House of Curses, page 31
“The Collector,” Kerrigan whispered to Fordham.
Kerrigan wanted to burst in and knock out the pair of idiots. She wanted that Collector in her hand. She wanted to discover its secrets. But maybe if she waited a moment longer, Trask would spill more information about the Red Masks’ plan.
“A disc of Tendrille?” March scoffed. “How is that going to make him win?”
“It’s called the Collector. It takes the magical print of every person who is in his cause. So, we can all rise up as one against those who have tried to stamp us down for so long.”
“And who is that?”
“The Society.”
March guffawed. “You’re going against the Society?”
“Those in the Society who are letting half-Fae and humans rise up the ranks. They should be kept exactly where they belong. Under our boots.”
March arched an eyebrow. “So, why would you want me after I was engaged to a half-Fae?”
“Anyone can be redeemed in the eyes of the Father. Repent against your previous actions, and the Father will richly reward you in his new world.”
March’s eyes lost their skepticism, and he seemed genuinely interested. “You know I care little for politics.”
“I know that you want Bryonica,” Trask said. “And why shouldn’t you have it? You’re a powerful Fae male, next in line for the throne. We could use someone with your sensibilities to work with us.”
March wavered. “What would I have to do?”
“Touch the Collector, join us, rise up on election day to the start of a new regime. Then, you will have the throne of Bryonica.”
Kerrigan and Fordham exchanged a glance. Election day. That was only a few days away. What exactly did rise up mean in this instance? Was there going to be a protest? Were they going to go after the Dregs, as they had done after the tournament? She had too many questions and no answers.
She wanted March to ask more questions. To get Trask to tell him more. He couldn’t simply agree based on false assurances, could he?
March stood then, ran a hand back through his dark hair, and then nodded. “All right.” He pressed a thumb to the Collector. “Count me in.”
Kerrigan’s stomach plummeted. She hadn’t realized that she was holding out hope that March would turn him down. Clearly, this wasn’t the first time Trask had tried to recruit him. He’d known all along that Trask was a Red Mask and never mentioned it to her. Not that that was a surprise.
But after what had happened at the nominee presentation, when she had chosen Fordham over him, it made sense that he would want revenge. He would want someone else to fill the power vacuum her absence had left.
Fordham glanced at her. “I jump and take out March. You go after Trask.”
She swallowed down bile. It was finally time.
Then, the adjoining door opened, and a chorus of noise filled the room. Trask discreetly put the Collector back into his pocket. He laughed jovially as roughly two dozen other Fae entered the room. To Kerrigan’s horror, she recognized nearly all of them. Bryonican nobles who had been at her formal birthday party. Royals who had tried to curry favor with her for one thing or another. Friends of her father’s. Were all of them Red Masks?
“Welcome to the party, March,” a female said, placing her hand on March’s sleeve.
He removed his arm abruptly. He looked like he wanted to snap at her for being so familiar, but Trask threw an arm over his shoulders.
“Let’s toast to our newest member.”
Fordham’s hand was on her arm. “We can still take them,” he whispered.
She shook her head. “Two dozen? We’d have the element of surprise, but I know the strengths of half of those people. There are Society members in there. Not just untrained half-wits.”
“What do you suggest?”
She didn’t know. She needed time to think. Darby couldn’t keep the servants away from here forever. It was going to look suspicious that no one had come this way to bring them refreshments. Even as a handful of humans flitted into the room and passed out flutes of sparkling.
“We have to wait out the party,” she said, grasping for another solution.
“We can’t,” Fordham insisted.
But what else could they do?
Then, another figure slithered into the room. Kerrigan’s eyes widened, and she squeezed Fordham’s arm tight.
“What?” His eyes found the stunning female who had glided into the room. “Isa.”
“Isa,” Kerrigan agreed.
The tides had just turned a second time. Two dozen nobles … maybe. Two dozen nobles and Isa. Maybe was looking more like maybe not.
Kerrigan had never seen Isa in anything other than fighting leathers. Tonight, she was in an expensive white dress that hugged her lithe figure like a glove. She was beautiful on a regular day with her short white hair, sharp jawline, and light eyes that cut straight through you. Today, she was otherworldly.
The object of desire of every male and female in the room.
“Hello, love,” Trask said cheerfully.
Isa arched an eyebrow as she approached him. From anyone else’s vantage point, all it looked like was Isa coming in for a hug from Trask. But from where Kerrigan and Fordham hid, they watched Trask hand Isa the Collector. She spirited it away into a hidden pocket in her dress.
“You should stay,” Trask said with a licentious smirk. “We could have a good time.”
Isa’s smile was ice. She turned her face away from the rest of the party, and Kerrigan read her lips as she whispered, “I can still cut off your balls.”
Kerrigan held back her smirk. Well, Isa played that nicely.
Isa fluttered her eyelashes again and then was gone. March was asking after her, but there was no time to waste. Isa alone with the Collector was a fight they could take.
“Jump,” Kerrigan said, but Fordham was already grabbing her wrist and disappearing through the shadows.
They appeared a moment later in the darkness on the edge of Trask’s property. It was late, and the street was empty. So, it was obvious as Isa traipsed down the townhouse stairs and into the open.
Kerrigan stepped into her path. “Give me the Collector, Isa.”
Isa’s eyes widened. Then, she smirked. “This?” She removed the small disc from her pocket. “Come and get it.”
Fordham stepped out of the shadows next. “I believe we will.”
“Oh, I’m shaking,” Isa said with a laugh. “I do applaud you. How did you know it was here?”
Kerrigan said nothing.
“You can have it,” Isa said. “If you can take it.”
Kerrigan lunged forward without a second thought. She needed that Collector. She needed to unlock its secrets. Stopping Isa was just a bonus at this point.
But as soon as Kerrigan was within reach, Isa disappeared. Kerrigan gasped and whipped around at the sound of Isa’s voice a dozen feet behind her. What the hell? Did the Collector allow someone to jump like Fordham?
“I will rejoice when I watch your life blood spill from your body,” Isa told her plainly. “I will only be sad that I was not the one to kill you.”
Then, she disappeared entirely.
Kerrigan wanted to scream her fury, but she just stood there in utter shock.
They’d lost the Collector.
45
The Demonstration
ISA
Isa wanted to laugh herself hoarse at the look on Kerrigan’s face when she’d jumped, but she couldn’t. Because there was only one other person who had known where the Collector was.
Trask might have been bragging about his involvement, as idiotic as that was when they were so close to the finish line, but he wouldn’t have told anyone who could tell Kerrigan. Not even that brainless wretch he called a fiancée knew about the Collector’s whereabouts. Isa had made sure of it at their last meeting.
Which left her one person.
She just didn’t want it to be true.
“There you are,” Valia said, appearing out of the shadows at the bottom of the dungeon stairs. “I thought maybe you weren’t coming.”
“I had something else to do first.”
“More important than this?”
Isa eyed her sister warily. She was Isa’s only weakness. She had cut everything and everyone else out of her life. But she would die for her sister. A fact that Valia readily knew.
“It was in fact.” Then, she drew the Collector out of her pocket. “The Father sent me for this.”
Valia’s eyes lingered a beat on the magical artifact and then away. A tell. Though only Isa could see it. “You’re delivering it to him directly?”
“Yes.” Isa still hadn’t put it away.
“All right. Then, we should get this over with.”
Isa didn’t move. “Take it, V.”
Valia looked at her blankly. A perfect facade. “Why would I want that?”
“You tell me,” Isa said.
“We’re here for a job.”
“We are. But no one else knew where this was being stored.”
Valia arched an eyebrow. “So?”
“And Kerrigan and Fordham showed up to steal it.”
“Then, someone else knew,” Valia said slowly.
Isa sighed. She didn’t want to ask the next question. She didn’t want an answer for something she already knew. If she didn’t know, then maybe she could move on from this moment. But still … she had to.
“Are you working with her?”
Valia said nothing. Her sister stared back at her. Not pleading. Not begging. Not even an ounce of sorrow crossing her face.
Finally, she said, “Don’t ask questions, Isa.”
Isa dropped the Collector back into her pocket and got up into her sister’s face. “What are you thinking?” she hissed. “We are days away from getting everything we’ve worked for.”
“Everything you have worked for,” Valia growled back. “This is what you wanted. Not me.”
“What do you want then?”
“I want that quiet life,” Valia said, sadness finally creeping in. “We were going to run away. You have the money saved. All we had to do was leave, but you couldn’t do that. I couldn’t go without you.”
“There was nowhere far enough that we could go to escape the Father,” Isa snapped. “You know that. Plain and clear. He owns us.”
“No, Isa,” Valia said with a sigh. “He owns you.”
Isa slapped Valia across the face. It wasn’t a hard hit. Barely anything. They had both endured much worse at the assassins school where they had been trained. The slap was only enough to knock the words out of Valia’s mouth.
But Valia looked back at her as if she had shoved a knife through her chest. The look of utter betrayal pierced Isa’s heart. She staggered forward with an apology ready on her lips.
“Don’t,” Valia said, taking a step backward.
“V,” she whispered.
“There is a line between us, Isa.”
“No,” Isa said. The old saying striking her as easily as the slap had done to Valia. “You are my sister.”
“Then, run away with me,” Valia said. “Tonight.”
But Isa couldn’t do it. No matter what happened, no matter what he did or how he used her, Isa belonged to the Father. His vision had taken her this far. She would fall forward until it took her no further.
“I can’t,” Isa said.
Valia nodded once and then slipped into the shadows, disappearing from view.
Isa wanted to take it back. She wanted to plead with Valia. But neither of them was particularly good at debasing themselves. They never had been. Now, she had lost Valia forever. Her own sister.
She hoped Valia was smart enough to get out of the city tonight. She wouldn’t turn her into the Father. She loved Valia too much for that. But he would find out about the double cross. He always did. Isa didn’t want to imagine what he would do when he did find out. Because it was when … not if.
Finally, Isa straightened and stalked forward through the dungeons. There was no balm to a broken heart like spilling blood.
When she stepped into Arbor’s cell, the girl was asleep. The little traitor had already been tried and sentenced by the Father. The same fate that would be bestowed upon Valia if he found out. Except he wouldn’t be as merciful to send an assassin in the night.
“What?” Arbor gasped at the first footfall into her cell.
She looked up at Isa with wide, shocked eyes. The girl had truly believed that she would survive this. That the Society would protect her.
She had given up Red Masks’ secrets to get into their good graces. Unfortunately for her, the Society was already compromised from within. Red Masks walked freely in Draco Mountain. No reprieve would be given to her. In fact, she had signed her own death warrant with her filthy mouth.
Arbor opened her mouth to scream, and Isa swiftly slashed her knife across her throat. The knife cut through her skin like paper, severing the main arteries down to her vocal cords. A clean, professional cut that would leave no question as to what had happened to her.
Arbor gurgled on her own blood for a second. Her eyes were terrified and questioning. Her entire miserable life flashed in those irises before they rolled back into her head and she fell back dead.
Blood ran freely onto the ground. Isa reached forward and wiped her blade clean on Arbor’s filthy clothing. Then, she walked out of the cell, prepared to return the Collector to its rightful owner, and put Valia out of her head forever.
46
The Trap
“I don’t know what to do,” Kerrigan said, pacing back and forth in her room back in the mountain.
Fordham sat at her desk, twirling a charcoal pencil in his hand. He’d said little as she ranted about how everything had gone to shit.
“Ford, I don’t know what to do.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“I need to talk to Valia.”
“You don’t know where she is,” he reminded her gently. “And going after her would look suspicious.”
“Well, what do you think?” she demanded. “You’ve been awfully quiet. Is Valia on our side? Should I trust her?”
“I do not know,” he admitted. “I wish I had the answers to these questions. But I feel as if we should take her silence as a warning. If she is not on our side, then she is compromised.”
Kerrigan’s shoulders slumped at that. Valia had come to her, knowing the risks. It didn’t make it any easier to hear that she might have ruined everything.
“You’re right. I don’t want to implicate her, but it’s frustrating. We were so close. If we had moved before Isa arrived. If we had known …” She trailed off, unable to say what was on her mind. The horrible reality of Isa getting away with the Collector in hand. Her laughter still rang in Kerrigan’s ears.
“How could we have known that she knew how to jump?” Fordham asked.
He was particularly upset about this new development. As far as they had known, only people in his family had the ability to move between distances. What Isa had done was nothing like how he jumped through shadows. She had just disappeared. Popped out of existence, like bursting a bubble.
“She’s never used it before. And there were plenty of opportunities where she could have.” Kerrigan shook her head. “But it can’t be the Collector.” She picked up the book and flipped it open to the brief few pages that discussed the magical artifact. “There is nothing here that suggests the Collector gives you jumping abilities.”
“There’s nothing on the Ring of Endings that it allows healing,” Fordham said softly. He stood and hooked the chain she wore around her neck, revealing the ring. “We should assume that book is incorrect about the Collector as well.”
“Well, great. So, we didn’t just lose a way to find the Father. We also delivered a jumping ability to him, so he has an easy escape as well.” Kerrigan tucked the little ring back where it belonged. “Scales.”
“We will figure this out.”
“How?” Kerrigan demanded. “We’re days away from the election. I knew that it was getting closer. Valia told me things were ramping up. But I thought we still had time. We’re out of time, and we have no play. We don’t even have Valia.”
Fordham drew her into his embrace. No amount of holding her was going to make this better or solve their problems, but it helped her poor heart. She’d been on a time crunch with everything to lose before. She’d succeeded in those instances, but this was different. The Red Masks were everywhere. Whatever they were planning was only days away. It felt hopeless.
But of course, that was what the Father wanted from her. He wanted her to think that all of her cards had been played. She refused. She abjectly refused to believe that was true. There had to be something else.
“We’ll go to Helly,” Kerrigan concluded, pushing away from him. “She’ll know what to do.”
Fordham nodded, accepting her conclusion with ease. “As you wish.”
She threw her black Society robe over her body and was heading to the door when Benton and Bayton dashed into the room, wide-eyed and terrified.
“Kerrigan,” Benton gasped.
Bayton caught one glimpse of Fordham and dropped into a deep curtsy. She dragged her sister down with her.
Fordham waved his hand. “Rise. Please, you don’t have to do that.”
“Of … of course, Your Majesty.” Bayton still looked uncertain.
“He’s not your king,” Kerrigan reminded her. “You’re Bryonican now.”
The twins looked unconvinced by that reassurance in Fordham’s towering presence.
“Why were you in such a hurry?” Kerrigan asked to get them to look at her and not him.
“Oh, we just had word.” Benton gulped. “Arbor was killed.”
Fordham took a step back, his hand going to his heart.
Kerrigan’s hand flew to her mouth. “Gods, how?”
“Her throat was cut.”
Kerrigan put a hand on Fordham. “Oh, Ford.”
He sank into a seat in the living quarters and buried his head into his hands. “This is my fault.”
