Page 38 of Prince of Masks
8
The servants lugged my bags down to the car a half-hour ago, and I’m just now ready to leave.
The clutch in my grip glitters under the dim light of the corridor, winking in my eyes as I fish around under the flap for my earbuds. The cool touch of the case is a kiss to my palm—and I loosen a breath of relief that I have them with me.
Ever feel like you have packed and dressed and packed again, then checked everything a hundred times over, just to feel like there’s something still missing? Something overlooked.
Those nerves gnash at my insides.
Maybe it’s just that I’ll be seeing Dray today, that the anxiety gnawing at me from the core of my bones all the way out to the prickled texture of my flesh, is for him—and not because I have forgotten anything at all.
So I fish around the clutch once more, feeling the MP3 player, the earbuds, the lip-gloss, a narrow container of perfume, a small pocket-sized book that takes up most of the space in the bag, my black card—and that is everything.
Still, I can’t shake the nerves as I clasp the clutch, then turn the corner onto the long landing that overlooks the foyer.
Mother and Father stand at the top of the stairs, just down the way, but they don’t wait for me, like I first think when I spot them there, loitering.
I frown as I advance on them, the short heels of my loafers muffled by the runner rug.
Father’s head is bowed, his mouth moving with a murmur. His voice is a deep hum that reaches me along the landing, “He was adamant, Vittoria. It is to be done by their witchdoctor.”
My steps slow.
My hands still on the clutch, the metal ring for a handle hooked around my middle finger.
“Then we do what we have always done,” Mother’s whisper is hushed, but not so gentle, it is urgent. “And if we can’t, we will pay whatever price we must. There is always a price.”
A frown cuts into my face.
I wonder if this might be something to do with Harold Sinclair.
Dinner the other night had him and Father in something of a shared spoiled mood, but not one they simmered in together, rather one that seemed to wedge between them. The farewells as we parted into our respective cars were frosty between the two old friends.
I didn’t think much of it at the time, since it happens here and there, the cost of business, of empires joined at the seams.
Still, my curiosity has prickled.
My steps slow some more, until they are intentionally soft and gradual, and I stick to the further wall of the landing.
Father shakes his head, then turns to look down the staircase. “I have ill thoughts about it. The risks… The risks are too great.”
I look down to the foyer.
Nothing and no one there.
Servants will be preparing the car outside in the driveway, and Oliver is due here any moment since he isn’t here already.
I feel the slightest tug of relief that I’m not the only latecomer this morning.
Mother’s hissed whisper softens with doubt, with…fear, “There are risks if we do not get control of this. It must be done by ours, or we pay off his.”
Father’s breath deflates his shoulders. Still, his gaze is aimed down at the foyer—and it takes me a moment to realise that he’s staring at the fireplace arched up the wall.
No fire burning in that hearth. It’s clean, soot-free, and scrubbed to its natural grey limestone.
Above it, the family portrait—a painting that took months of sitting for—is latched onto the wall. Father and Mother sit, Oliver and I stand.
“If he doesn’t realise before,” Father says, soft, “or in the tests, there will come a time he does. And then what?”
