Night of Masks and Knives (The Broken Kingdoms Book 4)
Night of Masks and Knives: Book 2 – Chapter 20

Two nights on the longship left muscles tight and necks sore.

Dawn rose on the third day with bleak clouds, but high spirits when the shore of Skítkast came into view through the sea mist. Malin rested her cheek against the rail, so the swells splashed her face and killed the nausea she couldn’t shake.

The ship rocked and she caught herself on the backstay, a cup of mushy red oysters in her hand. Her eyes locked on mine, and she blew out a long breath.

I leaned against the stempost, unblinking until a tug pulled on my arm. At my side, Hanna waved her hands, eyes wet with tears.

″What’s wrong?” I asked softly.

Hanna tapped the side of her head. It came again.

Her fingers shook as she shaped her words with them.

″The nightmare?”

Hanna nodded. I could bribe and scheme, I could be cold and villainous, but not to Hanna. I lowered to a crouch and tucked a burnished lock of her long hair behind her ear. “What have I told you?”

She blinked and a tear fell onto her cheek. I brushed it away.

″Hanna,” I said, waiting until she looked at me. “I will never fight against the Kryv.”

You do. I say your name, she told me with her frantic fingers, but you pick him. Every time.

″It won’t happen.” I took her small hand in mine. “I’d meet the Otherworld before I would serve Ivar. Understand?”

She tugged on the ends of her hair but nodded stiffly. I swiped away another tear from her cheek. The girl gave me a trembling smile before returning to her brother’s side to help prepare for docking.

I’d almost forgotten Malin had been making her way toward me until her voice broke through the wind and waves. “A man without humanity would not dry a child’s tears.” She leaned her elbows over the rail. “Your eyes aren’t so dark today.”

″You asked for a bit of trust, didn’t you?”

″I did.” Malin looked over her shoulder. “Is Hanna all right?”

I faced the Howl. “She’s fine.”

″Why is she crying?”

″She had a nightmare. Not your concern.”

Malin let out a deep sigh. “Tova said you wanted to tell me something.”

″You need to know what your role will be, so you say the right things.”

″All right. I’m willing to do anything if it gets us closer to Hagen.”

She wouldn’t like this. Truth be told, I didn’t care much for this plan, but it would be our swiftest way in, and out.

″I wouldn’t be so hasty,” I warned. “Tell me what you know of enticement.”

Had she had many lovers? The thought of anyone knowing how soft her skin was, or how the curves of her body felt beneath their hands left me sick with a lust for blood. I was a damn fool.

Malin’s mouth parted; a flush of red bloomed beneath her freckles. “I hope you’re not meaning—”

″With men, yes.” My grip tightened on the edge of the rail.

″I don’t see how that’s your business.”

″Fine, step into the role of a cheery without a word of advice.” I paused. This was a risk for her, and she’d need to be cooperative. She’d need to be safe. For a moment, I studied the colors in the waves, green and yellow mingled with inky blue and black, until my pulse slowed again. I softened my tone the best I knew how. “I’m trying to gauge how much I need to prepare you.”

She burned through me with a heated glare. Hells, whatever she was about to say would cut, no mistake.

″The only boy I’ve ever truly kissed without mesmer is a boy who was lost at the masquerade.”

The memory of it flooded through me. Ake Svensson, a brute of a waif boy, dared me at the bold age of eleven to take one of the waif girls around a shack near the docks and stick my tongue down her throat.

Ake would’ve bloodied my nose if I refused, but I hadn’t wanted that girl.

I’d only wanted one girl and made a litany of excuses why my lips would only touch the lips of Malin Strom.

Her mesmer woke that day.

My heart had come undone.

″So no,” Malin whispered. “I would not consider myself experienced in seduction or provocative things.”

″That makes this challenging,” I said, if only to hide the beginnings of a grin. “If Doft was the surname from Salvisk’s memory, it can be no one else but a man named Boswell. He is the Master of Revels for the masque. The man responsible for hiring the entertainment and auditioning mesmer for the shows. He also has a love of cheer houses. As a cheer girl you’ll need to drop that temper. Be submissive, understand?”

″I am not selling myself today.”

″If you play your part well enough, the sod might get a few sloppy kisses on you and that’ll be it.” Then, he’d meet my knife.

″Easy for you to say.”

″No, it is not.” My voice cut, deep and swift. No, it was not simple to watch her put her neck on the line. No, it was not easy for me to keep my hands off her, to ignore the insatiable pull I’d been fighting since I stepped foot on Strom land again.

I gripped her wrist. With a swift tug, I brought Malin’s body close, brushed my lips against her ear, and kept my voice low. “Keeping you alive when I don’t know the extent of your ability is not easy. And I do not trust you, not enough, but I must for today. None of this is easy.”

″Why don’t you trust me? Tell me. What have I done in the turns we’ve been parted to bring your mistrust?”

I pressed her back into the edge of the boat. To her credit, Malin never dropped her gaze from mine.

″We are not the same people we once were,” I said, a hoarse rasp in my tone. “The sooner you accept that you are a dealmaker, and I am the thief you hired, the sooner we can part indifferently.”

Walls, armor, and pain spoke. Everything but the truth.

If the shimmer of hurt in her eyes was any clue, I was pushing her away and succeeding,

Malin slipped out of my hold and stood at my side. Her eyes locked on the silver glimmer of shoreline at the Skítkast docks. Wooden gates barred the city and inlands from view, but the sea air tasted different, like licking an old, dirty bowl.

At long last, she spoke again. “I think I see what you mean. We are not meant to be part of each other’s lives. So, what do I need to do, Nightrender?”

What ought to have been a victory darkened the last bright spot in my mind. For turns, I’d known the best thing would be to let her go, even if it meant by force. Still, to hear the words from her mouth was sharper than a rusted shiv to the ribs.

″We’ve arranged it so Boswell Doft will be where we want him to be,” I said. “You’ll be the one to get the location of the Alver trade out of him.”

″As a cheer girl?”

″He will be looking for company at the last ride of the Wild Hunt festival. You’ll be his company. Take what he knows of the masque.”

Malin’s face scrunched. She closed her eyes. “You need me to get close enough to steal his memory?”

I adjusted one elbow on the railing, facing her. “Remember why you’re doing this. He is the swiftest way we can replace where Ivar will hold this private trade. We need this opportunity.”

″And if we miss it?”

I returned a significant look. Her face paled as if she could read my thoughts. Malin understood. Should we fail to retrieve Hagen at the Masque av Aska, odds were, we’d never see him again.