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

If I thought loading the boat was difficult, disembarking was worse.

I tripped in the waves. The grip of the tide tossed me about. Currents crashed me forward, and I swallowed sand. Waves pulled me back out, and I swallowed salty water. I was certain the pull would drown me in another breath, but Vali and Tova hooked their hands under my arms and tossed me ashore, laughing mercilessly.

Kase handed a hunched man four copper pieces for tethering the longship to a post in the surf. The old beggar did nothing of note, more watched the Kryv do the heavy lifting while he puffed a clay pipe, his head lost in a brume of brown smoke.

I followed into the seaside city—if it could be called a city. Inside the coast gates was a rumpled, globular-shaped town, with a miserly row of shops along the muddy roads. One gabled inn leaned to the east, its neighboring alehouse leaned to the west. Tenements with cracked windows, and hovels sunk in puddles. Porches sagged, and some homes were raised on stilts. Most buildings were draped in tattered banners of blue and gold for the Wild Hunt, and filthy ribbons were strewn about the roads.

Skítkast architecture took all the leftovers of the regions, stacked them next to one another, and called it order.

The populace seemed an even mangier sort: cheeries with clients, herb farmers, washed up traders, and a few who chatted with lampposts.

Folk painted their faces in frightening ways. As wicked nyks or fae, using clay to mold points on their ears. Laughter slurred with raised drinking horns as folk stumbled about, clinging to the last of the revelry.

The Nightrender turned the guild down a narrow alleyway. I dug my fingernails into Raum’s arm without thinking when we stopped at a house with a pointed roof and rosy siding.

Kase rapped on an arched door. “Dagny,” he said slowly, kindly. Sounded odd. “We’ve come for a visit.”

A young woman with shimmering powder on her cheeks answered. “Oh, good you’re here.” The woman grabbed his arm. “Come on, get inside.”

Ratty chairs and an unmade straw mattress littered the room. A vanity with chipping blue paint stood against one wall, a rack of lacy dresses near it, and a hundred licentious noises moaned through the paper-thin walls.

The cheer girl—Dagny—paced around until the last Kryv settled inside. “I’ve got a bad feeling.”

“What else is new?” Tova asked with a laugh.

Dagny fiddled with the lace on her dress. “I know I ask this every time, but you’ve all really planned this out, right?”

Kase pulled back a dusty curtain over a window facing the main road. “You know the answer, Dag. You spoke with the Falkyns, right?”

I’d never heard the name Falkyn before. They must’ve been another guild of some sort.

“They’ll be waiting.” Dagny couldn’t be much older than me, but the burden of a hard life lived in her gray eyes. “We’d better get started.”

I wrung my hands together and stepped out from behind Raum.

“This lovey has a bite, Dag,” Raum said.

“Good. You need a good bite in Skítkast.” Dagny tilted her head and smiled. “Come here then.”

Kase spun his curved knife around his fingers again. I never saw him flick the blade into his grip, but I had no doubt he kept at least three blades always accessible. He remained quiet; his eyes on me as Dagny pulled out a musky chair.

I could do this.

Dagny dusted white powder over my cheeks while the Kryv muttered to each other across the room.

“This powder marks you as fresh,” she said, although I didn’t ask.

“You said you had a bad feeling,” I whispered, once the Guild of Kryv was buried in their own conversations away from us. “Are you an Alver?”

Dagny shook her head. “No. I’m a rather talented worrier is all.”

“So, how do you know the Nightrender?” I hoped she didn’t read into my question, because it certainly was meant as a probe into their relationship, but I had no business asking this cheer girl if he had shared her bed.

Unfortunately, Dagny was quick. “What do you mean? Is he a patron?”

I shrugged and tangled my fingers in the lace of my gown.

She grinned as she brushed my hair. “I’ve offered a space next to me for turns as gratitude for his help to me and the other girls and boys when clients get a bit rough. I imagine he’s a sight to see beneath all those battle leathers, don’t you think?”

“I’ve never given it much thought.”

“Right, and I’m the queen of Skítkast.” She nudged my shoulder. “To answer your question, he’s not taken me up on my offer. But the way he’s watching you right now, I suppose I could ask you the same thing.”

I spun in my seat.

Kase wasn’t looking at me at all. He had his back to us, speaking to Vali, but glanced over his shoulder when Dagny squeaked an odd, strangled laugh.

I frowned at the cheer girl. “Funny.”

“Ah, I don’t blame you,” she said wistfully, beginning to add braids to my hair. “I’d think you strange if you didn’t hope for his attention.”

“I don’t hope for it. I detest it.”

“Clearly.” Dagny bit down on her bottom lip, but said nothing more on the subject. “Lift your hands, fingers out.”

I obeyed and spread my fingers while she drew odd runes on each tip with a charcoal pen.

“They’re beautiful,” I said. “What do they mean?”

Dagny’s smile faded as she revealed her own hands. Black tattoos were needled into her skin. “Beautiful shackles are what they are. The mark of a Lark girl.” Dagny waggled one little finger missing its tip. “When you work off pieces of your debt, well, you lose one of your shackles.”

I slapped a hand over my mouth. “The Kryv could take you from here, I’m sure of it.”

“There are reasons to stay.”

“What could possibly keep you here?”

A tear shimmered in her eye. “A story for another day.” Dagny clapped her hands together again. “You need to change.”

The cheer girl held up a white lacy dress with a rip in the hem. I searched for a curtain, but the room offered little by way of privacy.

“Turn around.” I pointed a finger at the men who kept stealing glances our way.

“Come on, lovey,” Raum said.

I pursed my lips. “Turn around now.”

One by one they grumbled and faced the wall. Kase’s eyes burned a tantalizing dark gold, a hundred unspoken words hovered between us until at last he faced the door.

My tunic and trousers were stripped in a few moments, then by shifting my weight side to side, I wriggled into the tight, musky dress. When Dagny fastened the silver clasp behind my neck, the bodice squeezed the last of the breath from my lungs.

I tugged the sleeves falling seductively off my shoulders and kept adjusting the swooping neckline barely covering my breasts.

“No, let it show, girl.” Dagny swatted away my hand and held up a furred scarf fashioned in the likeness of a fox tail. “You need to wear this around your waist.”

She demonstrated, and sure enough, batted the fur as a tail.

“Why would I give myself a tail?”

“It’s the Hunt!” Dagny said, flinging the fur around her neck, her voice shifted dramatically. “You’re to become a lustful, irresistible huldrefolk.”

“You aren’t serious.”

“I am serious,” she said with a frown. “Costume is a selling point during the Hunt, and the patron wants a temptress of the forest.” She brushed my nose with the end of the fur. “To play a proper huldrefolk, tails are a must. Now remove that pouch you wear.”

My hand went to the rune pouch with my memory vials. “No, it stays.”

“It will ruin the entire look.”

“The look will need to be built around it.”

“But—”

“It stays, Dag.” The Nightrender did not need to raise his voice to cut through a room. The rasp of the sound sent a shiver up my arms.

Dagny sighed. “Fine. I’ll try to hide it.”

Once I’d dressed, Kase called to me, and in such a brazen gown, I was rather reluctant to stand so near to him.

He wasn’t as discomposed and pointed to a grungy looking arena across the road. Cheers and the thunder of hooves boomed over rocky roads. At the top of the stands were boxes made of wooden laths capable of holding five men.

“You’ll meet him in one of the top booths,” Kase said.

“How will I get out?”

He backed toward the way we entered. “Don’t worry about getting out.”

“You’re asking a great deal of trust, when I get none in return.”

“Life is rather unfair, isn’t it? Now we’re going. We have another appointment.” He signaled to the others to leave.

“What other appointment?” He was leaving me to do this alone?

Kase glanced once more at me and said nothing more than, “Fight to the end.”

I’d heard the saying pass about the guild and hardly believed he offered the Kryv words to me now.

“Don’t worry, he never tells too much to anyone. Just enough,” Dagny said once the Kryv left. “Come on, then. I’ll take you to meet, Herr Doft.”