The Twice-Scorned Lady of Shadow (The Guild Codex: Unveiled #3)
Annette Marie
CHAPTER ONE
- ZAK -
Ten Years Ago
“It’s impossible, isn’t it?”
Sitting against the brick wall beside me, the girl clenched her hands into fists. The dim light from a streetlamp barely reached us in the dark alley, and her face was half in shadow, but I could still see the worried crease between her eyebrows.
“She’s gonna sell me to Bane,” she continued, sounding hopeless. I didn’t like it. I preferred it when she sounded brazen or sarcastic, or when she sometimes got that soft, sort of breathy note in her voice. “And he’s going to … what?”
“Feed you to a fae, probably,” I guessed.
She didn’t flinch. Instead, she studied me as though puzzling something out. I liked her eyes. Her blue-gray irises were so pale it was like I could see through them, but at the same time, they had this intensity that made it hard to hold her gaze. Her eyes suited her much better than her blond hair.
Faint sounds of conversation leaked from the building behind us. Inside, the girl’s aunt was probably cashing in. I’d overheard enough from Bane and the other regulars to know that Ruth sold expensive, rare poisons. Bane had complained more than once about her prices, even for raw ingredients.
Poisoning her wouldn’t be easy, but it seemed like the best option. And death by poison for an alchemist was nicely ironic.
“What if …” I hesitated, then threw out the question. “What if I could get you a poison with no antidote?”
The girl wrinkled her nose. “Where would you get that?”
Fear spiked in my chest at the plan I was proposing. “It’s one Bane doses himself with for his mithridatic training. I could steal it.”
Hope brightened the girl’s eyes. “Really?”
Could I steal from Bane? Accessing his poisons wasn’t a problem. Getting away with it was the issue.
Bane had trained me in everything I needed to become an evil bastard as unstoppable as he was. He’d hired the best dark-arts sorcery and alchemy tutors money could buy, and the rest he’d taught me himself: druidry skills, different forms of combat with and without weapons and magic, fae customs and culture, negotiation, manipulation, deception, and a hundred ways to kill.
I’d mastered everything he’d taught, but I was still no match for him. He had me beat in every druidry skill, and he knew almost as much about poisons as a master alchemist. Plus, he had a pack of vicious familiars at his beck and call. But the way he somehow knew what I was thinking or planning—that was what really scared me. He was always twenty steps ahead of me. I never caught him off guard. I never got away with anything.
I glanced at the girl. All that training, but I was completely out of my depth having a conversation with a girl my age. Not that this counted as a normal conversation. Either way, it was fucked up.
“What will happen to you if your aunt dies?” I asked.
She twitched her shoulders dismissively. “My parents are dead, and if I have other relatives, I don’t know them.”
So she was as alone as I was.
“Bane might try to take you anyway,” I warned her, “depending on how bad he wants you.”
Why he wanted her, I wasn’t sure. Grenior had told me she had faint spiritual energy, meaning she was probably a witch. It wouldn’t be the first time Bane had bartered a live witch to a dark fae as part of a deal, but I didn’t understand why he was so determined to get his hands on her. There had to be easier, cheaper options.
“So we have to kill them both.”
My attention snapped back to her.
She met my eyes, her gaze sharp. “Especially if you’re going to steal from him.”
We were back to that: killing Bane and whether I could do it. I let out a slow breath. Killing Ruth was barely a challenge—unless I was badly underestimating the alchemist. Bane, on the other hand …
Stealing from him scared me. The thought of trying to kill him stirred panic in my chest.
As though reading my mind, she asked, “What’s the biggest thing stopping you from killing him?”
My nerves twanged with paranoia. “His fae. They’re always there. Always watching my every move. He knows I’d murder him in a heartbeat, so he always has one shadowing me.”
She stiffened. “Even right now?”
“Not now. My familiars are keeping his away, but that won’t work if he’s nearby. He’d notice right away.”
I almost reached telepathically for Grenior but stopped myself. If Bane’s vargs had been close enough to hear our conversation, Grenior would have warned me.
The girl’s gaze drifted across the dark, damp alley. She tugged absently at the collar of her jacket. “If you could get past his fae without them noticing you, could you kill him?”
“Yeah,” I replied, even though “maybe” was a more realistic answer. “But it’s impossible to sneak past those fae.”
She pulled at her collar again. “Actually, you can. With the right magic.”
“What magic?”
“I have a … an artifact.” Her intense blue-gray eyes locked on mine. “It hides the person wearing it from fae senses. I could lend it to you.”