Then the bond in my chest shutters, deadened until I can’t feel a thing.
Seems fitting, really, as I head back to my family and the fiancée I can’t stand. And I hope against hope that this turns out to be worth it, and that my real family forgives me at the end of it.
Chapter 32
Aster
“Are you sure about this?” Reva murmurs to me from beneath her thick hood. “You can still back out if you want to.”
I shake my own hooded head, swamped by the material and already sweating. “I’m sure.” I straighten my hood for the third time in as many minutes, ignoring the nerves bubbling up in my gut. I’ve tried my hardest to close off my side of the bond, so Reva’s not bombarded with emotions from all sides, but I’m not sure how effective I’ve been.
There are three of us striding up the steep hill toward the palace, while Torin and Kit follow a little way behind. All three of us are once again dressed in our thick robes and it’s hard going where we have to kick the thick material out of the way to take a full step.
The plan is ballsy, but fairly straightforward. Torin and Kit will head inside the palace, right into the belly of the beast itself. Torin will head to the king’s office to find any records of the labs or of the crew and destroy them, while Kit’s plan is to curse as much of the palace floors as he can reach. He wants to make it impossible for the king to tread a single step without stumbling into one.
All Kit and Torin have is to get in, do what they need to do, and get out. Both of them have details on the inside of the palaceand of the king’s private chambers, as well as his secretary’s office. All the information we have is thanks to Finch’s fan club here in the city and a particularly nasty invasion of spider demons last year, which meant that a lot of beast-borne people went into the palace on pest control duty. Surprisingly, the place isn’t filled with wards or other magical security measures and instead the king seems to be relying entirely on his massive crew of guards to protect the palace.
All the rest of us need to do is cause a large enough disturbance that neither Kit nor Torin get caught, while avoiding getting arrested ourselves. And, considering the sheer number of staff we’ve been informed work inside the palace, not to mention the guards that are stationed right around the wrought iron fence that’s twice my height, our job isn’t going to be easy.
I pull sachets of powder from my pocket and pass one over to her, having handed more to the others already. Inside is a little concoction I brewed up in our hotel bathroom last night. One quick puff into the face of anyone who approaches and they should grow befuddled.
That’s the hope, anyway. It’s something I’ve never even considered making before, and I’m praying to the godless skies that it works.
The palace is right at the top of a hill, looking down at a busy street, but up here the only people seem to be the palace staff, which eases some of the anxiety clawing at my chest.
“I’m having terrible visions of us blowing this stuff into their faces and nothing happening,” I mutter.
Reva reaches out and squeezes my hand before clasping both hands in front of her. “If that happens, then we pivot and do something else.”
“Like running away?”
She gives an exaggerated shrug. “It’ll distract them, at least.” Then, glancing around, she huffs a little groan. “Where’s Frannie got to? She was supposed to be on distraction duty too.”
Before I can answer, Finch is on the move, striding ahead of us and bowing to the closest guard. Then, keeping his body bent toward the ground, he starts talking fast.
Reva and I share a look. I thought we’d maybe take a minute to have a look around once we got up here, or at least catch our breaths. But Finch takes a step backward, blowing a handful of the powder into the two guards’ faces.
That’s our cue to move. Reva heads to the left while I go right, clutching my sachet of befuddlement powder in one sweaty palm. It’s the one time that not speaking the language has come in handy for me, and so I break into Valmorian jabbering and bowing at random intervals just like I spotted Finch doing.
The guards are all dressed in their head to toe burgundy garb that looks even hotter and more restrictive than my monk robes. One is tall with a ginger moustache and not a lot of hair on the top of his head, while the other is shorter than me with a shock of curly dark hair.
“What’s all this, then?” the moustached one asks.
“Seems like we’ve got an influx of monks. Did the king order something to be blessed or something?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see that Reva has a pair of guards equally enthralled. Over by the gates, Finch has plucked a long stick from his pocket and he’s... jabbing it through the air as though he’s fencing with it, much to the utter bemusement of the increasing crowd of guards trickling closer to the gates.
“What is going on?” the guard to my right mutters. “Is that a dried sausage he’s got in his hand?”
“Looks like it. Maybe they’ve come to extol the virtues of vegetarianism.”
“You can keep your fancy words to yourself. All I know is, Barry’s at risk of getting a smack around the ear with a very large, dried sausage.”
“You have bad energy all over this place. Let us cleanse it and be blessed,” Finch calls out, giving a thrust of his sausage with every few words.
Thanks to Finch’s antics, he’s already gathering a line of guards watching him in utter confusion. My two guards take another look at me before deciding I’m less of a threat and start to head over toward the gates.
The scent of cloves carries on the breeze, and I can feel in my chest that Torin is moving past us, heading for the palace while Kit is somewhere around the side of the building, searching for one of the staff entrances.
