Page 32 of Thief of Souls
I need to find out.
Night is the time I come alive. There is nothing more than shadows here, and they’re my home. I Sift toward the Lady Anissa’s rooms, flickering into being on one rooftop and then the next, until I’m sitting on her window ledge. There’s no one inside her rooms. I can tell when a room is empty, and so I dart along the ledge, leaping from window to window with effortless grace until I fetch up alongside the window that leads to the rooms Soraya was using.
I pick the lock and ease the window open. A second later, I’m inside.
Maybe it’s being in the Court of Blood, but I feel uneasy as I enter. A shiver runs over my skin, lifting all the tiny hairs on my body. Over the years, I’ve learned to listen to my instincts and they’re all telling me to run, but a swift visual inspection reveals no sign of a trap.
And I have the shadows if I need them.
Servants’ chambers are small and tidy, in general, but the sheets on the bed are rumpled. A trunk rests at the foot of the bed, clothes hastily strewn inside it and the lid slammed shut, with half a gown sticking out.
My sister is organized. Tidy. Not like me. Every morning she folds her clothes and makes her bed, until you’d barely know she’s even been in the room.
Something happened to prevent that.
I examine the trunk again.
Did someone search it?
I squat down to examine the lock, and that’s when I see a splash of something dark on the floor.
Blood.
It’s long dried, and as I lean down, I can see where someone’s mopped up more of it. The patch of floor in this corner is suspiciously clean, whereas hints of grime beckon along the rail that dissects the floor from the wall. They missed this one fleck.
Maybe it’s a whisper of sound or a glint of light beneath the door, but my senses suddenly scream at me.
I punch into shadows, hovering on the edge of form just as the door explodes open. There’s a knife in each hand.
Two shadowy figures sweep inside, garbed in cloaks. Women, I think.
One of them gestures with a hand—definitely a woman from those elegant fingers—and bloodied orbs of glowing light follow her around the room.
It’s the pretty blonde from the ballroom. The one who floated in the Lord of Mistmark’s arms.
Belladonna of the Blood Court.
The Blood Lily, they call her.
She lowers her scarlet hood, and I finally get a good look at her face. It’s like seeing her sister, Narcissa, in the flesh again. There’s an insolent curl to her painted red lips, and her blonde hair tumbles in elegant curls around her face.
“What is it?” whispers the ethereal brunette who follows on her heels. Lady Anissa.
Ah, so they’re friends or allies, or… working together either way.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Belladonna whispers. “Don’t you know who I am? I can burn the blood in your veins, little thief. And I know you’re here.”
I press my spine to the bed and stay still, barely feeling my heart beat.
Belladonna sweeps closer, her angry red orb floating over her shoulder hungrily. “That tugging feeling you can sense on your skin? It’s a ward layered over the window. You tripped it the second you entered.”
Curse it. Iknewsomething was wrong.
And I let my desperation to find my sister distract me.
“Do you think it’s the kidnapper?” Anissa whispers.
Belladonna cuts a sharp hand in her direction, which is interesting.
