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“I don’t mind.”
“I sleep better this way.” She hated how much more natural the hard surface felt than a mattress did. And Numair didn’t argue with her, after that.
She turned off the room’s magelights and settled in, still wrapped in his coat. In the darkness the sounds of their breathing were amplified, and she knew he wasn’t any closer to sleep than she was, the air thick with two people thinking too much.
“Clare?”
“Hmm?”
She heard the rustle of sheets as he turned on his side, looked up to find him peering down at her in the moonlight. “She wasn’t wrong. You haven’t scratched the surface of my reputation.”
Which answered the question of whether or not he’d heard them talking. She wondered when he’d come in, if he’d even needed her to tell him where to find them the next night.
The moonlight seemed to intensify every aspect of his face—lines he was too young to bear, eyes too haunted by things he’d seen and done and rather wouldn’t have.
This was why she needed him. This was why he needed her. Because they were the same.
She half-rose, propping herself on her elbows, coming to the edge of that personal physical boundary neither of them crossed without permission and intention. “I know bad men, Numair. You aren’t one of them.”
Her statement went without response, dissolving into the silence of the room, for long enough that she lay back down.
“Why is it,” he said softly, “that you’re the only person who believes that?”
“I thought you knew by now—I’m smarter than everyone else.”
She stayed awake, until his breathing evened out and she knew he slept. As it turned out, the second prince of Faelhorn snored. It made her smile, for some reason, and she fell into an almost-peaceful sleep.
When the sun’s rays spilled through her window the next morning, the harsh glare waking her, he was gone.
Chapter Fifty-Five
In Want of a Public Disturbance
Clare spent another evening in Hightown, singing with the Fools, before slipping away to meet Alys outside the Megadari estate. It was another of those not terribly far from the Arrendons’ or Numair’s. The Duchy of Wake included Veralna City as part of its domain, so naturally the Megadaris had built their dwelling as close to the seat of ultimate power in the area as possible.
The primary difference between this estate and those other two was the large contingent of guards present on its grounds. When Clare had asked about it, Alys had helpfully pointed out that, “Everyone knows Numair is never home, and furthermore no one is willing to risk crossing Alaric by killing his favorite nephew. Especially when Numair has never engaged in politics. There’s no value in killing him.
“As for the Arrendons, people are occasionally stupid enough to try and kill them. They always die bloodily and painfully. Handling it personally like that—it reminds people that walking into the house of two diamond-ranked mages is a truly terrible idea.
“My family is neither politically unimportant nor are we mages. Hence, guards.”
So it was that Clare found herself slipping along the shadowed edges of the Megadari estate, recalling the mental map of the layout, and the guard schedule Alys had spent the last few days acquiring.
She climbed the exterior wall and slunk silently down the other side, the mottled brown-gray-green of her chosen breeches and coat doing well to blend her into the nighttime landscape. She reached the house without incident. Its facade had not been built with the ease of scaling its walls in mind, the stones laid flat and even and polished to a shine. So it was a good thing she found easily enough the hidden door Alys had said let into the kitchens, the door she swore her brother did not know about and therefore could not possibly have tied into the home’s wards.
She wondered if every large house had such hidden entrances. Despite Alys's certainty, Clare was still mildly surprised when she slipped inside the dark kitchen without incident.
I could have disabled the wards, the Song said, in what was perilously close to a grumble.
No, Clare answered, you couldn’t, because we need them to contact Alys later.
It did not say what Clare suspected, which was, I could put them back together, too.
She slipped through the kitchen, reciting memorized directions in her head in Alys's voice as she moved quietly through the house.
Left at the hall after the kitchens. Servants’ staircase three doorways down on the left, fourth, sixth, and eighth steps creak.
She continued following Alys's directions until she arrived onto a mezzanine floor, then moved down the east wing to the door at the end of the hallway on the right, which was not locked because why bother when the person inside it could be killed with a thought?
