Night of Masks and Knives (The Broken Kingdoms Book 4)

The deeper into the shop we went, the mustier the smell. Sea winds rattled the wooden walls, and shadows played games with my mind.

This could be one deadly mistake, but I feared it was too late to turn back.

Sigurd’s main level office wasn’t large. A narrow desk, messy with parchment, took up one corner, and two wooden chairs set against the wall. I sat in the nearest chair and folded my hands in my lap.

Sigurd spared me a glance, as if to give me one last chance to change my mind, then opened the back door.

Three dark figures, two men and a woman, stood shoulder to shoulder in the doorway. Masked to the nose, black lines scratched down their cheeks, and dark runes lined their foreheads.

″Come in,” Sigurd said, moving aside.

The woman’s ebony hair was shaved on one side and the rest was piled high on her head, like curled satin ribbons. Her skin was a smooth toasted brown, and her eyes were the strangest eyes I’d ever seen. Black slits cut through a dazzling luminescent color. Like a cat in the night.

The next man pulled down his half mask, revealing his cunning grin. As if he knew a secret I was not privy to.

He was paler than the woman with thick cornhusk hair, and ice crystal eyes. The sleeves of his black tunic were rolled to his elbows, and at his sides, his fingers never stopped twitching.

Behind them the second man removed a cloak, next his mask.

A choked sound ran up my throat like swallowing too much water all at once.

″Elof.” By the hells. The rounded face, the glassy eyes, the patchy beard of the bastard who told me about the Guild of Kryv stared back at me. “What . . . what are you doing here?”

Elof stepped between the other two Kryv. At first glance, he seemed the weakest in build, but they parted for him. Kryv stepped aside. For him. My eyes dropped to the thick belt on his waist. Both hips were draped in bone cutting knives. Across his back was a short blade made of heavy iron.

″I warned you, dännisk. I know of the Kryv.”

″Know of them? You are a Kryv.”

″Observant, this one,” said the woman, snatching a few paper-wrapped sweets from a clay bowl on Sigurd’s desk. “May we proceed, or do you wish to babble all day?”

Elof had tricked me. Did Ansel deceive me too? Or was he unaware of Elof’s connections to the Guild of Kryv?

My mind reeled through interactions between the grounds master and Elof at House Strom. Nothing stood amiss in my mind. Brisk, to the point. Typical men who cared little about friendship with fellow servants.

In three quick strides, the Kryv with frosty eyes had me backed against the wall without trouble. “Got a name, lovey?”

″Mal. Strom,” I stammered. “Malin Strom.”

The Kryv smirked, and he dragged one knuckle across my cheek, clearly undisturbed by how close he stood. “Raum. And I like Mal better. The beauty over there,” he said with a nod at the woman, “is Tova. And you know that ugly sod.”

Tova unwrapped another sweet and tossed it onto her tongue. “Our time is valuable, so let’s get on with it.”

Words dried up like bits of ash on my tongue.

″Sit,” Elof said, gesturing to the chair I’d leaped from moments before.

I narrowed my eyes to seem wholly composed. In truth, I thought I might retch any moment.

″Huh, I’m going to go out on a limb and say this was a waste of time,” said Raum. He perched on the back of the second wooden chair, so his feet were flat on the seat, and one knee bounced incessantly. “I’m not sure this one has it in her.”

″I disagree,” Elof said. “At least, I thought I did.”

Being spineless would do nothing to help Hagen. I was an Alver—a rare Alver—who frightened crooks like Hob. I could make a deal with the Kryv. “I want you to answer my questions first.”

″We’re not here for that,” Elof said. “In fact, if it weren’t for your recklessness, we might not be in this situation at all.”

″My recklessness? I did not bring the masque. I did not take Hagen.” My voice went shrill, and I could not stop the maelstrom coiling in my chest. “I’ve hunted the masquerade for turns, and I will not lose my brother the same way I lost . . .” I shook my head. There was no need to bring Kase into this. Not yet. “I will not lose him.”

Elof’s cheek twitched. “Hunting the masquerade to discover its secrets has nothing to do with the way you tried to barge into a unit of skydguard. Had you not forced me to intervene and drag you away, your dear brother might be with his bleeding family tonight. Warm. Happy. Safe.”

I chuckled. “His family? I would not describe House Strom as warm and happy.”

″Not House Strom. I meant your brother’s family. His children. His lover.”

If he had slapped me across the jaw, I would not have been as stunned. Breath caught in the back of my throat, sweat coated my palms. “My brother does not have children.”

″He does,” Elof said, almost bored. “From the Northern Kingdom. Where you believed he traveled for business, really, he traveled to be with them.”

″No.” I shook my head. “No, if Hagen had a family elsewhere, they would be brought here to be with him.”

″Ah, not everything is so simple. The north once made it impossible for them to travel. Your brother has spent endless turns trying to change that. The last visit, he crossed a line. Why do you think he was tossed into a sea prison, dännisk?”

My lips parted. “He . . . he had a business arrangement go wrong.”

″Fine. Go with that story,” Elof said. “Your brother will be a dead man soon since you cannot stop questioning us. I wish I could say it’s been a pleasure.”

Elof stood, the other two Kryv made moves to follow.

″Wait!” I shot out one hand. A flutter of desperation scorched the skin on the back of my neck. “If he had a family, I don’t understand, why did he not tell me?”

″Who’s to say, but he didn’t.” Elof’s jaw tightened. “I don’t much care why, what I care about is you interfered in our attempt to snatch him.”

″Why?” I narrowed my eyes at Elof, hating him and desiring he keep speaking all at once. “Why did you want him? What were your plans with him?”

″We were hired to retrieve Hagen Strom and return him to his family. That is all.” Elof crossed the space between us and crowded against me. His face nearly touched mine; his voice grew low and dark. “We were prepared, we’d arranged his release. But because I intervened to stop you, a mark was missed.”

My shoulders stiffened as I butted my chest against his, enjoying too much how his brows twitched in a bit of surprise. “Do not blame me. I reacted as anyone who cared would. You were just as surprised as me that the masquerade wagons arrived.”

″Perhaps, but I know how to not react emotionally.”

″Is having a heart so wrong?”

″Yes. When it gets others killed it is a deadly thing to have,” Elof said. The shadows of his face eased as he forced a snide grin. “But we can’t look back any longer. We alter course. Seeing how you ruined our original plan—”

″I didn’t—” I tried to interject, but Elof’s voice overpowered mine as he barreled on.

″We have no choice but to add another deal to our previously made arrangement. What are you prepared to barter, dännisk Strom? You came to make a deal. Make one.”

″But everything has changed.” I scoffed. “You are already going after Hagen by your own admission. A deal with me will be redundant.”

″No. Our plan was in place. One we have tirelessly conceived for some time. One that did not involve traipsing to the masquerade because an emotional woman stood in the way of our grab.”

If I stabbed Elof, surely the Kryv would still help me. I was certain they must’ve found him as irritating as I did.

″The point is,” Elof went on, “we are facing new plays, new games. Dangerous ones. We’ll need more backing if our guild is to continue. If not, we will cut our losses, and deliver the dreadful news to your brother’s Northern family that he was irretrievable.”

It was a fist to the heart. “You’d let him suffer, die, at the masque because it’s too hard? I thought you were the formidable Guild of Kryv.”

″We are,” Raum said. “Did we not establish this already?”

″We’re not fools,” Tova said. “What you’re asking has never been done. Our original deal did not do the impossible. You understand, don’t you? Risk increases, so does our price.”

″Don’t get us wrong, we don’t shy away from the impossible.” Raum laughed and clapped Elof on the back.

″No, but we bleeding better get paid to do it,” Elof said. “Give us something we can leverage against you.”

″I am not so stupid to give you something to use against me. Get your price increase from this supposed family in the north,” I said as powerfully as I could manage. Still, a tremble dressed every word.

Elof folded his arms over his chest. “I did not expect you to be so callous toward your dear brother.”

″I am not callous. I’ll get him myself, but I won’t be manipulated by the likes of you.” On my feet, I made a move for the door, but shuddered when Elof curled his hand around my arm, holding firm.

His eyes were dark and burdened. “Be honest with yourself. What is your move? What is your plan? How will you get past the skydguard, or the Lord Magnate’s personal armies? How will you reach Hagen when you don’t know where the Alver chambers are kept? Tell me how you will hide your gift when the Lord Magnate is always looking for new mesmer?”

My body tensed. He could be lying. He could be saying all this to terrify me into making a deal. In truth, I might’ve brushed his warnings away if I had not already witnessed how quickly folk disappeared at the masquerade.

If a boy’s screams did not haunt my memories night after night.

″You know how to get through all that?” I asked, voice soft.

″In due time.” He dropped his hand from my arm, and I felt a little emptier. Odd. He frightened me and brought safety in the same breath.

″So, if I don’t make a deal with you, the Kryv will abandon the plan to take Hagen?”

″Our deal in the north did not extend to this level of risk. If you wish us to continue, then, as Tova said, when risk increases, our price must increase. What are you willing to pay? How desperate are you?”

His voice had taken on a hard edge.

All I had to give were bone dust memories. A prize the Kryv could not even use without me. They were valuable. Memories filled with fetishes, secrets, the sort of things folk like the Kryv would pay well to possess if it gave them power to bribe another.

But if I gave them, I would need to join the Kryv. In a way, I’d be part of the payment.

″I can offer memories I’ve gathered over the turns,” I whispered. “Memories of corruption, murder, and secrets folk would never want the Guild of Kryv to know.”

Elof tilted his head. “How do you expect us to use these memories?”

″Through my Talent. It could be of use.”

Raum grinned. “I’ve never seen a memory Alver work before. Didn’t really know they existed, to be honest.”

″I would need to . . . join you,” I said. “No one else can read them, but once I read them, I can share them with you.”

The three Kryv went quiet. Only Elof looked at me as if he’d expected this, as if he knew a great deal more than he was letting on.

Silence grated down my spine like sharp fingernails.

When Tova scoffed, I nearly cried out in relief.

″We don’t take in strays.” Tova glanced at her fellow Kryv, as if urging them to back her. “I say no deal.”

″I have nothing more to give. Please.” A hot ache gathered behind my eyes. Exhaustion, fear, all of it crushed me where I stood.

″There it is,” Elof said with a vicious sneer. “Desperation.”

Tova and Raum chuckled, and I didn’t understand the shift in their demeanor.

″All right. No need to beg,” Tova said. “But before we accept memories as payment, show us how it works. I want to make sure you’re good for it.”

Elof stepped aside, inviting me forward.

I rubbed the back of my neck. “Sigurd, to show how I can share memories, may I take one from you?”

He wore a look of surprise, hesitated, but soon came to my side. Perhaps curious where I planned to go with this. “How?”

″I’ll need to kiss you.”

″Well, this got interesting,” Raum said, nudging Tova with his elbow.

Sigurd cleared his throat, but didn’t protest. I swallowed against my own disquiet, stood on my toes, and kissed him.

Sigurd was not a poor choice to kiss. Clean. Unassuming. Willing. The smoke returned to mind, molding and building shapes, drawing clearer images of little gasps, a sapphire necklace, clothes in heaps on the floor, the scent of skin and friction.

I grinned slyly. “Sigurd, you scoundrel. I wonder what would happen should Lady Ashton’s husband discover your love affair.”

″Bleeding skies.” Bewilderment shadowed Sigurd’s face. “What did you do? I can still . . . well, maybe I can’t remember it.”

″Only a glimpse of the memory is there. I took the rest.” I frowned and looked to Elof. I had desired him at House Strom, feared him, yet he brought a strange calm. “You seem to lead this meet. If you care to see Sigurd’s memory, I must do the same to you.”

A muscle pulsed in his jaw. His entire body stiffened, as if the thought disgusted him. I fought to keep my composure, tried not to react. He meant nothing to me, so it did not matter if the idea of his mouth on mine disgusted him or not.

″Share it only,” he snapped at long last. “Do not even think of looking in my head or I’ll cut you where you stand.”

″Your head is not a place I would ever go on my own accord, I assure you.”

Face to face, Elof held my stare for a single heartbeat before I closed my eyes against what I was going to do. I kissed him.

His mouth was warm, inviting. A rush of heat rolled through my stomach. Hells. A man such as him should not stir such things.

Smoke and ash billowed in my head again, only this time the wisps curled around Sigurd’s salacious moment with Lady Ashton. Like a cold wind filled my mind, the images blew away until nothing but dark, shapeless mist remained.

My breath tangled with Elof’s. Slow. Gentle. I exhaled the memory onto his tongue. When I could not exhale more, I pulled back. An unwanted reluctance bloomed in my chest. I hid the whole of it beneath a narrowed glare.

Elof’s eyes fluttered open. It took only a few moments before one corner of his mouth lifted. He faced the other two Kryv. “I see it plainly.”

″Gods, think of what secrets you could spread, lovey,” Raum said, nudging me like he’d nudged Tova. As if we were friendly and he was not terrifying.

″My mesmer is strange and feared,” I said. “I’ve trusted you with it.”

Elof added nothing, simply peeled my skin back with his eyes. My gaze drifted to his lips, and I hated myself a little for imagining touching them again.

″This makes you one of those Anomalies, right?” Sigurd asked. “I know a bit about Alvers. Have an aunt who is a Mediski with a little healing shop near Liten.”

″Ah,” was all I said. An Alver healer did not fit with the odd, strangeness of Anomali Alvers.

Mediski Alvers were healers. Elixists were talented alchemists. Rifters were frightening. Destroyers. Killers, really. But Profetik and Hypnotik Alvers played games with the mind through illusion or uncanny senses. Frightening in their own way. Anomalies were mutts. A collision of different Talents, usually more feared than the others.

″Your mesmer is interesting,” Tova said. “But should Ivar learn of it, you’ll be more of a risk than an asset.”

“But can we ignore the potential of such a Talent?” Elof argued.

″And if she’s got memories with secrets she can share, well, I’d like to be the ones to get those secrets,” Raum said.

Elof sat on the edge of Sigurd’s desk. “Where are these stolen memories, dännisk?”

″I have them hidden.” A rush of excitement boiled in my blood. They were going to help me. I’d get Hagen back. After it was over, I might even be trusted enough they’d help me find Kase. “At House Strom.”

″Where?”

″I’m not telling you.” I folded my arms over my chest, barring myself against them. “Well, what do you say? Is it enough?”

″This isn’t going to be over tomorrow,” Tova said. “It’s like the inside of a clock, each piece, each cog must be working to turn the hands. You aren’t a piece in our world.”

″I will be.”

Elof shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

″And you don’t know what lengths I will go, lengths I have gone, to find people I love.”

“True enough.” He glanced at his fellow Kryv. “Well?”

“We’re taking in a dealmaker, and planning to take from the Masque av Aska,” Tova said. “This is what we’re doing, right? I’m understanding the madness well enough?”

″Yes,” Elof said without a change in his expression.

Tova nodded and took another sweet. “As long as I’m clear. Do as you please, but make the choice. I’m hungry and wish to leave.”

″Raum?” Elof pressed.

Raum shrugged. “I’m in. I’m always in.”

″All right.” Something in Elof’s voice raised the hair on the back of my neck. Like he knew things I didn’t, and I’d walked into a trap. “As you wish—welcome to the Kryv.”