Moros, the weasel, climbed up Rhyparia’s back and perched on her shoulder. “Brutal.”
“Do you know what this marker serves as?” she asked.
Taking his torch back from Rhyparia, Atarax said, “We’re halfway through.”
* * *
Lilu sat on the balcony of an apartment building that occupied Brilliance’s first road. She had rented it after returning to the city months ago, needing a place with a good vantage point of the remains of Mendac’s statue. This is where she came when she wanted to spy on the activity around it. She had discovered a lot of valuable information: the level of protection at different times of the day, the habits of those who stood guard, and the most opportune moments to strike.
She needed to find a point of entry. Then she’d infiltrate and find any information regarding the Theory of Connectivity. A year ago, Professor Jugtah had made a cryptic comment about how Mendac still stood guard of his most precious research to this day. He had to have meant the statue.
The door behind her opened, and Frederick walked outside, handing her a glass of wine before taking a seat next to her. He stuck his legs through the banister’s beams, dangling them off the balcony’s edge like Lilu. He took a sip from his glass and looked up toward the starry sky—he didn’t hold the same investment in this recon mission as the princess.
“Gracie misses you,” he said.
Lilu pried her eyes away from the intersection. “It’s been two days.”
“She doesn’t like living alone.”
Lilu had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. She still spent most of her days back at the dorm room, but had decided to treat his weekend differently because of the progress she had made over the past week. Gracie would have to suck it up. Lilu was too close to solving this mystery.
“Why don’t you stay in the dorm room until I get back tomorrow?” she asked.
Frederick pressed his face between the bars. “Because guys aren’t allowed to stay overnight in the women’s dorm buildings—especially teacher’s assistants.”
“Such a dumb rule. We’re all adults.”
They drank in silence, enjoying the peace of each other’s company, which said a lot considering the tension they used to experience from many socially awkward encounters.
“I can’t fathom how you’d ever get in there,” Frederick said. “The most opportune moments seem to be at night, but the protection is increased at such hours. In the daytime, there aren’t as many guards, but that’s because there are thousands of eyes in the streets.”
Lilu didn’t respond. Movement in the intersection caught her attention. Her brows furrowed as a section from the top of the stone lifted, acting as a lid. An arm extended from underneath it, placing it to the side. A man crawled out, but from this distance she couldn’t decipher his identity. Intelights were purposefully turned off at the intersection. He bent over to grab the lid and drag it back into its place, creating the smoothness in the stone’s surface once again. He carefully slid off the chunk of stone with the help of a few guards and then disappeared down a street that led to Weavineer Tower.
“Who was that?” Frederick asked.
“I don’t know, but we’ve found our way in.”
* * *
Himitsu and Kaylee dwelled in an abandoned building in a rundown sector of Throno—a short stretch of three blocks perhaps. Considering it belonged to the Archaic Kingdom, Throno was a surprisingly well-maintained city. This had made the task of finding a dump such as this difficult.
They couldn’t risk traveling together in public—not with Ophala’s warning that Elyol had been headed this way, and with word probably traveling from Balle that a few Passion Assassins stole an orphan from Lost Wisdom. Thus Fane and Horos were scouring the streets this morning for food that could get them through the day while they waited for night to fall. Tonight they’d infiltrate the Archaic Museum.
Meanwhile, Himitsu cringed in delight as Kaylee repeatedly smacked the back of her head, sending her silver eyeball into her open palm. After several minutes of her antics, she offered Himitsu a try.
She sat on the grimy stone floor, back facing him. “Give it a smack,” she said.
He crossed his arms and leaned back. “Are you kidding me? I’m not hitting you.”
“I’m giving you permission.”
“I don’t care.”
“It’s fun.”
Seated on a cardboard box full of meaningless books that Kaylee had already searched through, Himitsu frowned down at her. “No,” he repeated.
She sighed and turned, her silver hair gleaming in the bit of sun that streaked through a dirty window. “Fine then. How about you hold out your hand and catch it?”
He smirked. “Alright.”
He cupped his palms underneath her chin. She popped the back of her head, and the eyeball plopped into his hands.
“It’s slimy!” he whispered.
She giggled with delight, slapping the soles of her feet against the floor. “Of course! It’s been in my eye socket!” As he held it near his face and examined it, she said, “Now put it back in.”
He grimaced, extending his arm and trying to place it in her head. She peeled back her eyelids to help.
“Is this your idea of a romantic date, son?”
Himitsu flinched at the sound of his dad’s voice. Fane followed Horos inside and said, “You two kids are the most morbid, twisted pair I’ve ever seen.”
“They’re meant to be,” Horos said, slapping a warm loaf of bread onto an empty shelf.
Himitsu and Kaylee were too hungry to entertain the men’s heckling. They leapt from their spots toward the food. Himitsu moaned with satisfaction, taking a bite and chewing blissfully. “You got it warm this time. I’m starving.”
Kaylee tore off a healthy chunk, shoved it in her mouth, and nodded as she chewed. Horos and Fane cocked a brow at them. “Remember when we actually experienced starvation in the Volcanic Quadrant back in the day, Fane?” Horos asked.
Fane laughed. “These buffoons wouldn’t have lasted a week.”
Himitsu shrugged and then said through a mouthful of bread, “Enough of your old man stories. Bread is all good and well, but did you get the final ingredients for Kaylee, so she can complete her magic potions?”
Kaylee narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m not a witch; it’s basic chemistry.”
Fane untied a purse from his belt loop and tossed it on the shelf next to the bread. “All the fixings ... after weeks of searching. Not exactly the easiest stuff to get a hold of. I wasn’t expecting it to take us all night.”
Kaylee brushed her hands against her shirt, ridding them of crumbs before rummaging through the purse. Neck bent, she poked around the bag’s contents. Eventually she pulled out a closed ink jar. Lifting the lid, she wafted the scent toward her nose. Her eyes widened and nose crinkled. “That’s definitely beetle droppings.”
“An entire gram of it,” Horos said. “These potions you’re making better work.”
She grabbed the bag and walked toward her corner of the cellar, where mugs and bowls served as her beakers and flasks. “They’re not potions.” She sighed. “They’re brews.”
“Yes, like beer,” Fane said.
As he watched her go to work in her corner, Himitsu became hypnotized. With the flat part of a knife, she crushed seeds before sweeping them into a mug with her hand. Like always, Kaylee’s silver hair fell in front of her face, and she quickly brushed it back. This motion was more than just a habit of hers. It was something that had become part of her being—a swift movement she did without thought probably once every ten minutes or so. That motion alone was enough to make him swoon.
* * *
Himitsu and his father waited in a shadowy alley, peeking down the street to where the Archaic Museum loomed. Directly across the street, in the opposite alleyway, were Kaylee and Fane. Kaylee’s silver eye glowed in the moonlight.
“You ready?” Horos whispered.
Himitsu nod
ded, and darkness swallowed the area. All four of them rushed down the road, following the faint scent of Horos’s fire until they reached a building on the side of the road that jutted out farther than its neighbors. As they hid behind the wall, Kaylee stepped out and tossed a mason jar toward the museum’s front doors where the guards stood.
“Look out!” someone yelled. The cry was followed by crashing glass. Then coughing rapped through the air.
Himitsu looked at Kaylee. “This is only making them go to sleep?”
“For the thousandth time, yes.”
“Sounds like they’re dying.”
Horos slapped his son’s shoulder. “Don’t question the woman.”
She grinned and then checked around the building. The coughing had rescinded. “Let’s go.”
“Your turn, son,” Horos said.
Himitsu conjured a special type of assassin flames that his dad had taught him. He focused on weaving loose Passion chains in the fire’s exterior, but creating denser clusters toward the center.
As the street was sucked dry of any and all moonlight, his father exclaimed, “Atta’ boy!”
They stormed toward the museum, pulling the collars of their cloaks over their faces as they lifted their feet over sleeping bodies. Kaylee had provided them with brews that were concocted specifically to counter the sleeping brew earlier that night, but they still practiced caution. The smoke that hovered around the building’s perimeter should linger for several minutes longer, giving the assassins enough time to assess the museum’s interior unperturbed.
They quickly filed through the double doors and into the main lobby. After shutting the doors behind them, they made sure to sprint a little farther before allowing themselves to breathe again.
Himitsu heard the sound of metal scraping against its sheath to the right. He spun and drew his own blade, throwing it up in time to block a woman’s sword. She had moved with decent spend, but Himitsu’s feet held firm as she was stopped in her tracks. He had fought the likes of Bryson, Toshik, and Yama too many times in his life to be bested by someone as mediocre as this.
She swiped at him again. With a casual flick of his wrist, Himitsu cast it to the side with a clang. Catching a glimpse of black flame behind her, he yelled, “No fire!” He continued to parry blows. “I can do this without it.”
He shuffled side to side and front to back, wielding his sword with one hand. He incorporated every technique he could remember from Toshik’s teachings. Keeping his feet flat on the ground was the most important. He could spring onto the balls of his feet, but since he had no intention of running or evading, that wasn’t necessary.
The guard stumbled forward as Himitsu skirted his sword against hers, tossing her to the side. He upped his speed percentage and appeared behind her, grabbing her neck in a choke hold. He squeezed and gently guided her to the floor until she passed out.
As the four of them continued on, Kaylee asked, “Did you just teleport?”
“I ran.”
“But you disappeared.”
“Because my speed percentage is too high for your eyes,” Himitsu said, sheathing his sword.
“But you’re not an Adrenian.”
“You don’t have to be Adrenian to be fast,” he said. “I learned from the best—and had help from a certain someone ...” He trailed off as his mind drifted to Rhyparia and her ancient.
Kaylee’s eyebrows rose. “Sorrow ... and guilt?”
With a forced breath, Himitsu pushed onward through a hallway with an arched ceiling. “Stop reading me.”
They ran into several other guards along the way, each of which they rendered unconscious. None of them wore the Lamaylian colors of green and orange, so they suspected that the museum’s staff wasn’t an active part of the new regime. They simply lived under it because they had no other choice.
Relic Alley held the final two guards. It was clear that they were more talented fighters than their counterparts, but Himitsu still handled them without much effort at all. As the two women dropped to the floor, Horos yawned and stretched for the ceiling. “Well that was exhausting.”
Himitsu smirked. He was the only who had done anything since entering the building. Everyone else had watched.
They searched Relic Alley in its entirety. Several of the relics distracted Himitsu. Necklaces, clothing, dated weaponry, books, and all sorts of knickknacks rested on podiums within glass boxes.
While Horos and Fane focused on the walls and the floor, Kaylee’s eyes went up, likely searching for any clues as to how Toono escaped the museum years ago when he stole Anathallo. There hadn’t been a sighting of his escape that night. The guards who had been stationed at the exits said they never saw Toono leave. This left people perplexed. Had he discovered a secret exit from the building? Perhaps he had burrowed through a tunnel or found a hidden doorway. None of this seemed likely, however, after weeks of inspecting every inch of the building and coming up empty.
“There.”
Himitsu turned toward Kaylee as she pointed up at the vaulted ceiling. Hundreds of feet up the wall sat a window obscured in the shadows of arching structural designs and wooden beams. Like the other windows that sat at the same elevation, it was barred. But unlike its neighbors, its rods were disconnected, chunks of metal missing in the middle of the mesh.
“A sword?” Himitsu said.
As the two other assassins joined them, Horos asked, “How would someone get up there with a sword?”
Fane laughed through his nose. “An Adren Assassin perhaps?”
“Impossible,” Himitsu said. “The last Adren Assassin died over two centuries ago, if I’m correct.”
Horos nodded. “You’re right.”
While the three assassins contemplated fairy tales, Kaylee studied the window with narrowed eyes. “The only logical explanation I can think of is a Spirit Assassin,” she finally said. “They could use their wind and feathery disposition to float to such a height.”
“Not many of those either,” Himitsu said. “With the exception of Passionians and Devish, assassins are a dying breed.”
“Ah ...” Horos sighed as realization hit him. “Toono’s ancient could produce bubbles of all types. Perhaps he had bounced up there.”
“And how did he cut the bars open like that?” Himitsu asked. “Toono doesn’t use a sword, and he definitely couldn’t have done that with a small blade. Even if he had had a sword, he wouldn’t have been able to slice through metal that thick.”
“It looks like the stone beneath the window has eroded in an unnatural pattern,” Kaylee pointed out. “Like something dripped down it. And some of the bars have strange splits in them.”
Himitsu scratched his head. “And what does that mean?”
She tilted her head and said, “My educated guess would be that acid was at play.”
“Hmm ...” Horos extended his bottom lip in thought. “That’s a new revelation for me. I haven’t heard anyone speak of acid.”
Himitsu stared at Kaylee for a moment before glancing back at the bars. “You are the chemist, I suppose. You’d be the one to know.”
“But you mean to tell me that nobody discovered that window for three years?” Fane asked with skepticism. “Sure, it may be high, but someone had to have looked up at some point.”
Horos nodded. “It is kind of unbelievable. Before Itta’s downfall, perhaps he had already known that Storshae and Toono were involved with it.”
“And since all three of them were in cahoots,” Himitsu said, “he tried to keep a lid on it. I do recall Rhyparia telling Bryson and me that the Archaic Kingdom elites weren’t releasing any information about it. She was shocked when she found out Agnos was discussing it.”
“Even when Itta was betrayed by Storshae and captured by the Light Realm kingdoms because of it, he didn’t leak any information. That’s how deep his hatred for the Intel Kingdom was,” Fane said.
“So someone Toono is working with uses acid ...” Horos mused.
�
�Guys ...”
They all looked at Kaylee, whose eyes remained glued ahead. “What’s up?” Himitsu said.
“I don’t want to look that way because it’ll alert him or her,” she whispered, “but I see a haze of deep purple in the edge of my peripherals—in the shadowy depths of a narrow hall ... their aura reads as devious.”
The three assassins looked to the right over her head. A burgundy eye burned bright as it peeked around a corner ... a Devish. It disappeared immediately.
“Dammit,” Fane grumbled.
“So much for not being spotted,” Horos said, his gaze darting throughout Relic Alley. “We need to get out of here ... now.”
* * *
Himitsu, Horos, Fane, and Kaylee burst through a side door of the Archaic Museum, the two Vevlu men weaving special flames throughout the grassy yard. They didn’t bother with any guards stationed at the door or the surrounding stone wall; there was no time for it. They simply ran as fast as they could, trying to put as much distance between them and the museum as possible.
Himitsu pressed his free hand against the hem of his cloak, pinning it against his forehead as he fled through the city. The other hand sent trails of black flame down the streets as they ran between them and the buildings. Lamaylian soldiers in green uniforms stormed the corner ahead, forcing Himitsu’s group to dive into an alleyway. Himitsu stopped his momentum by grabbing a barrel large enough to reach his chest. It was heavy, and its liquid contents sloshed around as it teetered from the assassin’s speed.
Quickly, he grabbed hold of it and pressed his shoulder against its side. “Jump!” he yelled.
Fane leapt, his foot hitting the barrel’s rim with enough force to nearly knock Himitsu backward. He then hopped seamlessly onto a roof, grabbing its edge and pulling himself up in a fluid motion. Horos did the same, and then Kaylee followed suit. Himitsu was thankful that she weighed significantly less than the two men.
The Chronicle Page 28
