“It’s their job to be sneaky,” she concluded.
“Technically,” Thom said and pointed to Ethenn, “it’s his job to sit in a tree waiting for a deer to pop its antlers into view.”
“Which requires copious amounts of stealth,” Evylin noted. She swept her arm in the direction of Vayden, Ethenn, and Rafferty. “Letthemfigure out our way in.”
The three men exchanged looks, though they didn’t appear opposed to the idea.
Deckard grinned at Evylin. “Seems you’re onto something there,” he said and turned to the men. “All right. If you were going to plan this mission, how would you do it?”
A long silence passed as the trio considered the task.
Ethenn spoke first. “We can assume Blount will be in the throne room,” he said thoughtfully. “Where else would you set up your new reign?”
“I do my best plotting in the loo,” Rafferty said. “And I bet the royal facilities are quite posh.”
Vayden chuckled but shook his head. “Blount is a narcissist. I should know; I had to impersonate him.”
“And you did such a splendid job, love,” Isla teased.
“Thank you, darling.” Vayden brushed a hand under his chin, eyes shifting toward the palace. “Ethenn is right. If Blount is in the palace, he’ll want to be on the throne, making judgments. Which gives us a goal.”
“We’ve been to the throne room before,” Ethenn said. “I think I could lead us there.”
Vayden turned to Ilain. “You lived in the palace for weeks. And you said that Carlile taught you about its secret passages and entrances, yes?”
“Four entrances, ten passages,” she confirmed.
“Excellent. Then it merely comes down to finding our way onto the palace grounds, which we already know how to do thanks to our trip to the Space Keep.”
“Which we can only do once we’ve passed through those pretty stone walls over there,” Brea quipped.
Rafferty scanned the massive city walls. “Unfortunately, they’re too high to scale,” he said thoughtfully.
“Even if we could, Blount will have them guarded,” Ethenn said.
“What about drainage gates?” Rafferty asked. “That worked when we saved our dashing Prince Ephren.”
Vayden shook his head. “Blount was trained in warfare. There are many tales of sieges being won by slipping in through the sewers and drainage systems. He’ll have them watched at the very least.”
“Pity.”
Deckard watched the men think with interest. Evylin leaned against the tree behind them, her arm brushing his, the touch a comfort, however light.
“We could wait for night,” Rafferty said. “It’d be easier to move undetected then.”
“It’s a capital city with technology’s latest advances,” Vayden said. “They have lamps lighting the streets.”
“Ah, yeah,” Rafferty said. “I always forget about those. We didn’t have them in Estshire.” He tapped his nose in thought. “I suppose we don’t want to cause a distraction.”
Vayden shook his head. “That’ll just draw attention to our presence.”
“Blounty-boy does know we’ll be coming for him at some point.”
“But he doesn’t know we’re here as of yet,” Vayden countered. “We don’t want to alert him or his men.” He grimaced then. “There is one thing we could try...”
“What’s that, Vayd?” Rafferty asked.
“I look like Blount.” Vayden shrugged. “It was my job to impersonate him before. I could do it again.”
