The heavy velvet of the masque gown slipped through my fingers, pooling like dark blood over the scarred oak of my cutting table. I kept my back to the wall, refusing to sit where the antlered lamps could cast my shadow blindly into the room. Outside the hunting lodge, the border mistlands were boiling into a storm. Wind hammered the thick glass of the windows, rattling the leaded panes.
I ran my measuring tape over my own wrist, a nervous habit I could not seem to break, checking the circumference of a seam only I could feel. I needed to finish this commission for the Glass Court. If I kept my head down, if I stitched the pearls and layered the silk, perhaps the ember clergy would forget I was here. But the rumors of the failed ember-rite harvest had already reached the lodge, carried by panicked villagers and tight-lipped couriers. The clergy, led by the icy devotion of Isolde Harrow, wanted a public confession to balance the scales. They always needed a face for the penance. My stomach tightened. Years ago, I had been the face they used to cover a noble’s theft. I had barely survived the partial confession that drove me into exile.
A sudden, sharp scratching tore through the howl of the wind.
I froze, the needle slipping and pricking my thumb. The scratching came again—frantic, tearing against the wooden shutters of the eastern window.
I set the velvet down and approached the glass. Through the driving rain, a dark shape battered itself against the sill. A falcon. It was not one of the wild hawks native to the mistlands, but a palace-bred messenger, its leather jesses tangled in its own desperate claws.
I threw the latch and hauled the window open. The storm blasted into the great room, extinguishing two of the wall sconces and sending my pattern papers flying. The falcon tumbled onto the floorboards in a heap of soaked feathers. I slammed the window shut, leaning my weight against the wood until the iron latch clicked into place.
The bird shook itself, letting out a pitiful screech. Tied to its leg was not the standard parchment tube of a masque commission, but a heavy, wax-sealed leather pouch.
I knelt, murmuring a soft apology as I detached the pouch. The falcon immediately hopped toward the hearth, seeking the dying warmth of the fire.
My fingers trembled as I turned the pouch over. Pressed into the black wax was the unmistakable sigil of the Glass Court treasury.
The court had not forgotten me.
I broke the seal. Inside was a smaller, iron-banded coffer—a treasury lockbox used exclusively for ember tithes. Tucked beneath it was a stiff parchment summons. I unrolled it, my eyes scanning the severe, angular script.
It was an order for an immediate, overnight audit of the hunting lodge’s ember tithe, naming me, Yara Pereira, as the responsible measure-keeper.
Panic, cold and absolute, washed over me. I reached into my apron pocket, my fingers brushing the tiny bundle of scorched thread-ends I kept there—my private graveyard of past mistakes. I shoved it deeper, hiding it away. The fantasy that I could simply stitch costumes and fade into the mist shattered. They were coming for me.
Before I could even process how to hide the records, the heavy oak doors of the great room groaned.
I spun around as the doors swung inward, letting in a violent swirl of fog and rain. Two figures stamped into the entryway.
The first was Corin Vale, the lodge’s hunter-warden. He looked thoroughly miserable, his thick wool cloak heavy with water, his fingers nervously working a small carved bone whistle.
“Bloody skies out there, Yara,” Corin said, shaking his head. He gestured to the man stepping out of the shadows behind him. “I found him on the ridge road. He insisted on pushing through the mudslide.”
The second man pulled back his sodden hood.
My breath caught in my throat.
Rafael Morrow stood in my great room, water dripping from his dark hair onto the collar of his travel coat. He looked older than he had at the Glass Court, his jaw set in the same rigid lines, his dark eyes categorizing the room in a single, sweeping glance. He carried a branded audit ledger under one arm, shielding it from the damp with his body.
“Morrow,” I whispered, the name tasting like ash.
Rafael’s gaze snapped to me. For a fraction of a second, something flickered in his rigid posture—a microscopic hesitation—before his face hardened into the familiar mask of an incorruptible treasury official.
“Pereira,” he said, his voice flat and precise. He stepped fully into the light, his boots leaving wet tracks on the stone. “I see the messenger arrived before me.”
“You have no jurisdiction here,” I said, my voice rising. “I am a costumer. I keep the local records as a formality.”
“The local records correspond to a failed harvest,” Rafael said, walking toward the large oak dining table. He set his ledger down and immediately began straightening the edges, aligning it perfectly with the grain of the wood. “The clergy requires a strict accounting. I was dispatched to ensure the numbers are not… clouded.”
I felt my face heat. It was Rafael’s investigation years ago that had laid the groundwork for my disgrace. He had found the stolen ash-weight in my gown. He had let the clergy tear me apart to keep his ledgers balanced.
“Clouded,” I repeated, stepping toward him. “Is that what you call it when you need a scapegoat for Lord Asteron’s excess?”
Rafael’s jaw tightened. He reached for his left hand, his thumb unconsciously rubbing the ink-stained signet ring on his index finger. “I call it an audit, Pereira. I am here for the ember tithe.”
Corin stepped between us, holding up his hands. “Let’s all take a breath. The storm has the roads washed out. No one is going anywhere tonight. I’ll take the horses to the stables and fetch some dry wood.” He shot me a warning look, a plea to keep my temper, before turning to Rafael. “My lord, the lodge is yours. But go easy. The harvest failed because the land is exhausted, not because of the people here.”
“The ledgers will tell me why it failed, Vale,” Rafael said without looking at him.
Corin sighed, turning on his heel and slipping back out into the tempest. The heavy doors shut, leaving Rafael and me entirely alone in the cavernous, drafty room.
“Bring me the coffer,” Rafael commanded softly.
“You cannot do this,” I said, my voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “If you find a discrepancy, Isolde Harrow will demand a confession. You know what they do to people on those steps.”
“I know that the law requires balance,” Rafael said, meeting my eyes. His dark stare was unyielding, yet there was a tension in his shoulders that had not been there years ago. “Hand over the coffer, Yara. And your ledgers. Now.”
I hated him in that moment. I hated the perfect lines of his coat, the unbending certainty in his posture, the way he made me feel like a criminal in my own sanctuary. Gritting my teeth, I walked to the window seat, picked up the iron-banded coffer, and carried it to the table. I slammed it down in front of him, then marched to my desk to retrieve my leather-bound tally books.
When I returned, I tossed the books onto the table. They slid, misaligning his perfect arrangement.
Rafael stared at the books, his lips pressing into a thin line. He reached into his coat and produced three small, brass-caged lanterns. Ember-oil truth lamps.
My stomach dropped.
Without a word, Rafael moved to the center of the room. He reached up and hung the three lamps from the lowest tines of the antler chandelier hanging over the table. He struck a match, lighting each one. The flames flared a brilliant, steady gold, casting our faces in sharp relief.
“By the edict of the ember clergy,” Rafael said, his voice taking on the formal, rhythmic cadence of the court, “I open this audit. Should any discrepancy be found, the responsible party will be remanded to the clergy for public confession.”
“You are a monster,” I whispered.
The lamps above us flared brighter. The magic tasted the truth in my words and fed on it.
Rafael paused, his hand hovering over the lockbox. He looked up at the golden light, then back to me. “I am an auditor. And we are going to count.”
He broke the seal on the coffer and unlocked the iron clasp. Inside, resting in velvet grooves, were the heavy, crystalline ash-weights that represented the mistland’s tithe.
“Call the tally,” Rafael instructed, opening my ledger.
I stepped closer to the table, the heat of the truth lamps pressing against my skin. “Fifty weights of raw ember ash. Verified at the dark of the moon.”
Rafael began pulling the weights from the coffer, lining them up in perfect rows of ten. I watched his hands. They were elegant, ink-stained, moving with a terrifying efficiency. He counted under his breath, his lips barely moving.
“…thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty.” He started the last row. “Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three, forty-four, forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight… forty-nine.”
His hand stopped.
The velvet groove at the end of the box was empty.
Silence stretched between us, thick and suffocating, broken only by the wind rattling the shutters.
“Forty-nine,” Rafael repeated quietly. He looked up at me. “One ash-weight is missing.”
“No,” I said, panic spiking through my chest. I rushed to the table, my hands hovering over the glass weights. “That’s impossible. I packed the coffer myself. I counted them three times.”
Above us, the truth lamps suddenly guttered, the golden light dimming into a sickly, flickering orange. Shadows leaped across the walls.
Rafael stepped back, his hand dropping to the hilt of the small dagger at his belt. “The lamps disagree, Pereira.”
“I am not lying!” I shouted, stepping toward him. “I sealed fifty weights into that box!”
The lamps dimmed further, casting us in near darkness.
“Stop,” Rafael warned, his voice tight. “Every false word feeds the shadow. Do you want to drain the wards completely?”
“I didn’t steal it, Rafael!”
He flinched at the use of his first name. He stared at me, his chest rising and falling in a slow, controlled rhythm. Then, he reached into his coat and pulled out a heavy iron key, etched with the glowing runes of the palace ward-smiths.
“Until the missing weight is accounted for,” Rafael said, his tone turning hollow, “you are the primary suspect. I will not let you flee.”
He walked to the great oak doors. He inserted the key into the central lock and turned it. A heavy, resonant click echoed through the room. Blue light flared along the doorframes, sealing the lodge in a web of impenetrable ward-magic.
“The wards are locked,” Rafael said, turning back to face me. The dim orange light of the truth lamps painted him in harsh angles. “No one leaves. No one enters.”
I stared at the glowing door, the reality of the trap closing around my throat. The storm outside was nothing compared to the suffocating pressure in the room.
“By dawn,” Rafael said softly, stepping back into the flickering light, “either the missing ash-weight is on this table, or you will stand in the confession square.”
I looked from the empty velvet groove to the dimming lamps, and finally to Rafael’s unyielding eyes. There was no one else in the lodge. There was no one left to blame. If I could not find the truth, the only person left to destroy was me—or him.