Page 96 of Thief of Souls
Perfect. She’s on the hook. I snap my fingers, and as if she was waiting for this moment, Soraya shoves both panels of the bedchamber doors open and stalks inside with her shoulders squared. An enormous train of dark green velvet rasps over the floor behind her, and her sleek brown hair has been swept back with waxed hands, so that it falls in a straight line down her back. Her sharpened nails are painted scarlet, and the gown brings out the malicious emerald glint in her eyes.
Belladonna gasps, which draws Anissa out from beneath the blankets.
“What do you think?” I ask Anissa, because she would know best, after all.
Her jaw drops open, and her head jerks between Belladonna and Soraya as if even she can’t tell the difference.
“Who. Is. This?” Belladonna demands, facing her exact replica.
I sink into a chair and kick my heels up on the small table in front of me, taking a bite out of the apple. “I think we’re going to have to work on your delivery,” I tell Soraya.
“Get yourfilthyboots off my table,” my sister tells me in an almost perfect rendition of Belladonna’s tone as she stalks toward me. “How was that?” Then she gives a little twirl before giving Belladonna a nasty grin. “You may remember me…. I had weeks to learn your mannerisms.”
The glamor bleeds off her until Anissa is scrambling from the bed, wrapping herself in the sheets as she cowers beside her lover. “Violet?What are you doing here?”
I exchange a knowing look with Soraya. “Violet? Really? I meant to take you to task for that. Isn’t it getting a little old?”
She shrugs. “I retired Rose, and Iris was getting a little too well-known in the eastern courts.”
With every role she plays, she takes on an alias, and for some reason she likes flowers.
“Pretty. Potent. And sometimes deadly,” she once told me.
“I presume this has a point.” Belladonna’s voice drips ice.
I grin at the reluctant bride as her eyebrows hit her hairline. “This is what we call bait and switch.”
“You want to exchange me with mymaid?”
“Technically—” Soraya gives her a little smile. “—I’m an assassin. Not a maid.”
Both she and Anissa grow pale, but Soraya saunters toward me, resting on the arm of my chair. “Oh, relax,” she says. “I was never here for you. You were just an easy way to get into the court, once I realized your previous maid was bundled away to the country. Not that you’d know anything about that.”
I feel like I’m missing a vital piece of information.
“The previous maid was working for Malechus.” Soraya reads me well. “So Belladonna removed her. She’s currently convalescing in the country.”
“Convalescing.” It’s an interesting word.
“I’m not the only one with a gift for poisons,” Soraya murmurs. Her eyes lock with Belladonna’s. “Although her ladyship’s a little less refined with them. You nearly killed her.”
Belladonna’s finger twitches as though she’d almost like to curse Soraya.
“Careful with that finger, my lady,” Soraya purrs. “You’re still recovering from what you did to Zemira. I’m very well aware of the extent of your powers, and you’re days away from recovering the strength to commit a second curse. But just in case, my knife will be in your throat before you can even twitch it again.”
She definitely hasn’t told me everything.
Belladonna’s eyes narrow, and she takes a long time before she sinks into the chair opposite me, crossing one smooth leg over the other. “I assume there’s more to this lovely little get-together than a chance to exchange threats.” She drags Anissa down beside her, somewhat protectively. “You have my interest. Proceed.” And then she smiles. “Give me one good reason not to detonate the curse twined around your heart.”
“Simple.” I toss the half-eaten apple back on the plate and lean forward. “Two words: Malechus. Dead.”
“In a way that cannot lead back to you,” Soraya adds.
“I’m listening,” Belladonna purrs.
* * *
The plan is simple.
