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Vague details. Easy lies.
“Some family,” Gabriel muttered to the flames. He stood, went to sit on the couch. “Though, granted, I have no room to judge on that front.”
“What about you?” Lore asked, eager to turn the conversation away from herself. “How’d you fall in with the Presque Mort, after…”
“After my father betrayed August to the Kirythean Empire and gave them a stronghold directly on Auverraine’s border?” Gabriel’s voice was flat and inflectionless. “Anton found me. Told me it was my destiny to join the Presque Mort, to make something holy out of something terrible.”
He’d been ten. She remembered him saying so in the throne room. He’d been ten, newly orphaned and horribly injured, and Anton had twisted that into loyalty. Her distaste for the man grew teeth.
She didn’t ask Gabriel how it happened, but he continued as if she had. Sometimes all you needed was a sign that someone was listening. “My father pledged fealty to Kirythea when they approached the Balgian border. August had denied military help; all his extra troops were guarding the Burnt Isles.” A pause. “They still killed my father, though. The Kirytheans. Jax said a man who’d betray one country would easily betray another, then cut off my father’s head.” He made a rueful noise. “Jax was sixteen. Still a child, and already ruthless.”
“You were there?” Lore murmured. Then she shook her head. “I mean, of course you were there, since then he…”
She didn’t finish, and swallowed against sudden dryness in her throat. Gabriel Remaut had watched his father beheaded, and then the person who’d done it had plucked out his eye.
Gabriel nodded. In the dim light, she could almost see the vestiges of that scared boy in the scarred man. “I’m not sure why Jax let me live, to be honest. He wasn’t the Emperor yet, and killing us all certainly would’ve made his point about traitors. But he sent me back to Auverraine—in a bad state, certainly, but alive.” A shrug. “Anton found me soon after. I was inducted into the Presque Mort, then I stayed in the Northreach monastery—I could sense too much Mortem to make staying in Dellaire a possibility. Anton traveled back and forth as often as he could, to help me learn to block it from my mind. The plan was always for me to come here, when I was ready.” He made a rueful noise. “It took until after my Consecration.”
She thought of him in that room beneath the Church, telling her to make a barrier around her mind. It’s your head. It’d sounded like something he’d repeated to himself over and over, a lesson long-ingrained.
Lore leaned forward, fingers knotted. “So Jax spared you after killing your father,” she said. “And knowing that this court is full of assholes, I assume that only made them more suspicious of you.”
Gabriel stayed silent for long enough that Lore wondered if he’d decided dissecting his history for her was something he didn’t want to do after all.
“Sometimes,” he murmured finally, “I wish he’d just finished the job.”
A rustle outside, in the hall. Something slid through the crack beneath the door and the floor—a creamy white envelope.
Lore stood, her legs only slightly wine-loose, and picked it up. Remaut, read twirling golden script across the front. She ripped it open, read the letter inside, then brandished it at Gabriel. “It’s an invitation.”
He stood and crossed over to her, frowning. “To what?”
“A masquerade. Hosted by Bastian, in the throne room, at sunset.”
They stared at each other, wearing similar guarded expressions. “Well,” Lore said finally, “I am supposed to get close to him.”
Gabriel grumbled, then took the invitation, reading it for himself. “August hasn’t introduced you to court yet. How does he know we’re here?”
“He might’ve seen me coming into the Citadel,” Lore said, then quickly told Gabriel about spotting Bastian in the garden. She glossed over what he’d been doing there, thoughtful for his monkish sensibilities, but the way he rolled his eyes said he knew without her saying.
“Wonderful,” he muttered. “So your cover might be blown before you even begin.”
“Not necessarily.” The specter of a cell to wait in between raising villagers’ bodies loomed large in her mind still, the reality that would become hers if she couldn’t spy on Bastian. “I’m a good liar; if he asks about what we were doing this morning, I’ll say I had a night on the town and you had to escort me back.”
“I still don’t like that he knows you’re here. It means he’s paying more attention than August thinks. I knew us going to the Consecration was a bad idea.”
It was the closest she’d heard him come to naysaying Anton, and Lore assumed it was the closest he ever did.
Gabriel gave the invitation another once-over, then cast it on the couch. “And what are we supposed to wear to a masquerade?”
A light knock on the door. “Your Grace? I have a delivery. From His Majesty.”
“Gods, I hope it’s dinner,” Lore said, opening the door.
Not dinner. Instead, a rolling cart with two garment bags, hastily brought in by a slight serving girl who looked at Lore with wide, curious eyes. She ducked a curtsy and was gone before they could ask her any questions.
Lore unbuttoned one of the bags and peered inside. “Looks like clothes won’t be a problem.”
Gabriel groaned.
