Lila swallowed, made her voice as bland as she could.
“Is this your idea of a good time?” she asked. “Because I have notes.”
She half expected no one to answer. But for better or worse, the body stepped closer, and the blindfold came away, showering the room in merciful light.
Lila blinked, and looked around, surprised to discover she was no longer in the library. No longer in the Veil at all, judging by the lack of music whispering through the walls, the darker floors and grim décor, the window looking out not onto Helarin, but another street. The air was stale with dust. The room felt neglected. Unlived in. Abandoned. She was sitting in a wooden chair.
She dragged her attention to the shadow looming over her, who was now wrapping the black blindfold casually around his fist. His cuff links were silver, modeled into feathers. Her mind flickered, but her attention was already being pulled up, to his face.
The man who’d attacked her was no longer wearing a mask. A trimmed beard shadowed the bottom half of his face. His eyes were the dark blue-grey of storms at sea. She had the uncanny sensation that she knew him, and, at the same time, the certainty they’d never met.
“The host at the Veil was told to keep an eye out for certain people,” he said. “The Antari prince, for one. My brother. And you.”
Brother.
The knowledge lurched through her. The features fell into place, laid over a different face.
Her memory stuttered, and she was standing on a familiar ship, back when it was still named the Spire, as Alucard leaned his elbows on the rail, and spoke of the night his brother Berras beat him unconscious while their father watched. Of how he woke the next day, arm broken and ribs bruised, chained in the bottom of a ship.
This, then, was Berras Emery.
“Well,” said Lila, “it looks like your brother got the manners and the looks in the family.”
Berras sneered, and stepped closer, hand raised to strike, but as he did, Lila swung her legs up and kicked him, as hard as she could, in the stomach. It would have been a paltry move, if she’d been going for any damage, but luckily she wasn’t. As her boots connected with his front, she pushed backward. The force of it was enough to make the chair tip, and it went crashing to the floor, taking Lila with it. She rolled, and when she rose, her hands were no longer bound behind her, but in front, which was an improvement. She’d reached for a blade as she fell, but she’d been divested of them all, so her hands came up empty.
That was when she saw the gold.
Her hands were bound with rope, but beneath the rough cord, a gold cuff circled her left wrist. It had no beginning and no end, and was pressed flush with her skin, and before she could wonder at its meaning, Berras Emery raised his own hand, and a wall of wind slammed into Lila. The floor disappeared beneath her feet as she was flung back across the room and into the stone mantle of the hearth, all the air knocked from her lungs as she was pinned by the sheer force. A moment later, the wind died, and she stumbled forward, fighting to stay on her feet.
She didn’t understand.
Alucard had told her once that his brother was a weak magician, that he could barely cobble together a wall from rock and earth. Rock and earth, he’d said. Not wind.
If the room was warded, how was he using magic? And if it wasn’t warded, where was hers?
“Clever, isn’t it?”
An arc of flame curled through the air around Berras, unruly but bright.
First wind, thought Lila, now fire? How was he doing it?
“The queen should keep a closer eye over her tools. Or at least, over her company.”
Berras flexed his hand, and Lila had just enough time to see a glint of gold before Berras made a fist, and her entire body buckled under an unseen force. She hit the floor hard, but this time, there was no wind. She tried to move, but her limbs refused, her whole skeleton groaning as she pushed back against the hold.
Bone magic.
“I was planning to use the bind on my brother.”
She tried to will her body, to make it hers again, but this wasn’t one will at war against another. It was something else.
“I thought it would be fitting,” he went on, “to kill Alucard with his own power. But I could hardly pass up yours. After all, why have a piece of magic when you can have it all?”
Horror swept through Lila.
The gold cuff. The gold ring. Berras wasn’t using his magic. He was using hers. Channeling it.
“Of course, I’m not versed in Antari spells,” he said, “but that’s all right. You’ll teach them to me.”