widening, but Ana threw her Affinity around him and tightened her grasp on his blood. Tetsyev made a choking sound, his eyes seeking out her shadow in the night.
“Do you feel that?” Ana gave another sharp tug on his blood, making sure to keep her face tilted away from the light. Tetsyev groaned. “That’s just a taste of what I can do to you. Now follow me quietly, and you’ll live.”
Her heart raced as she led him through the glass doors into the banquet hall, her Affinity tight as a noose around his neck. She walked a half dozen steps in front of him, but she could almost see his figure outlined in her mind in blood. He trailed her like a ghost, his hands clasped tightly, his steps in tune to hers.
The huge brass clock in the middle of the banquet hall struck twenty-five past nine when they slipped from the ball into the maze of corridors in Kerlan’s mansion. Ana recited the directions Ramson had drilled into her—second left, first right, fifth left—and the map he’d forced her to memorize until she could find her way in her sleep.
The halls were eerily empty, and as they walked, the winding set of hallways grew narrower, the bare floors no longer covered in exotic carpeting. The expensive décor faded to plain marble, and walls became barren. An air of neglect hung in this section of the mansion, infused with an unnatural stillness that made her feel as though they were trespassing in forbidden territory.
When Ana swept the area with her Affinity, there was not a single guard or servant around. A feeling of unease crept up on her as they made their last turn and found themselves in front of a dead end of a passageway. An ordinary oakwood door stood before them, a round brass handle polished.
Taking a deep breath, Ana grasped the handle and began to turn it. Two circles clockwise, five counterclockwise, then three clockwise again. Ramson’s voice seemed to whisper by her ear, and she felt the ghost of his touch as he guided her hands through the motions. Then push.
A clacking and whirring sound almost made her jump. It came from within the door, like a series of gears grinding open. Ana threw her weight against the door and pushed.
It ground open inch by inch, and she realized that despite its appearance, this was no ordinary door. It was thicker than the length of her forearm, and as it swung open into the light, she saw the glittering black material on the other side, and felt coldness and a sense of weakness drape over her like a suffocating cloak. Blackstone.
A dark smear stretched from the stones at the tips of her shoes to the stone steps leading into darkness, as though someone had dragged a long brushstroke of ink from here to the depths below. Blood, her Affinity screamed.
“In here,” she instructed Tetsyev, and quietly, he began his descent. Ana grabbed the nearest torch from its sconce and Tetsyev drifted past her in the darkness, the white of his cloak reflecting her torchlight. Ana closed the door behind her and followed the alchemist. At the bottom of the stairs was a small room, the walls made of rough-hewn stone. A distinct set of chains stretched like a grotesque vine along the walls, and to the right of the chamber, a corridor led on into darkness.
Ana threw her shoulders back. After all this time, the man she had been searching for stood before her.
Tetsyev faced the tunnel stretching beyond the chamber, his back to her. He was so still he might have been made of stone. Ana remembered this very same outline, carved in monochrome by the bone-white moon, standing over her father’s deathbed.
“Turn around,” she said.
He did, slowly. His frightened gray eyes fell on her as she carefully set the torch in a sconce on the wall. “Do you recognize me?”
Beneath the flickering torchlight, Tetsyev seemed to tremble as he answered. “No.”
Anger stirred in Ana, white-hot. She unlaced the ribbons of her mask and slid it off her face. “Do I look familiar now, mesyr Tetsyev?”
Tetsyev’s eyes widened as they swept across her face, taking in her eyes, her nose, the shape of her mouth. “Kolst Pryntsessa Anastacya,” he whispered.
“I lost that title.” It was difficult to keep the snarl out of her voice. “In fact, I’ve lost everything. And you’re the reason for it all.” Her voice shook, and the wall she