Chapter 97: Trust Me, Said The Mask

Fourth floor. She counted the room numbers as she passed them. 408. 409. 410.

411.

412.

Double doors. Dark wood. Taller than the others she had passed and wider, the kind of doors that belonged on a room that mattered or used to matter. No light came from underneath. No sound came from inside.

Nova stood in front of them with one hand raised and the other pressed against the photograph inside her cloak.

Every rational part of her brain was yelling. Loudly. In unison. The list of reasons to turn around was long and persuasive: she was alone, unarmed, recovering from silver poisoning, wearing borrowed boots in a wing she had never been to, at midnight, because an anonymous envelope told her to come here. This was the opening scene of every cautionary tale she had ever heard and she was starring in it voluntarily.

She looked back down the hallway. Empty. Dark. The stairwell she had come from was fifty feet behind her. If she needed to run, she was wearing boots, which helped. But boots didn’t outrun wolves.

Her hand hovered over the handle.

In. Out. Five minutes. Shut it down. Leave.

She could hear her own heartbeat. That was never a good sign.

Nova Grey had been abducted, kissed by Derek Thunderfang, and had held a prince at swordpoint on sacred ground. She was not going to be scared of a door.

She pushed it open and walked in.

The room was dark. No lamps. No ivy glow. The only light came from a window on the far wall, open, letting in cold air and moonlight that cut across the stone floor in a pale stripe.

A figure stood beside it. Cloaked. Hooded. Back to her. Silhouetted against the snow falling outside like a painting of someone who wanted to be dramatic and was succeeding.

Nova’s pulse climbed. She kept her hand on the door.

"Who are you?"

The figure turned. Mask on. Full face. Black. No skin visible. The same kind of mask from the photographs in her cloak, or close enough that her stomach dropped.

When he spoke, the voice was wrong. A modifier turning his words into something genderless and flat and stripped of anything she could use to identify him.

"That does not concern you. You found the closet faster than I expected."

Nova’s blood chilled but she kept her face neutral.

"You sent the photographs. Why?"

"I sent you the truth. What you do with it is your decision."

"What do you want?"

"To help you."

"People who want to help don’t wear masks and use voice modifiers."

The figure tilted his head. The mask caught the moonlight. "People who want to help sometimes can’t be seen helping. Surely a girl who survived Starborne understands that."

Red flag. The mention of Starborne felt too personal here. She adjusted her footing without making it obvious, shifting her weight to her back foot so her first step could be towards the door.

"You were never in danger that night," the figure continued. "The abduction kept you alive. What was planned for you was worse."

"Planned by who?"

"That’s the right question. But it’s not why you’re here."

"Then tell me why I’m here."

"Because there are conversations happening about you right now in rooms you can’t enter. The outcome of those conversations affects me, Nova."

Nova’s stomach tightened.

"The people closest to you are not what they seem," the figure continued.

"That’s vague enough to apply to anyone."

"It’s meant to."

"Then it’s useless to me."

"Not everyone in that keep wants you alive. The ones who do are fighting a losing battle. I can change that. But I need you to trust me."

Another red flag. Trust was the ask. Trust was always the ask when someone wanted something he couldn’t take by force.

"Trust you," Nova repeated. "A stranger in a mask. In a dark room. On the opposite side of the keep from where I sleep. At midnight. After you slid an envelope under my door the moment Derek left."

The words assembled themselves as she said them and the picture it formed was the picture she should have seen before she left Derek’s room.

The figure didn’t respond.

"You knew he was gone," she continued, her voice steady even as her pulse climbed. "You waited for Tavian to pull him out. You have enough pull to remove the guards outside of Derek’s door, which means you are connected here in Thunderfang or know someone who is. You knew exactly when I would be alone and planned this."

Silence.

"And you put me here." She looked at the room. The double doors. The empty wing. The open window letting in cold air. "Opposite side of the keep. Fourth floor. The furthest point from Derek’s quarters. That was intentional. Why."

The figure did not answer. He took a step towards Nova. Nova took one back.

"I want no part of this." She turned for the door.

The handle didn’t move.

She tried again. Locked. The door had been open when she walked in. She had left it open. She was certain of it.

"Sit down, Nova." The modifier stripped the command of everything except its meaning. "This won’t take long."

She turned back to the figure. Her heart was hammering. Her hands were steady. The contrast between the two was a skill she had learned at Starborne and it was the only thing keeping her upright.

"Open the door."

"Not yet."

"Open the door or I will scream loud enough to wake this entire wing."

"No one will hear you. This room was chosen for a reason."

Nova looked at the figure. At the locked door. At the open window. At the distance between where she was standing and where he was standing.

Then she screamed anyway.

The figure moved at a speed that didn’t belong to a normal wolf. One second he was by the window. The next, a gloved hand was clamped over her mouth so hard her head snapped back against his chest.