kissed him, tasted rain and salt. Then she turned and fled toward the canal. The red handprint dripped down the wall.
Adam returned as they left the temple. Isyllt frowned at the grim lines of his expression, and Zhirin flinched.
“What’s wrong?” Isyllt asked in Selafaïn. Zhirin drew back to give them privacy.
“I found Xinai. She’s left us, left the job.” Left me, she read in the unhappy set of his shoulders. “She’s joined the rebels.”
“The Dai Tranh?”
“Looks that way. She warned me away from the festival.”
Isyllt’s eyes narrowed. “Lovely. So we’ll get a better show than masks and lanterns tonight. So much for our day off. We need to know this part of the city by tonight,” she said to Zhirin, repeating it in Assari after the girl gave her a blank stare.
As they followed Zhirin toward the far side of the plaza, Isyllt slowed and laid a hand on his arm.
“Are you all right?”
He shook his head, scattering raindrops. “Just stupid.” He tried to smile—or maybe it was a grimace. “I won’t let it interfere with the job.”
She nodded wry acknowledgment. “If you don’t want to go tonight, I understand.” He turned away from the sympathy in her voice.
“And let you get killed?”
“I can take care of myself.”
“You’ve forgotten the part where Kiril skins me if you get hurt. It’s the job—I’ve got your back.”
She smiled. “Good. I bought you a mask.”
Chapter 10
I’ll be half-blind in this thing,” Adam said, glaring at the mask in his hands.
Isyllt chuckled as she unwrapped her own costume. “But very menacing.”
He snorted, running a finger over the black molded leather. A jackal’s head, stylized like paintings of the ghulim that haunted the Assari deserts. Gold paint outlined wide slanted eyes and tall pointed ears.
“You pay me to be effective, not just menacing.”
“Tonight I’m paying you to be both.”
He looked the part at least, all in black, sleek northern clothes instead of the billowing southern styles. He’d make a charming counterpoint to her own white silk.
Her costume was simple, loose trousers and a long Sivahri coat that fit snug to the waist and belled from hip to calf. The fabric made it beautiful, rippling with lustrous rainbows, opalescent as moonlight and fog. The mask was white as well, a sharply pointed oval with slanting eyes and fur-lined ears. Her hair hung loose down her back and between the mask, the high-collared coat, and her soft white gloves, the only skin that showed was her eyelids.
The sky had deepened from ash to slate by the time she finished dressing, and already shouts and music drifted down the street. Zhirin waited for them in the front hall. Her mask was a simple domino, but the rest of her costume made up for it. Green and silver ribbons threaded her hair and iridescent scales gleamed on her skirt and vest. Blue-green malachite dust shimmered on her bare arms and throat, over the soft curve of her stomach.
When she saw Isyllt, the girl’s mouth gaped and she brushed a hand across her left eye in a warding gesture. “Lady…It suits you.”
“Thank you. I think.”
“Are you sure you want to stay, master?” Zhirin asked Vasilios as he walked them to the door.
“I’ll be fine. I’m getting too old for drunken revelry.” His limp was more pronounced and he rubbed his swollen hands. “And without Marat here to force meals on me, perhaps I’ll get some work done. Have fun. Be careful.” He patted Zhirin’s shoulder fondly and shooed them out.
The night was bright with music and lanterns, thick with the smell of wine and incense. A few mask-sellers still cried their wares, but nearly every face they passed was already covered. Herons and owls, lions and hounds, sea monsters and spirits, all dancing and laughing in the streets. The rain had paused, as if in encouragement, but clouds still rode the rooftops and Isyllt’s face was soon damp and sticky beneath her mask.
The guards were out in force as well; red uniforms marked nearly every street corner, stood like pillars adorning alleyways. None wore masks.
They followed the crowd toward the water plaza. Banners and garlands hung from roofs and bridges, and candles bobbed like fireflies in every canal. The crowd thickened when they reached the streets around the Floating Garden, till they couldn’t move without brushing arms and shoulders or tangling in someone’s costume.
“This is madness,” Adam said, their masks bumping as he leaned in. “We have to get out of this. If something happens—”