Page 77 of The Discount Damsel

“Is that OCD of yours finally taking a day off?” she repeated with a teasing smile. She had moved away from the desk and was now on her way to the trapdoor with a pair of wicker basket saddlebags slung over her shoulders.

Behind her, the gap in the bookshelves stood out like a missing tooth in a child’s grin, at least to him, but she hadn’t mentioned it. Either she hadn’t noticed it or she was chalking it up to the break in Bradley’s neurosis.

“Heh.” He quickly picked up the remaining wicker basket saddlebags and followed her down to the kitchen.

There, the griffin rider helped him unload the provisions. She’d come to understand his organizational style, and any miscellaneous items she wasn’t sure about she just left on the counter. “I noticed the unusually large request for rice paper.”

Bradley spun around from where he’d set the milk in the icebox, the door whumping shut behind him. He found her attention mercifully directed at Dirk’s brown sugar sculpture. “Uh⁠—”

“Is Lung Shang homesick?”

“Oh! No. J-j-just likes s-s-spring r-r-rolls.”

“Are you homesick, Bradley?” She removed her glove and pressed the back of her hand against his forehead. “You are acting a little more squirrelly than usual. Is that why you asked for another toothbrush? Because infection contaminated the other one?”

One could argue that the princess had done exactly that when she’d used his toothbrush, but he answered, a bit too chipper, “Nope!”

Miss Penelope gave him a skeptical look, shrugged, and indicated she would like to continue her inspection in his suite. They set the saddle bags just inside the kitchen archway to retrieve on their way back to the workroom and descended the stairs.

“W-we’re here,” Bradley announced loudly as he opened the door.

He hurried inside first to confirm that the closet doors, while bulging slightly against their hinges and lock, were still firmly shut. Bradley hid his sigh of relief by setting the replacement robe and extra toiletries in a neat pile on the bed.

“Indeed,” Miss Penelope said, striding in with a questioning glance. Like she had in the workroom, she linked her hands behind her back and snooped politely. “Where is your quilted bedspread, Bradley?”

“Wash.”

She moved into the bathroom and out again in less than ten seconds. “You’re always so clean and tidy, Bradley, but I daresay that tub could use a good scrub. And you never leave your towel anywhere but on its rack. Are you sure you’re feeling alright?”

“Uh-huh,” he insisted.

“Uh-huh,” she echoed, not convinced. “Are you using a new bath oil? I daresay I’ve never smelled jasmine in here before.”

Bradley paled.

“It’s alright.” Miss Penelope laughed lightly. “It’s a nice change. On to the spring?”

She left the suite, expecting him to follow. No sooner had she left than the princess stuffed in the closet sneezed. While the sound was smothered by hand, quilt-sack, and one inch of hardy oak, it still resembled the blast of a firecracker.

Sweet mother of pearl, the lungs on this princess. Bradley supposed she, like all princesses, had been born with extra lung capacity for all the incessant chatter and gossiping she would partake in over the course of her life. How inconvenient for everyone with ears.

Miss Penelope paused on the stair. “Bradley?”

“Here.” He made a show of wiping his nose and yanked the suite door shut behind him, leaving the princess exactly where she was, locked in his closet.

“Are you sure you’re not coming down with something?”

He shook his head and offered what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Miss Penelope didn’t buy it, but she didn’t push the matter either, for there really was no other explanation to be had. Bradley Donmarin was a rule-follower to a fault. She must have mistaken the femininity in that sneeze, for it would’ve been more probable for a tiger to change its stripes than for Bradley to have a girl hidden away in his closet. And where would he have met one all the way out here, anyway? Miss Penelope dismissed the matter from her mind and continued the trek to the spring below.

As they descended the tower, she divulged a month’s worth of College gossip. Zora was pregnant, which he already knew, but it was still delightful news to be shared again. Master Vesuvius was in anger management therapy for the second time this trimester (a personal record), and only three freshmen had almost blown themselves up with an ill-pronounced oblivatus spell. Master Xamira had gotten herself turned into living diamond during her research trip to the Singing Crystal Chasms when she’d offended the local golem population by singing an A-flat instead of an A-sharp. The grand masters of the College Board were confident they could restore her to her normal flesh-and-blood self by the end of the week. The head cook had begun a secret tryst with the postman and would sneak him cream puffs, which wouldn’t be any news at all except there was a cream shortage at the moment after some traveling barbarian nutjob had scattered the region’s dairy cows.

“And did you know the elder Amberlian princess has been taken hostage by a rogue Great Red and a Discount Damsel Protocol is now in place?”

Bradley stumbled on a step and caught himself with the guard rope.

“And his tower is in this same desert, can you imagine?” Miss Penelope exclaimed. “I would’ve diverted to find it, except Zora can’t manage any detours. Such a pity. Princess Mildred could be rescued by the time I make it out here again.”

With a sigh, she leaned over the hip-high wall to gaze into the glowing waters of the spring. “Hello, shrimpy darlings! Ooo, it looks like we’ve entered the preparatory stages of spawning, haven’t we?” She pulled a gold pocket watch from her tailcoat. “And right on schedule. Marvelous.”