“Sorry,” Eugene snivels, “Solena taught me not to talk to strangers.”
There’s an irate pause. “You may call me Torch. Now—”
“It’s not fair you get a mysterious code name and I don’t,” Eugene protests, internally calibrating his approach. Whoever this is, they want information from him, and with Solena also in the mix, Eugene doubts he’s in any real danger. Annoyance makes people slip up and show their hand, and if there’s anything he has an honorary degree in, it’s petty antagonism.
“Who sent you to spy on us?” Torch asks.
That much Eugene can be honest about. More or less. “No one. I’m new in town, and I was sightseeing.”
“You expect us to believe that?”
“Oh, I am very much new here,” Eugene says, fully aware that’s not what Torch meant. “I’m actually a brunet—I just put ash in my hair to blend in. You can give it a good ruffle if you don’t believe me. Go on, fluff around and find out.”
“You left the alley and came back,” Torch growls. “Why?”
Eugene fires back, “I don’t know, maybe it has something to do with why people keep acting like they recognize me. Any chance we want to dive intothat?” When he’s answered with only shuffles and crackling silence, he scoffs. “Tell you what. No one seems to be getting much out of this conversation, sowhy don’t you let me go and I’ll write this off as an embarrassing misunderstanding, becauseIvery much have a prior engagement I need to scoot along to.”
“Your itinerary should be the last of your worries right now.” Fabric rustles near Torch, almost like the sound of a rough gesture—then Solena’s walking stick clacks out of the room. “I’ll ask one more time.Who sent you?”
Eugene’s measure of assurance ebbs a few notches with Solena gone. “No one sent me. Frankly, if you hadn’t made this a whole thing, I would have just assumed you were a very selective book club.”
A new voice, deep and polished, mutters some distance away: “My stars, but the resemblance is uncanny.”
Torch makes a disgruntledhssstsound. There’s a commotion off to Eugene’s left, a flurry of words and footsteps striding closer. Another voice echoes from what sounds like a hallway, oddly warped: “…as soon as I could. I’ll take it from here.”
“But Torch and I are friends now,” Eugene objects. “You can’t just break us up like this. We have rapport.”
The new voice takes that in stride. “I’m sure you do. You two, watch his back. Everyone else, out. Fitzherbert, you can call me Moon Eye.”
“This is just getting rude,” Eugene grouses. “Moon Eye? That’s such a good code name. Everyone else has one and I’m starting to feel left out.”
“You’re right.” Brusque hands yank off his blindfold. “You can be Yappy.”
As Eugene’s eyes adjust, he can see where Moon Eye’s namecomes from. The person in front of him is cloaked and hooded in plain gray wadmal; their only defining feature is a heavy pale mask carved in the shape of a moon eye moth. Or at least, it matches the drawings of them inFlynnigan Rider. A strange disk, likely what’s distorting their voice, covers the place where Moon Eye’s mouth ought to be.
Eugene takes quick stock of the surroundings: stone floors, stone walls, wooden door, no furniture apart from his chair. No sign of the source of the water noises or the creaking. Maybe he can aggravate Moon Eye into a hint about where they are.
“Appreciate the attempt, but ‘Yappy’ is a hard nope for me,” Eugene says. “And just to get you caught up, no one sent me, I wasn’t spying—”
“Why did King Enver bring you here?” Moon Eye interrupts.
That’s a new line of questioning. Eugene doesn’t have much to hide there. “He invited Rapunzel to some party for his daughter, and I’m her plus-one.”
“Why? What’s going to happen that’s worth breaking centuries of isolation?”
Eugene can’t help an annoyed huff. “Genuinely: You tell me! I’ve never set foot in Astera before, so whatever goes down at your birthday celebrations is well outside my area of expertise. The invitation just said something about her coming of age. If that means anything in particular to you,phenomenal.”
“Enver didn’t tell you anything else?”
“No. But hedidlook like he saw a ghost when he met me.And he just about ran off screaming when I said my name. I’m assuming he’s not just coincidentally allergic to handsome scoundrels.”
Moon Eye rocks back on their heels. Then they ask, “Who did you see entering the shop? Anddon’tpretend you didn’t.”
Eugene himself takes a beat to think. If these people were going to kill him, they wouldn’t bother hiding their faces. And they’re not the only ones who need answers; maybe he can barter. “I saw three people go in. Here’s a freebie: Solena was one. I’ll give you the other twoafterwe get through some of my questions.”
Moon Eye folds their arms, wordless.
After a moment, Eugene decides to lay one more card on the table, since this is looking increasingly conspiratorial: “I saw the Herbert & Fitz sign inside the shop. Is ‘Fitzherbert’ even a real name, or did someone make it up?”
