Usually.
I edge across the thin lip of a window ledge and turn to face the wall, pressing my body flat against stone, tongue between my teeth as I reach out and feel around for the first divot. Easing my weight to the side, I stretch my foot toward another deep dent, feeling around for a second handhold—my entire weight now hanging on the sheer stone face.
I like this.
Concentration honed, I maneuver down the wall, listening to my body’s natural instincts, growing faster with every stealthy shift.
My confidence swells when I see the drainpipe almost within reach.
I stretch toward the next divot—
A bit of rock crumbles beneath my fingers, and I slip to the sound of cracking thunder, stomach tumbling, forced to use my foothold as a kick board to propel me sideways prematurely.
I fly, bag swinging, then smashing against my side as I collide with the drainpipe, latch onto it with both hands, and grip tight. Sliding three feet down the dewy surface, I notice the sentries don’t even glance up, and I smile despite my smarting shoulder, breathing hard, thanking the timely bout of thunder for its rowdy cover.
I look back, spotting the cart pulling onto the grounds, guided by a red-robed merchant sitting atop the box seat …
Didn’t consider him.
“Shit,” I mutter, scaling the drainpipe in slow, shuffling motions, hoping he doesn’t think to look at the palace wall where he’llabsolutelysee me undulating down the edge of it like a caterpillar.
Watching the sentries douse their pipes and move away from my landing spot, excitement bursts in my belly.
I jump the final few feet and land in the grass, drawing a deep, intoxicating breath, digging my toes into the soil. There’s only a brief moment of reprieve before I dart into the shadow of a bush, catching my breath as the cart rolls to a stop several paces ahead.
“Perfect timing,” I whisper, watching the sentries swarm it like flies, questioning the merchant, rioting through his produce.
I wait until their backs are turned before dashing across the cobbled courtyard, heart thumping, legs churning. Leaping into the thin line of shadow falling off the bridge’s ornate entry column, I slam my spine against the stone.
Relief empties my lungs.
Nobody saw me.
I look at the blocks of shadow cast across the bridge, holding my bag close to my body as I dart to the next, the next, the next—my heart thrashing with each catapulting sprint, until I finally rise over the midway point.
The bright city dawns before me like a sun punching above the gloomy horizon.
I spin, looking back at the palace poised on the island’s tip like a square set of teeth. “Wow!” I trace the path I just descended, landing on my lit suite. A smile ghosts my lips. “I just did that …”
A single taste of freedom has given me an insatiable hunger.
Not wanting the city folk to see me wandering down the bridge, I leap up onto the thick railing and swing over the side, dropping onto the massive pipe that threads beneath the structure.
Far beneath me, the ocean churns as I navigate the sloped path—heart in my throat, hands outstretched to keep my balance.
Waves smash against the bouldered shore. Fishermen perch in sheltered nooks with their lines cast, blazing lanterns and buckets with fish tails poking out by their feet. None of them look up while I traverse the pipe above their heads.
The slope threads through the stones, forcing me to clamber up and over the smooth, slippery rocks. I edge onto a footpath fringing the esplanade, standing in the block of shadow falling off the bridge’s imposing entrance.
Cap pulled down low enough to conceal half my face, I study the tall, compact buildings lit from above by an abundance of lofty street lamps, drawing my lungs full of mosaic scents.
Carts loaded with fish are pulled through the street by restless horses, perhaps eager for their stalls. A group of bronzed sailors wobble on unsteady feet, chortling out an off-key tune. A scantily clad woman prances through the crowd, twirling two short, flaming sticks while a man trails behind, cap in hand, collecting a clink of coins from applauding onlookers. Golden-haired couples wander through the throng, arm in arm, as if nothing can penetrate the bubble they’ve built around themselves.
The city ... it’s a special sort of monster, alive with a beat of its own. Never the same from one second to the next.
My gaze lands on a store that appears to be closed for the night, and my breath catches as I take in the sign hanging above the door:
Excitement flutters in my chest like a flight of butterflies.
