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around,
to make her father proud and take her place in the Guild, was break
an oath to a stranger.
    As the long ride out of the inner city
continued, she sank into thought once more. Karl had been as vague
as the masked stranger. What kind of person had one wealthy man
willing to spend untold amounts of money to protect him and another
to see him dead?
    I’ll do anything for
Rocky. She was somewhat relieved to know
her agreement would protect him while he was imprisoned. It did not
quite seem like enough, but she trusted Karl to protect her friend
when she could not.
    Aveline focused on her numbed leg, on making
her father proud, on how incredible she would feel when she became
an assassin, on saving Rocky’s life … on anything except the
whisper in her mind warning her that something was wrong, if Karl
was asking her to break two sacred Guild rules.

Chapter Three
     
    “Your father should have burnt you at the
stake alongside your mother.”
    “Yes, Matilda,” Tiana replied stoically.
With her eyes on the floor, she dared not wince as the woman behind
her wrenched a brush through her tangled hair. Fingers laden with
expensive rings containing brilliant gemstones flashed by her face
as Matilda leaned forward to grasp another handful of wavy
hair.
    “I was not born to be a slave to a freak! My
father is the …”
    Tiana zoned out, accustomed to the lecture
that came whenever her stepmother had to help her prepare for a
ceremony. The events requiring her attendance were few and far
between, numbering four annually. Somehow, each one this year only
seemed to make Matilda angrier, and Tiana began to think her father
was souring on his wife of seven years. Matilda was too determined
to remain in the family for Tiana to understand what might have
happened. In front of her father, Matilda was sweet, doting, and
perfect.
    In private, her stepmother’s frustration had
recently exploded into an increase in violence and ranting.
Matilda’s usual resentment had taken on an unusual vehemence.
Tiana’s father never saw what happened in private, and she never
spoke a word of it to anyone except her brother.
    Tiana traced her fingertips along the scars
crisscrossing the soft skin of her inner forearm. Her latest cut
still stung, though not as much as her eye, which was rendered
black during another of Matilda’s temper tantrums. She was
accustomed to physical pain, too, to the blows and cuts and
bruises.
    Matilda flung the brush onto the vanity and
stomped towards the wardrobe, a flurry of anger and tinkling sounds
emanating from the bells on her slippers and layers of pearls sewn
into her gown. The heavy gold necklaces around her neck glimmered
with jewels, and even more gems had been braided into her hair.
    Tiana released her breath and peeked towards
her stepmother, a beautiful woman with pale skin and blue eyes. At
twenty five, she was closer to Tiana’s age of seventeen than to the
husband twenty years her senior.
    Matilda’s fingers trembled as she yanked a
gown from the wardrobe. She studied the different lengths of silk
before selecting a veil featuring fantastical animals Tiana had
embroidered into the silk. Her nose was red, a sign she had been
using the medication she stashed in Tiana’s room so no one else
would find it.
    Warmth bloomed within Tiana. As miserable as
Matilda made her, she could find only pity for the woman who had
dealt with her and her father for so many years. To be a member of
this family was to wield great power – and to be confined by it as
well. That Matilda had learned a slave’s duty of dressing her was
more than Tiana’s previous two stepmothers had done for her.
    “Do not look at me with those ghoulish
eyes!” Matilda snapped. “One could never guess your mother’s family
bred with those creatures. Your father burnt every last Webster in
the city after he saw your crippled little body, and rightly so.
”
    Everyone but my brother and
me, Tiana corrected her silently and
returned