Page 25 of Prince of Masks (Hearts of Bluestone #2)

There is little I hate more than being woken up too early in the morning, but it is worse with an imp crouched over me in bed, its bony hands gripped onto my shoulders, giving me a solid rattle.

The imp croons over me, the tip of its pointed nose pressing into mine, “Witchdoctor here.”

I stare back at it, wide-eyed, and wonder if I am dreaming, or this ugly creature really is straddling me in my bed.

Then, speaking our human language as best as it can, which is better than most other imps ever manage, it parrots, “Witchdoctor. Here. You.”

It shakes me by the shoulders again.

A groan tugs through me.

I flap an arm to hit it off of me.

It goes tumbling to the floor. But those things always land on their feet, so I doubt it’s hurt.

I roll onto my side. “Coming. Minute.” Now I’m the one to speak as eloquently as an imp.

But the creature doesn’t let up.

It reaches over me to the blanket tugged up to my chin. The pinch of its grip is a mere breath of disturbed air tickling near my mouth before all the warmth is ripped off of me.

I curl up.

My teeth grit against the chill. “Light the fire.”

The imp snarls. “Not job.”

That’s true. Not exactly the imp’s job. Not one of its duties.

Imps are strict about that sort of thing, these unkindly creatures. Even if it was its duty to collect the firewood, stack the logs just right in the hearth, and strike a match—the imp wouldn’t toss the match, wouldn’t light the fire, because it isn’t paid to.

That’s where the tips come in.

My groan is ragged as, sluggish, I roll off the bed.

The hardwood floors are cool against the soles of my feet. But I don’t bother with socks or shoes, just a woollen jumper that I snatch off a chair on my way out, and the shorts and t-shirt I’m already wearing.

I tug on the sweater and make my way to Father’s office. The imp didn’t specify where to go, but it’s not hard to figure out, even while teetering on the edge of sleep.

Fatigue clings to me. It’s in the weighted drag of my feet as I push through the heavy door.

Father must have been in his office for a while this morning, some hours at least, because the fireplace is only simmering, but the heat swells in the room.

It’s an instant relief to the chill of my bones.

One thing about country houses in England is how fucking cold they get in winter. All the double glazing in the world doesn’t stop the draughts from creeping in somehow.

Behind me, the door shuts with a loud click.

Father looks up from his desk.

Slouched in his leather chair, the button tufted spine arches above his head as he turns his cheek to me.

I trace his gaze to the witchdoctor at the edge of the grand desk, hunched over an open metal case.

Even from this distance, the winks and glints of phials dance under the dim light, tucked into the foam of the case.

I rub at my eyes with the back of my hands.

Through a stifled yawn, I manage, “What?”

Just that. What ?

Really, what I mean to say is, what the hell is so important that you could so easily have me dragged from my warm toasty bed this morning ?

But to voice that verbatim to Father wouldn’t bode too well for me.

Father gestures to the armchairs that are angled to face his desk. “Sit down.”

My sigh is something bordering on a huff.

Still, I drag myself across the study, then flop down on the cold leather of an armchair. It creaks, and I hate it. That noise grates on me.

I twist my mouth to blow a puff of air at a strand falling in my face. It billows for a beat, then settles along my temple.

“It’s not even eight,” I complain with a glance at the clock.

Father says nothing. He watches as the witchdoctor draws away from the case.

In his hand, there is a syringe that grits my teeth. The sheer size of it, metal and medieval, and—fisted in his other hand—three empty phials.

“I’m not sick,” I say, and the yawn releases as I slump into the seat, then flop my arm over the side.

Witchdoctor Dolios only comes when someone is sick.

This one I have known since I was born, I suppose, since he delivered Oliver and me at Nonna’s home. He came all the way there the moment he received the urgent summons—and delivered us two weeks early.

Dolios is one of my father’s most trusted, and so he does it all, from my snot-nosed colds to Mother’s terrible births of haemorrhaging and near-death.

“If you are, this will tell me,” Witchdoctor Dolios says.

He places the phials on the side-table, then lightly backhands me on the arm. An unspoken signal that I’m to fist my hand and clench until my veins bulge.

I tug up the sleeve of my lumpy sweater first.

But as we wait for the veins to rise, I glance up at Father.

My eyes are puffy, lashes heavy, and I think there might be gunk clouding my sight, but still, I make him out just fine.

He is standing now.

His hands meet behind his back, his stance is tall and formal—so there is no room for argument—and he watches Dolios’s hands move from my arm to the syringe, then to a phial that he uncorks expertly in one hand.

“What’s this for?”

Father cuts his glare to me. “The formalities of engagements.”

The sleepiness of my brain is slow to make sense of it, a machine slowly chugging to life, an exhaust sputtering in the winter chill.

The formality of engagements…

Blood tests come with the territory of arranged marriages. My suitors must know of my chances of reproduction, my fertility percentage, any dormant sicknesses I carry, illnesses and disease in my bloodline, and then of course to ensure that I am a carrier of magic.

All very standard.

But I didn’t expect it.

Because I am not engaged to anyone, not even promised to or intended for.

At least, I didn’t think I was.

Eric flashes in my mind, his mouth hot on mine, his hand pushed up under my dress.

“I…” I blink the memory away. “Am I engaged?”

“Almost,” Father says, then returns his stare to the syringe that pushes into my vein.

I don’t look.

It’s best not to.

I feel the intrusion.

“Almost?” I echo. “To who? Since when? Is it Eric Harling?”

Lashes lower over emerald eyes. Father slides his stare to me. “Mr Harling had the happy chance to run into you in London, did he not?”

A few days ago, now.

I would shrug if it didn’t mean moving the syringe stabbed into my vein. Even the shift of it with the pressure of the phials changing over, that’s enough to grit my teeth.

“I saw him, yeah.” I keep a casual tone, disinterested, because the moment I show guilt is the moment I betray myself.

“Before you lie to me, Olivia,” Father says, and his voice is a weary sigh, “you might want to know that I have good reason to believe your meeting was arranged.”

A heartbeat shudders through my chest… then I just soften. The weariness deflates me.

And I speak an awful, dismissive thing, “So what?”

Father’s eyes flare.

That look glares at me for a long moment. Then, his dark tone growls out the words, a dangerous echo: “So what?” He enunciates the T .

A sigh is lured out of me, because I fucked up.

Blame the sleep, the disturbed rest, the morning mood because I haven’t had my coffees, or that I seem to be a prisoner who isn’t allowed to do anything but breathe without the warden’s permission.

Serena gets a phone, a car and a driver, she gets freedom—freedom I don’t have.

Asta is allowed it, too.

Why am I the only fucking aristos woman who’s on constant lockdown and supervision?

Why am I not allowed to just… go on a date?

“I am in the process of negotiating a proper arrangement for you,” Father tells me, his tone dark. “An aristos . Eric Harling is a substitute, a poor one. Even if I had to consider a gentry, I might prefer that you stay unwed, as opposed to lowering yourself to the likes of him.”

My tongue drags over my thinning lips.

I keep my gaze downcast.

“You risk the arrangement of this aristos,” he goes on, and out the corner of my eye, I see that he leans his fingertips on the edge of the desk. “You meet with a gentry, a fortune hunter, in public—and you ask so what ?”

Silence is my best friend right now.

I should have stayed quiet. I never should have dismissed him with a huff and a sigh.

It’s not how to get what I want.

“I will tell you so what , Olivia. You are in need relearning your place—and how your actions reflect on our family.”

The threat springs ice through my chest.

I lock my wide stare onto Father.

It doesn’t stop him from delivering on his threat.

His chin lifts, and he looks down his nose at me. “You will spend the rest of the week with the matriarch.”

I stare at him a moment.

I wait, on the edge of my seat, breath pinned to my chest; a syringe plunged into my vein, stealing my blood, a foreign pressure I can’t stand.

But the true threat is in Father’s next words.

I should ask, which matriarch ?

Nonna or Grandmother?

Dorotea or Ethel?

I pray that it’s Nonna.

I pray silently.

But prayer is pointless, and Father decides on my hell: “My mother might set you straight in ways that we cannot.”

My face falls.

I sink into the chair, defeated.

I turn my cheek to him.

I watch the witchdoctor clean the syringe and label my blood samples, but I don’t really see him.

All I see is Grandmother’s perfectly lovely face, twisted with sneers of hatred, the cane rising in her stern grip—

The sting of tears prickles my eyes.

I hate Grandmother Ethel. I hate her to my core.

“Pack a bag,” Father says. “You will stay until Friday morning. I will send Mr Younge to bring you home before we leave for Versailles.”

I will spend my last week before the Debutante Ball with the witch and her cane.

Sometimes, I wish I could just bite off my tongue to stop it from snarking, and then I would save myself all the trouble I get myself into.

If I had just stayed quiet…

A soft sigh deflates me.

Dolios fits the phials into foam slots that line the suitcase’s interior. One, two, three phials. But on the other side of the case, on the other black foam layer, another three are already slotted in place. All without labels but full of crimson blood.

I wonder how he won’t confuse the samples with mine. That’s a mix up waiting to happen.

The thought is quick to drift from my mind, because Father taps his fingertips on the edge of the desk. “Go.”

That one harshly spoken word is enough to force me up from the armchair.

Without a word, I leave Father’s office and return to my chamber to pack.