there, scowling at his conversation partners. It did little to calm her, and she found herself holding her breath as she entered the kitchen.
It was a makeshift setup, arranged just for the occasion. Hot food was kept on warm platters, and chefs divvied out the finger pickings onto platters that were swept away into the party. The head chef paced back and forth, a furious tirade spilling forth in nearly unintelligible fits. From what Amadis gathered, he was complaining about the price of ingredients.
Strangely, he showed no deference when she approached. He continued slamming platters from one table to another, a loud, angry mechanism in the operation to get food out the door.
Amadis had to nearly shout to be heard over the ruckus.
“What do you want?” the chef growled. “Can’t you see I am busy?”
His assistants cringed but kept their eyes downcast, focused on their work.
“That is no way to speak to your employer,” Amadis said coldly, “and not to the Seventh Talon, that is for sure.”
“Bah.” The chef held out a platter to her, though it did not feel like an offer but rather a threat. “You Crows must eat like any man, woman, or street rat. If you want the fancy sweets, then listening to some sour words is the toll! Take them while you can. At this rate, I will run out of both before the Feast of All Souls!”
When she did not take a pastry, he slammed the platter back down on the table, nearly smashing an assistant’s fingers.
The chef grumbled a terse apology to them, then returned to scowling at Amadis.
“You Crows may pay like princes,” he sneered, “but none of you, Crows, Princes, the blasted King himself, are doing anything about the blockade! The trade agreements! And yet I am supposed to serve this and that, as if we still had supplies from Wycome and Starkhaven and—and—” He picked up a spiny fruit. “Rivain! The Third Talon asked for a Rivaini drink! What will you Crows do when I have no juice to make it? Ask our neighbors for help? Or just kill the poor chef who complains?”
“Signore,” pleaded one of his assistants. “You shouldn’t say these things!”
“You should listen to your friends,” Amadis said. “Not everyone who hears you will agree—or be as agreeable as I feel tonight.”
The chef spat moodily to the side. “More of Antiva thinks like me than you know!” he muttered. “Like the fellow who just came in.”
Amadis looked carefully away from the chef, at his table of assistants. “I came looking for that gentleman,” she said. “In the dragon mask. Where did he go?”
The assistants cringed, eyeing the moody chef.
“I gave him a whole tray,” the chef volunteered, quite happy to rub this insubordination in her face. “Told him to take it to the second floor and enjoy himself.”
Amadis did not bother making her excuses to leave the unpleasant man, and she simply took off up the nearest staircase. As she came onto the landing that overlooked the party, she noted Viago’s presence. Still safe, still preoccupied, but certainly not for much longer.
She was now fairly certain where the Black Shadow’s target had landed. Who else at this party represented the rule of Antiva’s King and her Crows? Without a showing from House Dellamorte, there were few other options that would resonate with malcontents like the chef, disgruntled citizens… and Zevran Arainai himself. A king’s bastard and Talon would certainly make a statement.
She did not have to search for long before she found evidence of the Black Shadow’s passage. A heavy display case had been surreptitiously shoved a few inches to the side, so that it blocked a closet door. After shoving it back into place, Amadis found that it had been used to trap an unfortunate fledgling—one she recognized. The poor child was unconscious, and the platter of treats had been left mockingly beside them.
“Wake up,” Amadis urged, shaking them, but they did not rouse. “De Riva! Get up!”
It was not the first time she had been forced to awaken a fledgling knocked senseless in a fight, however; she had learned long ago to carry a remedy on her person to jolt the unfortunate young ones back to life. It had come in handy plenty of other times, but the memory of past trainings left a sour taste in her mouth, even though she pinched her own nose shut to avoid the pungent contents of her vial.
The fledgling startled as the caustic smell filled their nose, and they smashed some of the finger foods beneath their flailing arms.
“Hey,” Amadis said in a low voice, removing her mask so the fledgling could recognize her. “What happened? Be quick.”
“I was keeping an eye on the courtroom door,” the fledgling gasped out. “Morosina Cantori went inside to prepare it for Viago’s meeting, and I was supposed to make sure—” Their eyes filled with sudden tears. “I just turned and there was a man with horns and then— Amadis, is Morosina—?”
“I will take care of it,” Amadis said mechanically. “Stay here. Keep the door closed.”
She left the terrified fledgling with their sad pastries and marched in the direction of the courtroom. Viago’s meeting? This news was enough to make her seethe, but the fact that a fledgling—not even a particularly prodigious one, at that—had been pulled in on the plan while she had been left doing hair and makeup…
She forced herself to open the courtroom door with controlled grace. Quietly. Scanning for tripwires and ambushes. Letting it closed softly behind her, in case her target had not noticed the intrusion.
Amadis surveyed the pews, the judge’s dais, but saw no trace of anything amiss.
The courtroom was silent.
Or it was, until she had crept halfway to the front.
Behind the judge’s seat of honor, an office door stood ajar. The muffled sounds of a struggle, a cry for help with no air, reached Amadis’ trained ears and launched her into action. She threw her whole body at the door just on the off chance that her quarry was standing on the other side, or perhaps in the hope of startling him. Unfortunately, he was wrestling with Morosina on the ground on the far side of the office. He had a wire wrapped around her neck, and she scrabbled at his hands, at the wire, with bloody fingers. Her legs kicked helplessly on the carpet.
The man in the dragon mask looked up at Amadis’ intrusion, and before she could even draw a knife to her palm, he had dragged Morosina up by the garrote and held her as a shield between them.
To Amadis’ relief, he eased the pressure on Morosina’s neck just enough. There was a chance—slim as it might be—that Morosina might keep her head, though she was fading fast.
He made a show of looking between Morosina and Amadis, and though she could not see his mouth, she felt the smile that spread across it. Amadis was certain it was a deadly one.
“Ah, I should have known!” the Black Shadow said with abandon. “It’s not a real party until you’re seeing double.”
His easy humor, despite being quite literally backed into a corner, took Amadis by surprise. She flexed her fingers around the hilt of her knife and adjusted her stance forward, ready to spring—yet even as she imagined nineteen ways to incapacitate her opponent, she could not help the thought that Viago needed to hear that joke.
Her blood ran cold with the reminder of what was at stake.
“Why are you here?”
He tilted his head, and the voice that emanated from behind his mask was as sober as hers. “Just the same as you: out of love for Antiva.”
“You are insane,” Amadis said, scorn evolving into utter contempt. “Am I really supposed to believe that, when you would kill Antiva’s only leadership in her time of crisis? The Crows—”
“—rule Antiva,” he interrupted sarcastically, “and Antiva has never been free. Nor will she be, so long as she believes her strength comes from the abuse and manipulation of desperate children.”
“The Crows have kept Antiva free for Ages,” Amadis snapped. “Killing Viago and Teia won’t change the Crows, or how anyone but our enemies view us. They are the best chance we have to push back the Qun!”
The Black Shadow chuckled. “Perhaps. Perhaps you simply haven’t been listening to how the people really view the Crows. There are more visions for Antiva’s future than there are stars in the sky or knives in your dress, and not all of them place so much on a king’s bastard—let alone a king.”
He tossed the garrote and Morosina’s unconscious body aside carelessly.
“But, that is not why I am here. The Antivan people will not see the truth so long as their eyes are clouded by fear of the Qun. We can agree on that, no?”
He spread his arms in a genteel bow, but his canny gaze never broke from hers. It would have been the prime time to lob her knife his way, at least as a distraction, but she could tell from the way his clothes shifted that he had not come to his den of vipers unarmored. There was a very narrow selection of targets that might be more vulnerable, but she would need to get close to land anything with an effect, and she wasn’t keen to attempt it in the confines of this office.
“So I’m to believe you’re here to move against the Qun?” Amadis deadpanned. “Here, at a party in the last unoccupied city in Antiva, where there are no Qunari for miles…”
The Black Shadow’s eyes flashed behind his mask as Amadis adjusted her grip on her knife.
He knew something.
Before she could make demands of his intel, she heard the heavy door of the courtroom open. The sounds of the party grew louder momentarily, a crescendo of chatter and music that made her heart go still.
The door closed.
Amadis threw her knife at the Black Shadow, but he was already bolting for the courtroom, and it sailed right past him. She braced herself to block his path, another knife appearing between her fingers; she would stab him as he passed her, and even if it only managed to scrape him, she would have finished their duel before it really began.
His gloved hands seemed one step ahead of her own mind, and they clamped down on her wrists, using her body as a fulcrum to swing himself out of dodge—and out of the office door.
She staggered back but shot out into the courtroom only a second behind him.
There was no time to think. The Black Shadow was running at full speed for their unwitting visitor, who had just reached the center of the room. There was not enough time for the dark-haired victim to turn and run, and Amadis had little time to come up with a plan.
The assassin had taken the main aisle, apparently ready to tackle his target to the ground and out of the range of Amadis’ knives. She took the side route, quickly coming parallel to the Black Shadow’s path, then edging ahead—just enough—
With a spinning kick, she sent the nearest courtroom bench sliding into his way.
The Black Shadow vaulted over the bench, and the victim ducked beneath him. Amadis was there in an instant, her body between the man on the ground and the man in the dragon mask. The Black Shadow kicked out, not at her feet but higher than she expected; even her quickest reflex to jump did not save her, and she stumbled as her knees went weak.
She saw no flash of a knife, did not hear the air tear with a fast-moving blade, but as the Black Shadow’s hand whipped out to attack, she felt the threat in her bones. She followed that instinct and kicked him again, and though her pointed heel met the padding he had layered over his heart, she knew the impact was enough to leave him breathless.
Amadis jumped on that opening, hairpin between her fingers and aimed at the undefended spot between his jaw and ear. But he rolled into her instead of away, a fistful of her dress knocking her off-balance again. This time, it sent her to the ground, right on top of the man she was trying to protect. Her elbows sank into his stomach, and his mask scraped her cheek before flying across the floor.
His gasp in her ear was unfamiliar, but there was no time to dwell on it. The Black Shadow’s mask had been likewise knocked away, and beneath it was the infamous face of Zevran Arainai.
The identity of the Black Shadow had never been officially confirmed in the decades since his flight from the Crows, but heavy suspicion had grown into speculation that was eventually accepted as fact. Nevertheless, the sight of his creased face, the faded black stripes that framed it, and the fine, cream-colored hair that now spilled across his shoulders, filled Amadis with a heady mix of triumph and rekindled fear.
He was on his feet already, a long knife in hand and pointed carefully at Amadis to keep her in place.
“A lesson for you,” Zevran said, and Amadis had to admit he did a heroic effort of disguising the wheeze of pain that came from every breath. “One the Crows will never teach their fledglings. The world does not run on contracts, and shaping history requires something far larger than any single target. Change, growth, cannot happen without survival.”
The tip of his blade wavered as he bent, picked up the fallen mask, and rose again, without ever taking his eyes off of Amadis.
“And what kind of teacher would I be if I did not give an example?” he said.
“What—”
He lunged, but not for Amadis. His blade went past her ear and sank into the shoulder behind her. The victim cried out in agony and anger, and their hands closed desperately around her arm; by the time she had shaken them off, Zevran had already climbed atop a bench and jumped for the railing of the upper gallery. He swung himself into the overlook with practiced ease and perched there for just a moment, giving Amadis one last smile before vanishing out the third floor entrance.
Amadis added her curses to those of the man who had been stabbed. She had made her calculation and her choice, turning away from the Black Shadow’s escape to tend to the victim instead.
It was not Viago, as she had originally feared. In fact, she did not think she knew this man at all.
“Stop squirming,” she muttered. “He did not leave any lasting damage with that strike, but you will do that to yourself if you keep moving!”
The man fell back with a whimper as Amadis stood over him and contemplated the mess she was in. Her fingers reached in to her hidden stash of vials and found the potent healing tincture she had brought just for this kind of inevitability, but her mind was elsewhere.
It was an absolute coin flip whether Viago would care that she had saved the man he was probably meeting with, or whether he would be more upset that she had let Zevran Arainai get away. Either way, it was a sure bet that Viago would not be happy to see her. It would be smartest to run now; this injured party goer had not seen her face, could not tell on her if she left. She could even leave her healing tincture with this man, or trust that Viago would show up with his own. But she knew it would not take long for them to wake up Alessandra and Morosina and realize that Amadis had been the one to interrupt this attack.
She grimaced.
“I am going to remove this knife, and it will hurt, but this—” she tapped her fingernails on the vial “—will heal you right up. It will unfortunately hurt more.”
The man cursed and buried his face in his shoulder. “Do it, do it!”
“You asked for it,” she said.
The screams, while anticipated, made her stomach twist with further disdain. As they echoed in her ears, she could feel more than hear the footsteps pounding down the hallway outside.
“Better?” she asked when the man’s writhing stopped.
“Maker, yes,” he gasped. “Grazie, signora! You saved my life.”
Amadis hummed doubtfully and helped the man to his feet. He began patting himself all over and casting his eyes around the floor as if he had dropped something. What he found or did not find left him even paler than before.
“Are you alright, signore…?”
“Grimani,” he said faintly.
Amadis did not know his face, but she knew that name. Before she could think on it, the door to the courtroom opened and bombarded them once again with music and noise. She did not need to turn to know that Viago had found her at last, for the feeling of his glare on her back was a familiar one.
“You! What are you doing here?” he demanded. “Answer me!”
She turned, arms crossed. “Saving your contact from a bloody end,” she shot back. “You are welcome.”
“It’s true,” Signor Grimani said. “I am indebted to her for driving off that attacker!”
Viago’s eyes narrowed. “What attacker?” he asked Amadis, never once looking at Grimani.
“Zevran Arainai,” she said.
“What!” Grimani cried. “That’s who— The Black Shadow attacked me?”
“I do not think he was here for you, signore,” Amadis soothed, though her voice was perhaps too sharp. “There are bigger targets for the Black Shadow’s knives than a dockmaster.”
Viago looked at her sharply, as if she had said something terrible. He took a swift step forward, turning his attention now to the shaken dockmaster of Antiva City. “Who can say what the Black Shadow’s goals are? It is unfortunate that you were entangled in such violence. But it is for this exact reason I have sought you out, Signor Grimani. We may be able to help one another in these tumultuous times.”
“I am honored, Guildmaster de Riva,” Signor Grimani said with a slight bow. “Unfortunately, the attack on my life has left me feeling rather ill. Perhaps we can continue our discussion another time.”
“That is very unfortunate indeed, Signor Grimani,” said Teia as she swept into the room behind Viago. She, too, quickly assessed Amadis’ presence with slight disdain, her lips tightening almost imperceptibly to hide a frown. “Won’t you let me fetch you a drink to fortify your nerves? This is such an auspicious occasion for us to come to the table and make a deal. A deal between two Houses, and the dockmaster of the greatest port in Antiva!”
Teia’s insistence reached Amadis’ ears with a sinking feeling in her heart. Grimani seemed determined to leave, and Viago was watching with the same desperate frustration of a fisherman whose catch had come off the hook.
“Very kind, very kind Guildmaster Cantori,” Grimani said. “I do understand the importance of this deal—but perhaps it is too important, if the Black Shadow himself decides to deliver me such a gift.”
He massaged the bloody hole in his shirt and ducked his head. “I must consider my options after I have rested. Please, Guildmasters, I must bid you good evening.”
Viago disguised his disappointment with a look of ire, directed at Amadis; Teia made no attempt to hide her own, and she pouted at Grimani and held the door open for him.
No sooner had the door closed than Viago exploded on Amadis. “What were you thinking? First, you leave your post, no doubt letting several contracts fail to meet their deadlines—then, you fail to protect Grimani from harm, and you insult him, no less—”
“The Black Shadow killed the ferryman!” Amadis interrupted. “I was doing my job, to stop him from doing more harm to our operation!”
“And yet, it would have been better if he had killed Grimani!” Viago cried.
“Vi,” Teia scolded. “Not so loudly.”
“But I am right!” he said. “If the Black Shadow had killed him, then we would be dealing with Grimani’s successor, who may have been more pliable. More interested in our protection, perhaps. Now, he will never deal with us.”
“Do you really think the Black Shadow was here for your dockmaster?” Amadis said. “Do you not realize he was almost certainly coming to ambush you?”
Viago snarled at her, the opposite reaction she had anticipated. “That makes no sense, Amadis! What does he gain, killing the Fifth Talon? Compared to what he gained by killing this deal?” His fingers flexed as if he wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her. “Think about it: why would he leave Grimani—and you—alive to tell the tale, if he had not already gotten what he wanted?”
Amadis opened her mouth, then closed it with a snap.
Teia approached her with pity on her face. “Vi, did you even tell her what was going on? Of course not. So how was she supposed to know?” She looked at Amadis carefully, then sighed. “Grimani has been selling out Antivan ships to the Qun, Amadis. He only ever loses cargo coming to Antiva from nations who might be trying to help us. Ships intercepted at suspiciously convenient locations. Those supplies ending up in Qunari hands. But he was merely our entry point into a larger conspiracy.”
“You’re right,” Amadis said. “I did not know any of that. I thought—”
“You told us,” Teia said, and her calm reminder once again stole away Amadis’ voice. “To her credit, Vi, Zevran almost certainly would have made a go at you if he had the chance. Which he would have, if not for Amadis.”
Viago did not look remotely grateful, and Teia’s attempt to earn even a little sympathy for Amadis fell on deaf ears. He shoved at the misplaced gallery bench and cursed under his breath.
“Where is Morosina?” he asked. “She was supposed to be here to make sure this kind of thing did not happen!”
“Well, she failed,” Amadis said. “The Black Shadow was already on her, in that office, when I arrived.”
Teia cast a worried glance at the door, but she did not go to check up on her general quite yet. “Maybe there is a way to salvage this, Viago,” she said. “A way that does not need to involve murder, just other crimes—theft, espionage.”
She stooped, and when she rose, she held the horned dragon mask in her hands. “One of my girls mentioned that Grimani was acting quite suspiciously all evening. At one point, he disappeared for a full hour.”
“You think he had another meeting,” Viago said.
“Scoundrels know no honor,” Teia replied. “My sources also said that he was removing his mask over and over again and inspecting the inside of it, like it bothered him.” She glanced down at the mask in her hands. “Maybe there was something important inside.”
Amadis gripped the nearest bench for support as a wave of nausea overcame her. “That is not Grimani’s mask,” she said.
“What?” Teia blinked at her in surprise.
“That is the mask the Black Shadow was wearing.” Amadis raised her other hand to her face, encountered her own stolen mask, and tossed it aside. She kicked off her heels next, sending them flying into the gallery benches and out of sight. “It came loose in the struggle. I thought he had taken it with him, but…”
“But he took Grimani’s instead,” Teia finished. Her shoulders drooped, and she lowered her gaze from Amadis’. She had done all she could to turn the situation around, and now, she seemed to be at a loss.
Viago had gone pale with fury.
“And you didn’t notice?” he demanded. “You let him get away? Amadis! What am I always telling you? Use your eyes!” He cursed again and pinched the bridge of his nose, hiding his glare from her, as if the mere sight of her would kill him with embarrassment. “You see, Teia? This is why she would have been a poor choice for your entourage tonight. No patience. No guile.” He sneered beneath the shadow of his hand.
Amadis’ jaw dropped. Time seemed to stop, imprinting that sneer in her brain with the sting of a hot brand; it was so silent in the courtroom that a pin would have had the impact of a gaatlok explosive. The only thing louder than Viago’s anger was Teia’s disappointment.
“That is the last time I try to save your life,” Amadis said, and as Viago turned his back, she followed Zevran’s example and took an acrobatic exit through the upstairs gallery.
It had been a wise escape route, she thought. He must have scouted it out ahead of time. The small hallway connected on one end to the third floor, but on the other, it opened on to a balcony—a respite for courtroom attendees when business grew stifling. The balcony was quite isolated from other points of entry, making it a difficult and unlikely route of infiltration, but as a point of egress it was fairly ideal. A canal wrapped around the base of the building for a quick getaway, and several nearby buildings provided sturdy anchors for ziplines.
There was no telling which escape route he had taken.
Amadis nearly jumped out of her skin and off of the balcony as a stone clattered to the ground behind her. She twisted around and saw—no one, and nothing except for the shingle that had fallen from the roof, shattered to pieces before her.
She held her breath as she looked up.
Zevran Arainai perched on the roof above her, Grimani’s mask affixed atop his head. Blond hair waved like a banner in the breeze, and his smile glittered down at her like a shark’s. The smugness and glee written all across his face told her that he had not, in fact, escaped when she let him go. Likely, he had stuck around and heard every single word Viago had shouted at her.
Before she could even hope to act, he was gone.
Amadis leaned back against the railing and tilted her head as she considered his flight, in the light of Viago’s thwarted plan. Maybe Zevran Arainai had wanted to kill a Talon tonight. Maybe he had wanted to undercut the Crows’ plot, simply to snub them.
But Amadis had a feeling—a feeling she would never voice. The Crow in her railed against the mere thought of it.
Maybe Zevran had told her the truth.
Only time would tell how the Black Shadow might use the information written on the dockmaster’s mask. But Amadis knew what she would do with it, out of love for Antiva.