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Like the rest of the other men, I’d guess he’s around my age—a student, then—although with him it’s difficult to tell.
His gaze pierces into me through the holes in the deep brown leather of his mask. The material covers one side of his face from beneath the black waves of his hair along his forehead down to his jaw, but angles up around his mouth and across his nose so that only the area around his eye and forehead is concealed on the other side.
I’m not sure what to make of it. I’ve never seen anyone from any level of society make a sacrifice that would only affect the surface of their face and not its features.
Those who prefer not to offer more than skin tend toward arm and leg areas and leave the mark on display. Those who want a more significant sacrifice might give an ear or an eye.
Maybe he’s suffered some kind of injury too, though I doubt it was in battle.
Even with that much of his features disguised, it’s obvious from the tapered slope of his jaw and nose, the fullness of his lips and the brightness of his eyes, that he’s plenty handsome himself. Julita apparently prefers her allies to be appealing to the eye as well as stealthy.
The masked man’s lips purse tight in the moment before they part. His voice comes out cold and flat. “You’re not a student here. How did you even get into the college?”
I force a smile that I hope looks at least mildly reassuring. “She told me the week’s passcode and the way to open the secret passage to this room. And she lent me this.”
I hold up my arm. Julita’s bracelet gleams around my wrist.
The blond man props himself against the side of the desk, a hint of his smirk coming back to his equally fine face. While not as huge as Stavros, he’s obviously well-built—and knows it, from the way he carries himself.
He’s turned his formal shirt provocatively casual by leaving it unbuttoned halfway down his chest—revealing the godlen sigil branded over his sternum. He’s dedicated to Kosmel.
The overseer of luck and trickery is an unusual choice for a noble.
And he’s missing the lobes of his ears. Both of them, cut off in a smooth diagonal line from what must have been a dedication sacrifice.
He’s got some kind of gift, though probably not a very large one given the minor offering.
“How do we know you didn’t just steal the bracelet from her?” he asks breezily, as if he wouldn’t care much even if I had.
Oh, Benny.I can practically hear Julita rolling her eyes.Remind him that I outdrank him at the Blue Hart pub the first night we met.
I arch one eyebrow, channeling my noble passenger’s attitude for all I’m worth. “Could I have also stolen the story of how she drank you under the table at the Blue Hart when the two of you met?”
The blond man barks a laugh and claps his hands together. “I like this one. I say we keep her too.”
Julita snorts.As if it wasn’t me who herded the bunch of them together in the first place.
Stavros shoots the other man an unimpressed look. The underlying coolness of his voice sends a shiver down my spine despite his languid tone. “Keep your pants on, Benedikt. She hasn’t even told us her name.”
“Ivy,” I say promptly. “Ivy Euridya of Nikodi.” Julita assured me that none of her friends were familiar enough with her birthplace to have any idea of what other semi-prominent families live there.
“Ivy,” Stavros repeats, in a tone that suggests it’s the most ridiculous name he’s ever heard. Is there really no chance I can get away with stabbing him?
The tawny-haired man who’s said nothing so far comes around the side of the desk by Stavros. Every movement of his sleek body emanates a feline sort of grace that speaks of both strength and poise. But the soft smile he aims at me is the warmest gesture anyone here has offered so far.
The other men may all be striking, but this one is so gorgeous my breath catches despite my wariness.
A trace of magic tingles through me. Did he work a gift on me?
He turns his dark green eyes toward the military man. “I think we should listen to her. Julita wouldn’t have sent her if it wasn’t important.”
As he talks, I catch the glint of red and blue in the back of his mouth. I have to restrain my reaction before both my eyebrows shoot up.
He’s replaced at least a few of his molars with gemstone substitutes. Rubies and sapphires from the look of them.
Teeth aren’t an unusual dedication sacrifice, though I’ve heard they’re one of the more painful options, especially if you offer more than one. But usually only courtesans fill in the gaps with such eye-catching replacements, devoted as they are to beauty along with every other pleasure of the flesh.
It’s common enough that I’ve heard pliers of the carnal trade referred to sneeringly as “gaudy teeth” rather than their actual job title.
