Nephrine Manor sat perched on one of the only hills in the capital, looking down over the merchant district. There were rumours that beneath all of the hills that interrupted the sprawling cityscape, each home to a different noble family, were warrens of tunnels connecting the mansions atop them to the rest of the city, likely as escape routes for the nobles who lived there. In the case of Lady Nephrine’s residence, it also would have made the perfect hub for smuggling. By Yorick’s estimation, it was likely exactly that.
He and Eden had been watching the comings and goings for two days now, and they’d seen nothing of note. They had seen just one glimpse of Lady Nephrine herself, returning in a carriage from an unknown engagement. The only thing they’d learned was that Lady Nephrine was throwing a ball in honour of the city’s bicentennial– the first celebration of many to happen over the next few months across the city’s noble district. They weren’t invited, but Yorick and Eden agreed that it would likely provide the best cover for them to access the manor, and also that Lady Nephrine would be distracted. Eden’s star map had apparently held good omens for the day, and they were now slowly making their way up the hill towards the manor, having just cleared the gate at the bottom.
“I just don’t know what he meant,” Eden whispered as they passed through a small orchard. Yorick knew immediately that she was talking about Laszlo’s reading; she’d spoken of little else during their stake-out.
“Maybe he could tell you’re from the astral plane.” This revelation had come more recently than Yorick would have liked, but he supposed they were still building that trust they’d talked about.
But Eden shook her head. “I genuinely don’t think that was it. He made it sound like I was in on something. But I’m not, I swear.”
Yorick did believe her– no matter how much scrutiny he applied, he sensed no deception. But somehow, that made it worse in his mind. If Laszlo knew or saw something about her that she didn’t know herself, what did that say about her? He didn’t like having so many unknown variables.
They snuck over the gate separating the orchard from what looked like a kitchen garden, ducking behind a row of raised beds just in time to avoid being spotted by a servant harvesting some herbs. Once the coast was clear, they crept along the garden wall to the side of the manor itself, diverting away from the busy kitchen and along the outside instead, careful to keep to the bushes lining the exterior so they wouldn’t be spotted by anyone looking up the hill at the house the way they had been doing.
The first few windows they came to looked into areas that would either be too busy during the ball– the kitchens, the storeroom, the ballroom itself– or too risky, like the guardroom. As they passed below the open window to this last room, they heard two guards speaking to one another just inside, and they ducked down beneath the sill to eavesdrop.
After a lengthy discussion about what was for lunch– mutton stew, apparently, much to one guard’s chagrin and the other’s delight– their voices drifted away as if they had left the room.
“Let’s go,” Eden said, standing and lifting herself up onto the windowsill in one fluid movement. Yorick barely had time to understand what she was doing before she had disappeared inside. He tried to reach for her to stop her but just closed his hands around empty air instead.
What was she thinking? They had no idea if those guards had been alone in the room or where they had gone. She hadn’t even run the idea past him first, just gone charging in without thinking. Had she forgotten that she could literally turn into an animal? Had she not thought about it at all?
If this was how she was on a mission, her reading was no mystery to him. She was a liability.
But he couldn’t very well let her go in on her own, could he? So he looked around quickly and, seeing no one observing the window, stood to follow her. Only, it seemed he couldn’t quite reach the sill. The bushes were too thin and scraggly to use for leverage, and there were no rocks nearby he could move into place.
He was just considering whether he should expend some magic to enlarge himself so he could reach when Eden’s hand appeared, extending down towards him. He sighed and rolled his eyes, then took it and allowed himself to be pulled up into the window.
As his feet found purchase on the ledge, he looked around the room. The guards had not been alone, it seemed, or one of them had come back. Because at some point between leaving Yorick and reaching out for him, Eden had drawn her bow. And now, slumped against the wall just inside the door, Eden’s arrow piercing his eye, was one of the guards.
Chapter21
Amy
Icould feel tears pricking at my eyes. Was it normal for roleplay to feel so… personal? So real? The last thing I needed was to be airing my secrets to my friends and my brother in a thinly veiled exchange between fictional characters, and anyway, I wouldn’t have thought it necessary considering where Phil and I had left things earlier. But maybe I was playing the fool yet again.
After I’d defended myself against the guard who had surprised me, and who was about to raise the alarm, I’d gotten an earful from Phil. As Yorick, of course, though it felt more personal than that. I was reckless. Thoughtless. Behaving rashly. And I got the message: he wanted me to back off and let him call the shots, both in game and out of it.
(I wondered when I’d started thinking of Eden as a part of me. Maybe when my in-character arguments had started to feel real?)
I excused myself from the table immediately after we finished, heading to the bedroom Phil and I were meant to share. It was the superking, but we hadn’t unzipped the bed when we’d arrived and changed for the session, and even after how he’d acted at the festival, some part of me had stupidly taken that as an indication of what was to come.
It turned out a one-bed trope still caught me off guard, even when I’d been expecting it.
I pulled all the pillows and sheets off the massive bed and started looking for how to separate it, almost tripping over Phil’s suitcase, which he’d left discarded on the floor on what I presumed he thought was his side. I stubbed my big toe hard on the wheel and let out a gasp of pain as I fell to the bed.
I grasped my toe as I sat on the mattress, clenching my teeth as the sharp pain radiated through my entire foot. It was the last straw apparently, as a tear finally spilled down my cheek and stung my jaw where it was still red from Phil’s beard earlier. I used my free hand to lift the hem of the knee-length T-shirt I was wearing as pyjamas to dry my tears.
The door clicked open, and Phil walked in slowly, shutting the door behind him again.
“What happened?” he asked, a crease of concern appearing between his brows as he took in my hunched position, my hands in a death grip on my foot as I tried to control the searing pain in my toe.
“Just your baggage getting in my way,” I said, clenching my jaw as I held back more tears. I was done showing Phil how much I cared what he had to say. “What a novel experience.”
He let out a sigh that sounded as exasperated as it did pained. His eyes roamed from me to the bed behind me, landing on the pile of sheets and pillows half off the bed.
“We can share a fucking superking, Amy,” he said. “You could build a wall between us if you’d like, and we’d still have plenty of room.”
He bent down to toss it all back onto the bed, but as he bent in front of me, he must have noticed for the first time that I was crying. He put a hand on my knee as he crouched in front of me, and I brushed it off.
