She looked out into the ballroom again. “Oh, Nathaniel is having the bloody foods wheeled out. He’ll be starting the Hide soon. I swear to the saints, he is such a boy.”
“The Hide?” Helene asked. She had lost sight of Asti, as well as Mila. Hopefully they still had sight of each other. She needed to find Julien. He was here in the house somewhere. That was first. He should be somewhere in the kitchens.
“Ah, your timing. I’ve delayed you too much. Be about it.”
“Do you know how to get to the kitchens?”
Lady Melania pointed to one of the doorways across the ballroom. “Through there, left down the hallway, around the corner and then the second door on the left. Stairway will lead you down.”
“How did you—”
“Because, dear, I remember everything.” She sighed wistfully. “Everything.” She went out into the ballroom, spinning on her heel as she walked to look back at Helene. “Truly, whistle. You’d be doing me the favor.”
“All right,” Helene said, and went out the other way.
* * *
“Ladies and gentles, friends all!” Lord Henterman called out to the room. “The time has come to begin our official festivities.”
Mila moved herself back, so she couldn’t be seen by Treggin at the top of the staircase. How was he here? How could Treggin have embedded himself as Lord Henterman’s personal attaché?
She must have it backward. Henterman was working some plan in North Seleth—this Andrendon business—so “Treggin” was probably the act that Ender put on to gain influence over the neighborhood. To what end, Mila had no clue, but she was going to find out, and before that bastard could use his magical-glass blade on her again.
Lord Henterman went on. “I acknowledge, this is a bit of a foolish tradition, and I am grateful to all of you for putting up with it, and me. But if you know me, you know I relish every holy day and strive to celebrate and honor every saint in the canon.”
“Tell me, Nathaniel,” someone in the crowd called out. “Are we just going to Hide, or do your ‘guards’ hunt for us?”
“And how bloody are you going to be?” someone else shouted.
“Oh, these are lovely questions,” Lord Henterman said. “Almost the entire household is open for you to hide in, and I expect you to make it a challenge to find you all. The guards will be looking, friends. Hopefully, Saint Jontlen will save you.”
Asti and Liora weren’t quite in her line of sight. She needed to get Asti to see her, let him know about Treggin. But she had no way of approaching him without making a spectacle, certainly not without blowing her cover with Liora. And that would get Treggin’s attention, and blow everything. She could tell Helene, and then send her over to Asti. That would work.
Helene was nowhere to be seen.
She’d have to get a message to Asti without coming close to him.
This would be a moment where knowing those blinking codes or hand signals would be useful.
Maybe she could use Ken or Vellun. No, even with Henterman speaking, they had a crowd around them.
It was on her. She couldn’t tell anyone, and she didn’t dare let Treggin out of her sight, or let him notice her. So she needed to get him. Maybe, if she could grab him, get him to talk . . .
He was a blasted mage. Her best shot was to get a drop on him and put him down before he knew what was happening.
Mila eased her way over to the other staircase. People would be scattering in a moment, based on the rules of this game. Absurdities—rich swells and officers, adults all, playing some child’s game. She was probably the youngest person in the room, and she thought it was the stupidest thing she had ever heard of.
“But first,” Lord Henterman announced, “We must drop the darkness upon us all. So I—or my ‘guards’—don’t see where you all go.”
So the lights were going to go out. That could help.
Mila had reached the landing of the staircase on the left. Treggin was still up at the top of the right-side staircase, his attention on Lord Henterman. Asti and Liora were by Lord Henterman, Liora playing the part of a doting wife. She had the most beatific, loving expression. Mila marveled at her performance. No wonder Asti was so apprehensive of her. She had beauty and skill, and from Helene’s description of the brief fight at the safehouse, she was deadly.
Asti’s focus was on Liora. His face was unreadable—no emotion, just intensity. So much so, there was no chance at all Mila could get his attention right now. Lord Henterman was continuing to natter on. Mila crept up the stairs as quietly and unobtrusively as she could. As long as Treggin didn’t notice her, that was all that mattered.
She reached the top of the stairs before she realized she had absolutely no way to get to the knife she had strapped to her leg, not without upending herself and lifting her petticoats over her head. Again, nothing she could do without making a spectacle of herself. Why didn’t she have a rope on her? Stupid fancy dress, that a girl couldn’t use a rope belt with. Totally impractical.
“So, now!” Henterman shouted. “Footmen and butlers, if you would? Snuff out the lamps!”
The order was obeyed rather efficiently, and darkness hit the room in a flash. Shouts of glee amongst the swells down below as they all went scampering in every direction. Footsteps pounded up the stairs in a rush—probably Asti and Liora, heading to where they could get into the study.
Was it possible that Henterman suspected them? Did he have Treggin up there to protect the study? If so, Asti wasn’t ready to fight a mage. Treggin had to be taken out of the situation, now.
It was far too dark to see much of anything, but her eyes were adjusting quickly and she could see the shape of Treggin’s body. Good enough for what she needed. At this point, there was no need to worry about spectacle.
She ran at Treggin with everything she had, throwing her body into him. He yelped in surprise as she slammed her shoulder into his chest. Before he could do anything, her momentum sent the two of them over the railing, falling toward the ballroom floor.
Chapter 26
AS SOON AS THE darkness hit, Liora had grabbed Asti’s hand and pulled him up the stairway, past folks who were squealing and yelping in the blackness. Asti had seen Mila in the corner of his eye, slipping up the stairway to place herself on the second floor. That was a good instinct, but he wondered why she had taken that initiative. It seemed like her attention was elsewhere.
He didn’t have time to figure that out. People were already shouting and hollering, and the whole Hide was well underway. Liora was dragging him up the next set of stairs to her personal quarters.
As soon as they were in, she slammed the doors and threw a latch.
“Oh, thank the saints we’re done with that charade,” Liora said, tearing off her dress. “I’m ready to scream just being around that man.”
“Not a happy marriage?” Asti said, taking off the jacket and waistcoat.
“Ugh,” she said. “If all goes well, I can slip off into the night and not give this place another thought.” Down to her stockings and skivs, she went into the wardrobe. “Come on.”
Asti went in, checking that he could get at his knives in a pinch. Right now, things were going smoothly. Liora was . . . what she had always been. Engaging, on point, effective. His desire to slit her throat had diminished significantly over the evening.
“Bet you wished you had some decent boots right now, instead of those fancy shoes,” she said. She was putting on her gear from Intelligence.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” Asti said. “Shouldn’t we be about it?”
“Right,” she said. She kicked the rug back, revealing the trapdoor. “Let’s get at it.”
Asti knelt, ready to open it. “Wait, you want me to go first?”
“Nervous it’s a trap, Rynax?” she asked. “If I wanted to trap you, I wouldn’t have gone this far for i
t.”
“I was thinking you wanted me trapped instead of you.”
“Oh, of course,” she said. She strode over, opening up the trapdoor. Nothing clicked or released, not to Asti’s ear. “You saying you couldn’t beat that?”
“You got the wrong Rynax for clever traps,” Asti said.
“Yes, your brother is the master. If I could have used him tonight, I would have. Let’s move.”
Asti dropped through the trapdoor, into a crawlspace. Liora came down, carrying a small lamp.
“You expected this was going to go straight in?” she asked, clearly seeing the disappointment in his face. The space was barely large enough for them to crawl through, wood flooring and ceiling. “You never did see my bath chamber, did you?”
“No,” Asti said.
“This is so they could put in the piping for my water closet and bath. The handyman has to be able to get at it to fix it, after all. If you hadn’t lost your temper on the sight of me. . . .”
“Can you hush up? What’s the idea?”
Liora put on that devious smile of hers. “The plan is, we’ve got to get through the ceiling. So how do we do that quickly?”
“Quickly is easy,” Asti said. That scenario went through his brain several times, most of which involved using Liora’s head as a battering ram. “But quietly is crucial as well.”
“So what should we do to get in there?”
“Let me think.” The beast had its own ideas, and none of them were helpful.
“Don’t waste time pontificating it. Nathan’s ‘men’ will start the search soon.”
“And he probably will make sure you’re found, right.” Time was too short, and he was doing this gig far too blind.
Liora was blinding him. He still didn’t know what she wanted or why she was using him, not yet. She had an angle here, and he was still stumbling about in her net.
He needed to think like Verci—he was the one who could solve this, he’d be carrying the tools he needed to do it. Asti didn’t have any tools. He was useless, he was failing, he wasn’t going to do anything to save his neighborhood, his family. He had pulled Verci back into all of this for no damn reason. This was—
“Asti!”
He snapped out of his thoughts. Liora was glaring at him.
Think like Verci.
“All right,” he said. “Sorry, I had presumed you had scouted this part out, but I guess it was too much to expect you to be a professional about this sort of thing.”
“This sort of thing?”
“You’re an excellent spy, Liora. But you don’t think like a thief.”
“What does that mean?”
“That you didn’t have a plan for this point—you just counted on me to have one.” He started a series of light raps on the floor paneling of the crawl space. As he guessed, the wood they were on was light, and it was bolstered in key spots. That meant there were weak spots, and they were easy to suss out. A few more light knocks showed him the place. Plan. A bad one, but it would probably work. “I’ve got quickly, but not quietly. You have a rope?”
“What am I, an amateur?” she asked. She pulled one out from her small bag.
“Tie it around those pipes, and then come over to me.”
She did so. “Now what?”
He wrapped the rope around his waist and hips several times. Not much slack. Didn’t want that.
“Now what, Asti?” she pressed.
He grabbed her and held her body close to his. She thrashed and grabbed his throat, stirring the beast on its chain. He held it tight as he looked her in the eye.
“Trust me,” he said.
He rolled across the crawlspace floor, keeping her body tight and close on him. He rolled so he was holding her on top of him, her weight pressing on his chest.
“This is not—” she started.
“Wait.”
The crawlspace floor creaked, and then cracked, and then broke beneath them. They fell through the hole, and as the busted pieces of ceiling crashed onto the office desk below, Asti and Liora dangled a few feet above it.
“That was definitely not quiet,” he said.
She looked at him with bright eyes, a bright joyful smile. She grabbed his face and kissed him, hard and rough, and then dropped onto the desk.
* * *
Mila had braced herself for the hard crash onto the ballroom floor, hoping that she’d at least have Treggin’s body to break her fall. Instead she felt a warm blast of air, and for a moment she found herself hovering a few feet from the floor. That moment did not last long, and Treggin’s eyes met hers in the darkness. With an almost feral growl, he punched her in the teeth and knocked her off him. She fell to the floor, Treggin still floating above her. He righted himself, and as soon as he put his feet to the floor, he broke into a run down one of the back hallways.
“What’s the commotion?” someone called. “Is everyone fine?”
People were in a state, running in every direction, shouting. Playing the game. Mila had no time for that or letting any of them get in her way. She pulled herself to her feet and gave chase.
The shoes she was wearing were absolutely terrible for running through the hallways here. She nearly tripped and fell several times, skidding and colliding with a random servant at one point.
“Where did he go?” she yelled at the woman she had run into.
“Who, my Lady?”
“No man came barreling through here?” What was the name Lord Henterman had used? “Ender?”
“Mister Ender? Was that who that was?”
“Yes!” Mila shouted. She took the moment to kick the useless shoes off.
“I think he went down the stairs to the kitchen, my Lady, but—”
“That way?” Mila asked, running down the corridor to the stairs.
A wave of something that looked like flaming ice came roaring up the stairs right when Mila rounded the corner. She dropped flat as soon as she saw it, and the blast barely went over her head.
“You stupid girl!” he snarled at her from the bottom of the stairs.
Mila sprung up and bounded down the stairs, resisting the urge to leap while howling out a battle cry at Treggin as she fell onto him. Was this how Asti felt all the time?
It was good she hadn’t gone full bore at him—when she reached the bottom, he had formed those prismatic blades of broken reality in both hands. He swung them at her, but she darted back out of his reach, sliding past him to the other side of the downstairs hallway. She stumbled and fell backward, crashing against the opposite wall.
“I don’t know why you keep showing up, Miss Bessie. Especially here,” he said. “But I’m ending you.” He brought up those impossible magical blades and swung them down on her.
Before he hit her, a crossbow bolt hit him in the arm, and the blades fizzled and vanished as he cried out.
Mila didn’t waste time, driving her foot into his knee. He dropped to the floor.
Helene was there, her crossbow reloaded and trained on him. “Down, son.”
“You foolish girls,” he hissed.
“Who is this guy?” she asked Mila. “Why did you—”
“It’s Treggin,” Mila said. “And he’s—”
“Mage,” Treggin said. With a wave of his hands, Mila and Helene went flying down the hallway, smashing into the kitchen walls. The servants and cooks all screamed.
Mila couldn’t breathe, couldn’t force her lungs to draw in air. She collapsed to the ground, trying to gasp for breath.
Helene seemed a bit better. “Mention that first,” she gasped. She drew up her crossbow and fired.
Treggin stalked down the hallway, brushing the crossbow bolt aside with a wave of his hands. “You must be Kesser,” he said brusquely. “And here I thought Poller was exaggerating.”
Helene ha
d gotten to her feet, raising up her fists. “You want a fight, boy?”
“I don’t know how or why you two are here,” he said. “But I’m not interested in finding out.”
Mila managed to stand, to breathe, to draw out her knife. “We’re interested in finding out about you, Treggin.”
“Not today,” he said. Both hands erupted into sparks, and the lightning grew into long lashes, which he swung out at Mila and Helene, raking across their bodies. Mila screamed; she was on fire, every inch of her body. It was the most horrific pain she had ever felt. Treggin laughed. “Today you’ll only—”
He was interrupted by a great clanging sound.
“Not today.”
The pain and fire ended, and Mila’s vision cleared. She saw the massive form of Julien standing over Treggin’s senseless form, wielding a giant stew pot in one hand.
“Jules,” Helene whispered. “I found you.”
He dropped the pot and scooped her up. “You thought you’d save me, hmm?”
“I had a notion,” she said. Julien pulled Mila to her feet. The pain had ended, but the echoes of it still filled her body. Her heart fluttered like a moth, and she could only manage shallow breaths.
“This wasn’t the plan,” he said.
“No,” Mila said, trying to bear her own weight. Her legs felt like they were made from Kimber’s peach preserves. “But hopefully we made enough commotion that no one will be paying attention to Asti.”
* * *
“Are we sure there aren’t any traps or alarms?” Asti asked as she climbed off the desk.
“No,” she said. “Not that alarms really matter after that.”
“Depends on what else is in here.” He untied himself and dropped onto the desk. “Not that we should be spending much time in here.”
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