For a moment, a fleeting instant, the cloak of shadows they were wearing dropped around their face, and I thought I saw a mask. It looked like one of those Venetian masks that covered half of the assassin’s face in black, with bits of red accentuating the eyes and part of the nose.

  Whoever it was had pale skin, pointed ears, and black hair that looked a little too stringy, a little too greasy. I went in to get a closer look, but the assassin glared at me. A cold chill ran all the way up my spine when I realized just how fast they had turned to look at me.

  “Cute trick,” the assassin croaked. “But it won’t help you here.”

  The assassin shot to their feet in an instant, sending another rush of cold washing through me. In a flash, they had a knife in one hand. Another second later, they were on me, slashing and swiping, trying desperately to make the edge of the knife connect with the soft flesh of my neck.

  I turned around to head for the bedroom door, thinking I could bash my way through it, but the assassin grabbed me by the hair and yanked it hard enough to pull me back. I had no choice but to grab the knife just as the assassin went to plunge it into my neck, clasping my hands together along its sides to avoid getting cut.

  “Don’t fight,” the killer croaked, “It’ll be over in a second, and you can rest.”

  I could see the tip of the knife inching closer, and closer to my throat. I could feel the assassin’s muscles straining against the strength of my own as they tried to drive it deep into my skin. I caught a glimpse of myself in the tall mirror’s reflection, and for an instant wondered if I had the strength to plant my feet against it and use it as a springboard to launch myself into my assailant and spare myself certain death.

  The only flaw in the plan was, concentrating on keeping the knife away from my neck was taking everything I had, and I was losing the fight. The assassin was stronger than I was, and clearly just as fast as I was. A flash of memory surged up from the within depths of my mind, and I remembered watching a self-defense video once. It was called, the element of surprise, and I had laughed my ass off when the girl in the same position I was kicked the guy square in the nards.

  It wasn’t elegant, but since when was I the type to fight clean?

  Breaking my concentration for a split second, I launched my heel up into the area where I thought a pair of balls would be and hoped to all the Gods my attacker was a man. I wasn’t sure if my foot had connected with the killer’s testicles, but they groaned and released me all the same.

  I fell forward, and using the momentum I had, I went for the bedroom door, frantically working at the handle to try and get it open. The assassin took a moment to compose themselves, pulled their knife up again, and made a move as if to charge toward me… and Rell finally struck.

  It was a flash of light as bright as the one in Darkwood forest. I’d had only an instant to cover my eyes before Rell went full-on nuclear, but having spotted him a moment before he exploded, I had known what was coming.

  The light was warm, and full, and it filled me up as much as it wrapped me inside of it. There was a sound, almost like humming, like twinkling, that came with the shower of light, but the assassin’s screech cut through all that. It was a broken, disjointed, distorted sound, like someone gargling into a voice box. I hated it, I didn’t want to hear it, but the killer didn’t leave us any choice.

  “How is that lizard still here?!” the assassin roared.

  “No one can put me down,” Rell yelled, “I’m too fierce.”

  I heard thudding, followed by a crash, and then the light was gone. I felt its warmth, the sound, the humming, vanish in an instant. When I pulled arm down and opened my eyes, it took a moment for them to adjust. I could see Rell, his golden form gleaming as if he was glowing from the inside. I could also see the curtain fluttering, and the window leading outside.

  The assassin was gone; they’d used the window to get out just as easily as they’d used it to get in. I rushed over to it and scanned the backyard, but there was no one down there. No guards, no courtiers, no shifting, shadowy masses.

  “Gone,” I said, panting.

  “At least he didn’t kill you,” Rell said.

  I glanced at him. “Thanks for saving my life. Couldn’t have done that a few seconds earlier, though?”

  “You might think I took my time, but you guys were moving like blurs. It’s only been a few seconds.”

  “Damn.” I looked out of the window again. “Where the hell is everyone? Why hasn’t anyone seen the light?”

  “Probably still partying somewhere. Whoever it was knew exactly when to strike.”

  I stretched my neck to look at the ground directly beneath the window, but all I saw were hedges and gravel. “Well, that’s just great. I was almost murdered, and no one’s going to believe me.”

  “Who would you even tell?”

  “Invidia? The Viscount? I have to tell someone.”

  “I don’t think that’s the right call…”

  I frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

  Rell shook his head. “Isn’t it obvious? We can’t trust anyone around here. Not Invidia, not Elaith, maybe not even the Viscount. They all have their own agendas, and you’re stuck in the middle of it all like a ping-pong ball. The only people we can trust are inside this room right now.”

  The bathroom door caught my eye, as did the darkness beyond it, and I froze. “Yeah…” I said, trailing off.

  Carefully, I approached the door, skirting around the bed and trying to get a good look inside. It was ajar, a little broken from before, and it was swinging. Before reaching it, I grabbed a piece of broken ceramic from the floor and held it in my hand.

  “Avery?” Rell asked.

  I looked over at him and pressed a finger to my lips, then I gestured toward the bathroom with my head. Rell turned his attention to the bathroom door and his eyes began to glow bright and gold. As soon as I reached the door, I kicked it open the rest of the way and burst inside, my ceramic knife swinging.

  It was empty.

  “Thank fuck,” I said to myself. “For a moment I thought we were the biggest idiots in two worlds for not checking the bathroom.”

  “I can’t speak for myself, but you didn’t exactly look super clever the way you swung that piece of broken lamp. What the hell was that?”

  I scowled at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “That?” Rell imitated my swipes and started laughing. “You looked like you were fighting off a bee.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, laugh it up.”

  Rell rolled onto his side and kept cackling. “I am, don’t you worry about that.”

  I shook my head. “I need to get out of this room,” I said, “I have to talk to the Viscount. He could be in danger.”

  After Rell recovered, he straightened himself out and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Well, it looks like everyone’s busy partying, and you’re clearly about as safe in this room as you’d be out of it. We may as well go on a stroll.”

  I nodded. “Yeah… we may as well.”

  It was time to find Elaith and settle this once and for all.

  CHAPTER 12

  I was surprised to find the house still quiet when I left my room. No one had heard the fight, no one had seen the burst of light, and no one had any idea I had almost just been killed by a shadowy assailant. The one time I would’ve appreciated having a couple of guards at my door, and they were all off drinking Fae wine and eating canapes, celebrating my victory.

  Classic.

  Rell was sitting on my shoulder as I skulked through the halls. I had considered astral projection, zipping through the house as a ghost to avoid being detected, but I wanted to talk to Elaith, and I didn’t think they could talk to ghosts. So, here I was, walking briskly through the house like I had a purpose.

  “If we get caught,” Rell said, “I’ll just pretend I’m dead again.”

  “I don’t think that’ll work,” I said, trying to keep my voice low. I had decided I wouldn’t sneak around the house, because the best way to avoid being caught was to make it look like I had a right to be where I was. But that didn’t mean I wanted anyone listening into my conversations.

  “Are you sure? The Fae are pretty dumb.”

  “That hasn’t been my experience with them, like, at all. They’re pretty smart.”

  “Being devious and being smart aren’t the same, and they have deviousness in spades.”

  “I don’t know. Elaith has managed to pull the wool over my eyes enough that I don’t know what they’re really up to anymore. I thought they just wanted to train me.”

  “Is that what they said?”

  “I mean… yeah. Something about how au pairs gained prestige of their own whenever their wards did awesome things. The better I did, the better they looked. Something like that.”

  “Well, unless Elaith is the only unselfish Fae in all of Arcadia, they’re up to something.”

  “I don’t think you’re far off the mark there, buddy.”

  I heard someone talking the next hall down, so I slowed my pace as I reached the mouth of the corridor, but I didn’t stop. I only spared a glance as I went past, enough to see two men talking. They weren’t guards—they looked like nobles, maybe from Isolde’s house; they had that fierce, warrior-like look in their eyes. But they didn’t stop me as I went past, didn’t call out, not to congratulate me on my win or to ask about the weird, golden bird-lizard sitting on my shoulder.

  “What do you think they were talking about?” Rell asked, once we were out of earshot.

  “Probably about the thing sitting on my shoulder,” I said.

  “Who are you calling a thing?”

  “You.”

  “To me, you’re the thing. You and your weird, gangly limbs, your long hair, and your soft skin. No wonder you’re so scared of knives. Had that been me fighting against that assassin, I would’ve laughed watching them try to get it past my scales.”

  “You telling me you’re knife-proof, Rell?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  I headed down a side staircase that led to the staff quarters, and there I started looking for Elaith’s room. I had never been to it before and given that the house changed shape and size every once in a while, I had no way of knowing which the right door was to knock on. Lucky for me, I had a Rell who was quite good at astral projection and didn’t need as much encouragement as I did.

  “Not there,” Rell said, as we passed a door. “Or there, or there. Woah, definitely not there.”

  “What was in that one?” I asked.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  I frowned. “You can’t do that to me. I want to know even more, now.”

  “Naked Fae,” Rell simply said.

  “Oh… yeah, best not peep in that one. Unless…”

  “No, no unless.”

  We had almost reached the wall at the end of the corridor, and so far, Elaith was in none of the rooms on this floor. “We’re almost out of doors,” I said, “Where is Elaith?”

  “Give me a second,” Rell said, and he shut his eyes and turned his chin up to the ceiling.

  I walked up to the window at the end of the hall and casually looked outside. I could see the side of the house from here, and the stables, the carriage house. It was all still there, and so were the horses. I remembered the argument the Viscount and Invidia had before his escape to the forest. I could almost see him grabbing a horse and carriage and speeding out onto the main road.

  She hadn’t been happy with him. She still wasn’t. I doubted if the two of them would ever see eye-to-eye again. Then again, the Fae were… thousands of years old? Immortal? Something like that. They probably fell in and out all the time. This was probably just another blip for them to iron out.

  Rell shook his whole body. He dug his claws into my shoulder to support himself, and I almost squealed from the sudden, sharp pain, but I held it in. “What the hell was that for?” I asked.

  “Sorry, almost fell over,” Rell said. “We need to go.”

  “Go? Go where?”

  “Elaith isn’t in any of these rooms—they’re in the stores, and they need help.”

  “Shit. Okay, show me the way.”

  Rell pointed, and I sped down the corridor, following his directions. I went running past a couple of guards and another handful of nobles on my way to the stores, and I had thought about stopping and asking them to come with me, but what Rell had said earlier had stuck with me. I couldn’t trust the Fae; not a single one of them.

  Another set of stairs led me underground, to the basement level where I had been kept for the first few nights after I had arrived. It was the place where I’d met Thea, and Elaith, and that other au pair that had wanted to turn Thea into a living statue.

  Vito.

  Thinking about him made me shudder.

  The basement level was quiet, but it wasn’t dark. There was a little light coming from a door at the end of the corridor. The stone walls around me made the air cold, and every door I passed, I thought, could’ve had someone on the other side of it—a Fae captive, maybe. I couldn’t think about that right now, though.

  I had to focus.

  “There,” Rell whispered, pointing at the door with the glow spilling out of it. I approached, carefully. This time I didn’t have a weapon to use; all I had was Rell.

  I decided to call out. “Elaith?” I asked.

  Nobody replied, but I heard something fall; something made of glass, or crystal. Whatever it was didn’t shatter, it just bounced, and rolled.

  I came a little closer, close enough to nudge the door open the rest of the way. It was a storeroom filled with shelves stacked with all sorts of items. Bowls full of herbs, jars with bits of entrails floating in murky liquid. The place smelled like a garden, if the garden was inside a cave, underground, and just on the point of rotting.

  And there, propped up against a stack of boxes, was Elaith. Near their hand was a small phial that had rolled against the wall. A glossy, glowing, green liquid dribbled out of the corner of their mouth—there was more of the same liquid in the phial. I saw Elaith’s eyes roll into the back of their head pale face, and I rushed over to their side.

  There was blood on their chin, on their shoulder, on their hand. I traced the wound to their stomach. Someone had stabbed them.

  “Elaith,” I asked, tapping their face. “Elaith, wake up!”

  “I will when you stop slapping me,” they croaked.

  “I, uh… I’m not slapping you.”

  “Really? Because it feels like you have hands the size of boulders.”

  “That’s probably the blood-loss talking.” I paused. “Elaith, what the hell happened to you?”

  They opened their eyes, just barely enough to glare at me. “I fell down and landed on a knife, clearly.”

  “Now isn’t the time to get smart with me. You’re bleeding.”

  “Only for a few more minutes. I was able to whip up a healing potion, so I will recover. Until then, let me nap in peace.”

  “Nap?” Rell asked. “They just got stabbed and they’re going on about having a nap?”

  Elaith’s looked over at Rell. “Oh… you’re back. I thought they said you were dead.”

  “I was, but I’m reborn. I’m gold now, see?”

  “It’s not an improvement. And neither is the horn.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, gold isn’t your color.”

  “Slap them again, Avery; for real this time.”

  I pulled my hands up. “I’m not slapping anyone, and could you both quit bickering? I need to know what happened to you.”

  “Why does it matter?”

  “Because I was just attacked, too.”

  Elaith paused and studied my eyes. “You were?”

  “Yes. I don’t know who it was, I couldn’t see much, but they were after the necklace… again.”

  “Popular necklace indeed.”

  “Did you see who attacked you?”

  “No. It was too dark, and whoever it was looked more like shadow than Fae.” Elaith paused. “I’m just glad I got away with my life.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Rell asked, after the silent moment that passed between us all.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You’re not seriously buying this crap, are you?”

  “Just what are you implying?” Elaith asked.

  “You disappear from the trial, Avery gets attacked, and we find you conveniently stabbed in the basement?”

  “Are you suggesting I had anything to do with Avery’s attack? I should note, I’ve also been stabbed quite severely.”

  “Oh please, that’s going to heal in a couple of hours, and you’ll be fresh as roses, but you’ll still stink like horse crap. I’m not buying it.”

  “You don’t have to buy it because I’m not selling it. I’m telling you the truth. You believe me, don’t you?” Elaith turned their eyes on me.

  I swallowed hard. “I don’t know what to believe. I have to admit, it’s a little suspicious… why would someone want to attack you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And how is it you managed to make it down here with enough time to make a healing potion?”

  “Because I have incredible core strength and I’ve been making healing potions for you for weeks, so I know the recipe off by heart.”

  I shook my head. “The killer came for me because of my necklace. They told me as much. I still don’t know what they’d get from coming after you.”

  “The killer attacked me because I was in the way.”

  “In the way?” Rell asked.

  “I was about to come up to see you when I saw the shadow dart toward me. I got in the way, it stabbed me, and bolted off. It looked like it was in a hurry. If I was to make a less insane suggestion than the one you’re both proposing; I ran afoul of your assailant as they were escaping their encounter with you.”

  I glanced at Rell. “I guess it could be true…”