Everette's head jerked slightly, involuntarily. Although he was far from dressed in ceremonial clothes, heavy jewelry still rested at his collar and on his fingers. He removed the ring from his pinky finger, a recent birthday gift, and slid it back on again, repeating this several more times.

"Do you intend to tell me where we're really going?"

The question startled Felix enough to make his shaking grip on the wheel veer out-of-lane. He righted the vehicle just quickly enough to avoid disaster on slick Snow roads. "I'm sorry?"

"Felix," said Everette gently, "you never let me go anywhere without an accompanying army of personal guards. And yet..." He turned to gesture about the car, making his point silently. They were alone.

"You came anyway," Felix mumbled, avoiding his eyes. "Why?"

Everette shrugged, making himself all the smaller. "I trust you."

You shouldn't, he nearly said. But he kept his mouth shut.

"You're the only one who seems to care anymore," Everette went on, quietly. "About me." He trailed a finger along the window. "Even if you might be driving me to the middle of the woods to assassinate me right about now. Although I doubt I'm quite so important as to be worth assassinating. And your track record with that sort of thing's pretty good."

Oh, yes, Felix remembered. He remembered Snow as a young girl. He remembered the order. The plea for mercy in her eyes.

The squelch of his ax lodged in the heart of a wild boar. He'd let her go. Not so long ago in the scheme of things.

He released a careful breath. Things were much different this time.

Someone wants the royals dead.

He couldn't help thinking—if the prince had to die, too, then why not kill him on the day they killed his mother? Surely the terrorists knew better than to waste time. And even then, why send him to fetch His Highness rather than ordering him to perform the execution himself? Could he even do it, execute the prince? He glanced over at Everette one more time. No, he didn't think so. But for Marissa and their daughter, almost certainly. He wouldn't even feel it.

There was only one logical explanation: that Everette was to be kept alive. But for what, that was the puzzle. A sixteen-year-old king's son, what good would he be? A hostage? Could that really be all the terrorists were after, ransom money?

Eventually they pulled into the driveway and Everette's ring found its place back on his finger and remained there. He kept rapidly blinking one eye, rubbing it to make it stop. "Is this where you live?"

There was no point in being dishonest now. "Yes," Felix replied tersely, motioning for Everette to follow him into the house. In his head—You've been entrusted with this boy's life, trusted by the king himself. And this is what you do with him?

The king would have him imprisoned for the rest of his sorry days when he inevitably connected Felix to this. He was already planning how to pack his things, where to take his family and make his escape. He would desert. Out of Akburc. Off the continent if he had to. Anything to keep Marissa safe.

I'm sorry, Everette.

White-knuckled, Felix pushed in the door. Silence pervaded the house like a stench. Everette had to know by now that something was wrong. "Sir..."

"Your Highness, I—" He choked on the lie threatening to come up his throat. "I need your help. Gravely." There. That wasn't a lie, although he wasn't admitting the full truth, either. He held Everette tightly by the arm, realized he was being too harsh, and let go, his breath catching.

They started up the stairs.

Do you know? You have to. You have to understand by now I'm leading you to your doom. You could run. But you don't. Felix's eyes burned. Stop trusting me. Just leave.

Everette didn't leave. The two of them reached the bedroom. He might have looked at him, but Felix didn't know, refusing to make eye contact with anything but the door as he entered. Marissa, Marissa, Marissa. Her name beat with the pounding of his heart. All the nights he'd held a hand to her stomach, murmuring lullabies to a child that soon would be. All the times Marissa had thrown her arms around him when he came home from a deployment tour, covered in grime and scars, all the stories of fighting pirates and monsters he would never bear to tell.

Violet eyes opened, burning unnaturally bright in the dark. "Very good, Lange." Marissa's muffled sobs were the only other sound in the room. Swollen stings dotted her face, her neck, her shoulders. The gold knife had sliced a tear through her dress, and blood was beginning to bead on its shining edge. Felix had, unknowingly, latched onto Everette's arm once more with an iron grip. "Now, I like to think I'm reasonable. Give me the boy willingly and your family lives."

Felix looked away. There were other memories, too. The young prince sending his squadron off with red flowers for good fortune. Watching him struggle to grow into his role, watching him process his stepmother's death, vowing to protect him. Walking with him through the cities when his father had no time to spare, hoping that just a little of his light would return.

"You're... you must be one of them." This caused the witch to turn curiously towards Everette.

"One of who?"

"Please don't insult my intelligence," he said evenly. "One of those involved in the killing of my stepmother. Are you not?"

The witch lifted her chin. "Indeed," she replied slowly.

"This is absurd. Release his wife immediately." When she simply looked at him in amused shock, Everette raised his voice. "Did you recently acquire a hearing deficiency? I am the prince, and I demand you to release her! Honestly, if you wanted me to join you, you simply could've asked."

Both Felix and the witch stared at him blankly.

"Your Highness?" Felix asked unsurely.

Everette wrenched away from him, taking several steps toward the witch. "I said to let the woman go!"

Astonished, the witch actually... withdrew her weapon, vanishing it into black smoke. She snapped her fingers, and Marissa's bonds unraveled, too, making her slump forward with pain exhaustion.

"Your Highness, what are you doing?"

He looked back, offering Felix a soft, sad smile. "I'm sorry, I really am. You and your family never should have been brought into this."

Felix was frozen. "I—I didn't want to bring you here. I didn't want to—"

"You had no choice. I know. I don't blame you. There are plenty of others to blame."

He opened his mouth to say more but couldn't manage it. A single tear dripped down Everette's cheek and crystallized there, making Felix blink.

"Thank you for being there for me, Sir Lange," he whispered. "Thank you for everything you've done. I won't forget you."

There was little he could do to stop him, even if he'd truly wanted to. Felix stood beside his wife, and Everette joined the witch, giving him one last nod of understanding. The bee witch snapped her fingers once more, and the last thing Felix saw was her wicked smile before the two of them were gone in a flash of night.

Marissa collapsed in his arms as he whispered her name, immediately checking her for any severe injuries. She could've been tied up there for hours, starving and in pain while he was gone traveling and longer while he went to get Everette. He carried her down the stairs, set her on the couch, and began to tend to her, tears streaming down her face all the while. For the moment, the prince did not matter. This was his world. This was his everything.

First, he would nurse Marissa back to health. Then, they would run.

🙤 ˖ ࣪⭑ ┈┈┈┈ · ✦ · ┈┈┈┈ ˖ ࣪⭑ 🙦

"I'm sorry, sir, but the situation in Rose is already getting dire and frankly I don't trust my government to protect my daughter as well as I can." Red looked away. "They never protected my husband, and they didn't care when he was dead." She straightened, smoothing her clothes. "She can't know about any of this, but—I must go to her. I cannot be there when we do this. Ponzi should take my place. I know he's only a boy, but I trust him. He has a magician's hands, and he does good work."

The Sandman watched her with limitless golden eyes. "Go to your child, Rosa," he said, finally, turning away once he'd found whatever it was in her he was searching for.

Red let out a breath of relief. "Thank you."

"It may surprise you, but I, too, know what it feels like to love."

She nodded. "No, I know. I have seen the way you love."

Sandman looked back, giving a slight smile. Usually, his children did not recognize it. They figured he sought power. Too many sought power—it darkened their expectations. No, the Sandman would acquire power for his children if such was what they desired, but he was in need of none for himself.

Red shifted into a shadow of camouflage and vanished. He retreated to the desk in what had quickly become the meeting point for the Alliance in Fairy, whispering a telepathic summons to Ajani and to Lucien. No sooner had the assassin, the first to arrive, pushed through the door than a great flash erupted in the room and Myra appeared with the boy.

Sandman inclined his head. "Later than expected."

Queenie shot him an irritable look. "I did my fair share of waiting." She wrangled the prince forward by the collar. Behind them, Lucien stood still in the doorway, staring through his mask.

"Gentle, now. Here, boy." Sandman pushed a glass of wine towards the edge of the desk. "Have a seat, have a drink."

Slowly, the prince sat, ignoring the glass. "Who are you?"

He folded his hands. "Call me the Sandman. I do have a name, but I haven't heard it spoken in many centuries."

Everette's brow furrowed. "How... old are you?"

"Now, that I stopped counting after the Dragon Ages. Exhausting to record. More importantly," the Sandman said smoothly, pointing to him, "why are you here?"

Everette sat up straighter. "Well, didn't you bring me here?"

"That wasn't the question. Why did you come, Everette Belmonte?" Everette appeared to visibly grit his teeth. Sandman tilted his head to one side. "Interesting."

"It's White."

"So you don't hate your stepmother?"

"I..." He swallowed, looking down at his lap. "I don't know."

"Hmm. I can't imagine why you'd agree to come all this way if you hadn't changed your mind about the queen." Sandman beckoned for him to hold out his hand. "Here, let me see."

Tentatively, Everette offered up one hand, glittering with royal jewels. The Sandman took it. Cold to the touch, and his fingertips were developing a permanent bruising along the edges. Fingernails, too. He met the boy's eyes once more. The mark of a demon mirror lie within this one. An ancient evil, though evil was relative. It could still be wielded for good. The mirror Yuki-onna was thought to be buried far within the mountains long ago, but it had to be the source of his powers.

The Sandman let go, sitting back. Only if the boy could fight off the corrupting force of the spirit within would he be worthy of these powers. But, of course, it was no place for Ole himself to intervene. That was what that bastard in his tower did—and only when he saw fit to care enough to dig his claws into the will of others. Only when those that he believed mattered were in danger. Ole's fingers curled into the table. Hypocrite.

It was then that Ajani entered, reporting for his summons. He bounded through the doorway without bothering to knock. "You needed me? Aye, who's this?"

"Thank you, Ajani, I will discuss your assignment in a moment," Sandman said patiently.

"Ha! I 'member you! You're the prince from Snow!" He flashed a mouthful of crooked teeth. "Nice haircut."

Everette self-consciously patted his hair but shot him a wry smile. "Thanks for the stab wound."

"Ah, I forgot 'bout that!" Ajani elbowed him. "You look cleaned up, anyway. Royal witch doctors stitch y'up, rich boy? What's a little stabbin' between friends, right?"

Everette eyed him sideways. "Sure. Bygones."

The Sandman returned his attention to the prince. "Hate in your heart will only blind you," he told him. "So perhaps you are wiser still than your colleagues here in the Alliance. Would you like to use that magic of yours to ignite real change, Everette?"

"More than anything," Everette mumbled.

Sandman smiled. "Good. Then there is a place for you here where there is none elsewhere." He looked up, gesturing toward the assassin against the doorway. "You can stay with Lu—sorry, Corpse Flower, until we regroup to commence the attack on the Fairy Palace."

"What?" That was both of them, nearly in unison. Everette swiveled in his chair to see Lucien lingering in his white cloak, his expression souring considerably. Myra watched it all with twisted amusement off to the side and Ajani giggled without discernible cause. So the resentment of the killer was greater than that of the mother, Sandman noted.

Lucien stepped forward. "Sandman—"

"Red has retreated to her home country to look after her family in the wake of the sudden turn of events there," he replied, in a tone that suggested no argument. "You are my second choice to entrust with the boy. I have responsibilities to attend to, and most of the others have a tendency to... shall we say, run off into the woods and frolick with the moths."

"So because I still have my sanity I'm getting punished?"

"It isn't a punishment," he sighed.

"Your sanity's debatable," Myra added, twirling a knife.

"Shut up," Lucien growled at her. "Fine. I'll take the kid. But only this time."

A satisfied smile settled on the Sandman's face. "Excellent. Everette, I am sure this arrangement works for you?"

Everette was still glaring at Lucien. "Yes," he said quietly, "thank you."

Ajani, suddenly appearing next to Lucien's shoulder, began bouncing enthusiastically up and down. Lucien jolted. "Corpse! Can I stay with you too? I ain't got nowhere to go neither," he whined. "You don't want me livin' in a cardboard box under a bridge, do ya?"

Lucien shoved him away. "No. No. Absolutely not. One teenager is bad enough."

"But Coooorrrrpse. We can shine weapons together n' everythin'! It'd be fun! You let me play with the shiny new person n' maybe throw some daggers at 'im n' I'd keep 'im distracted, it'd be like we're not even there! C'mooonnnnnn!"

Lucien motioned for Everette to follow him. "Let's go."

Ajani followed them out the door. "You can't escape, Corpse, I know where ya live—"

"Ajani." He turned, pouting, and the Sandman waved him back inside. "You'll be replacing Red's role in the plan. Sit down."

His eyes lit up, Lucien and cardboard boxes under bridges instantly forgotten.

🙤 ˖ ࣪⭑ ┈┈┈┈ · ✦ · ┈┈┈┈ ˖ ࣪⭑ 🙦

Minerva hadn't expected the others to take on her responsibilities so easily.

Bear did the cooking, Claude and Ramona came back to the motel with their pockets full of stolen goods, and even Penny and Lindsay grudgingly consulted their old skills of mending and sewing, to little complaint. They argued often—Penny constantly snapping at Lindsay that she was doing this or that wrong—but every time Minerva tried to intervene it was always a resounding no. You have to recover. You have to recover. You have to recover.

Minerva fairy-flipping hated it.

It was bad being changed. It was worse knowing she was replaceable.

She started with simple tasks, learning to write again. If this hadn't been her dominant hand, things wouldn't be so impossible. She practiced careful letters on a notepad, over and over, endlessly. Her handwriting wasn't recognizable anymore. She fed the lizard-rooster and almost strangled it. She washed dishes and practically got into a fistfight with herself in the sink. Combing her hair, doing her makeup, painting her nails, all of it, all of it she had to shakily fumble through all over again, like a child.

Days passed and the heist crept closer and Minerva was still training her hands to remain steady when she drove. She swerved hard in an empty parking lot and let out a scream of frustration, slamming her hand on the side of the wheel.

"Dammit, why can't you just listen?"

The hand didn't respond. It was a hand. But her fingers did wiggle against her will, which seemed to her like sass. Minerva felt like a demon-possessed freak. Yeah, yeah, she was already part demon. Funny.

Stealing with gloves on was a nightmare. Not only did she not have full control over her abilities any longer, her fingers twitchy and uncoordinated, but the lace made her slip and misstep often.

Claude grabbed her by the wrist. "Caught you again." They'd been practicing anytime they passed each other. Claude was a difficult target, quick eyes, but she'd been pickpocketing him for all the years she'd known him. Where else would she get the bangles in her hair?

Minerva drew back, looking sour. She hadn't even made it to the pocketwatch.

How did he do this?

"You're overthinking it, Lynon." He was sober as all hell, she could see it in his eyes. Tired. Didn't sleep well without alcohol. Maybe even thinking about his sister. His speech was slower, gravelly, like every word took more effort than the last. "It's a smooth motion. You don't give it any thought, and neither does the target. In and out, gone before they notice, that's it."

Minerva turned away. "Don't lecture me." It was humiliating, being told what to do by someone she could previously lift from with her eyes closed. It had never occurred to her that maybe he was the worse pickpocket because of the gloves.

He kept his grip on her wrist. "Hey. Look at me." She did. His eyes were softer than usual. "If this one thing defines you, you'll do it for the rest of your life."

"Like drinking?" It came out bitter as black coffee, and she regretted it immediately. She shouldn't have said it. At least he was trying.

Claude's arm dropped, hands sliding into his pockets, and he looked at his feet. "Yeah, Minerva. Like drinking."

"Sorry."

"No, I know." He brought one hand back up to rub his forehead, and when it fell, the circles beneath his eyes seemed darker than before. "You're young, Minerva, you can't—" He sighed. "You can't do this forever. It's a hole you won't be able to crawl out of."

Minerva scuffed her socks on the floor. "How old're you?"

"Twenty-four, and that's going on seventeenish years of thieving." He frowned, tilting his head to count. "I guess I'll be twenty-five soon." He looked back at her. "It's not a good thing, you know. Ramona'll tell you it doesn't matter, but it does. You don't wanna end up in jail, alright? You don't wanna go through what she did. You wanna get out. Find something else." Claude pointed to her hand. "You want more of that? Next time it kills you."

"You're not my brother," Minerva muttered.

His stare didn't waver. "No, I'm your friend. And I know you're not like her. You don't want this."

"You make a lotta assumptions, Verelia."

"I'm good at reading people."

"Or you're wrong."

"I'm not. Every one of you morons is just stubborn."

Minerva blew a stray lock of blond out of her face, searching the room for a distraction. She didn't want to have this conversation. It was too close to the admission she'd made to Baba Yaga: I don't know if I wanna do this anymore.

Luckily, a distraction was readily waiting. Penny was making subpar replicas of the Fairy servants' clothes, and her abrupt swearing made Minerva spin. "Cut myself," she mumbled in an irritated tone, sucking on the fingertip in question and shaking out her hand. Minerva wandered over to leer over what she was doing. "Hey, back off!" Penny snapped immediately. "I don't need to be micromanaged."

Minerva pointed to the half-finished stitches. "You're doing the wrong stitch! If you don't go back over it again the seams'll fall apart once it's been worn."

"I know what I'm doing," Penny argued. "I used to sew plenty, okay?"

Her blood felt hot, and panic filled her at the realization that she couldn't do anything about the fact that Penny wasn't doing things the right way. "No, you don't. Listen—"

"Bear," Penny hollered, "crowd control!"

Minerva gritted her teeth, folding her arms as Bear easily plucked her by the waist and removed her from Penny's workspace, dragging her into the kitchen. This hotel had a real one, too; the pop-up kitchen was folded up over by the window. Ramona was at the counter with a pair of needle-nose pliers, tediously removing valuable jewels from an assortment of stolen goods and placing them into separate cubicles in a storage container. Her wings were gone for the first time Minerva had seen since the injury, another facet of preparation. Minerva huffed and leaned against the sink.

"What's Lindsay doing, anyway?"

Ramona looked up, Bear joining her to sort through the jewelry.

"Up at the castle again. Almost heist day." She gestured with the pliers toward the doorway. "Try not to give Windsor such a hard time. She hates doing your job."

Minerva pushed her tongue against the roof of her mouth. She hated not doing her job.

🙤 ˖ ࣪⭑ ┈┈┈┈ · ✦ · ┈┈┈┈ ˖ ࣪⭑ 🙦

Lindsay never wanted to scale a fence again.

She heaved herself up, teetering on the edge and being careful not to rip her shorts. "Should've worn pants," she muttered breathlessly as thorns scraped her legs. Zooming in on her scoping camera, she snapped a shot of the outer gardens and the bridge. Then before she could get another one, she went tumbling off the fence and landed in a starberry bush.

"Godmotherdamn—"

Spiked berries exploded under her, bursting pinkish-orange all over her clothes. Lindsay tried desperately to wipe it off but only succeeded in smearing hot pink juice further into the fabric. Excellent. Well, she needed a better outfit if she was going to do this, anyway. Ruining her clothes only accelerated the inevitable. She wrangled herself out of the bush and plucked a berry off, popping it into her mouth. The result was instant regret.

"Ugh, sour! Much better in cake," Lindsay grumbled, picking stickers off her shoe and ducking to take more photos. She could only get so far before getting caught by guards on watch on the roof. She wiped her mouth and scanned for garden servants, locating a woman roughly her size. Then she produced from her bag a small silver cube with a seam down the middle—Automatic Shadow Cover, like a temporary cloud of blending in. She only had two of these on hand, and it wasn't nearly as good as real invisibility, so she'd have to save the second one for the best time to use it. She twisted the cube, activating the camouflage shroud, and waited for it to adjust to the sunny environment around her.

Checking her bag to ensure the rag was still in it, she weaved her way around the guards' blindspots using the pattern she'd gathered since they arrived in Central City. This stupid palace was like a city, she thought irritably. The garden maze surrounding the entrance bridge was bad enough. She couldn't imagine what it possibly looked like inside.

Upon locating her target, she had to wait and watch, remaining hidden until the woman was alone. She began to grow impatient, listening to a meaningless conversation between her and a centaur colleague about last night's rugby game. Finally, finally, she broke off to turn down another hall in the maze, clippers in hand, and Lindsay followed her by memory. Left, right, straight, left—there. Approaching silently from behind, Lindsay produced the rag and grabbed the gardener around the mouth, muffling her startled shouts by clamping it quickly. It took several moments for whatever poison Baby had soaked it with to kick in. (Just a knockout. She'd be fine.) Once she went slack in her arms, Lindsay did her best to lower her down gently, but... er... gentle was relative. Hopefully no one heard the thump.

Lindsay had plenty of experience changing clothes within a short period of time—this wasn't her first rodeo—but the nervousness that someone would appear and catch her in the act made her work considerably faster, and much messier, too. Her clothes were stuffed on the gardener, the gardener's clothes were yanked onto her. She counted the seconds under her breath. A hundred and sixty-two. Slinging the bag that held her camera over her shoulder, Lindsay ran, tucking her hair into a white ribbon along the way.

Now that she could wander the outskirts of the palace freely, pretending to water grass, Lindsay weaved her way out of the maze. It was a good thing she had a mind like a steel trap and had no problem remembering from her pictures where to go to get out. (Kidding. She did not in fact have a mind like a steel trap. She wandered for some thirty minutes squinting at her camera roll for reference.)

Anyway, after finally exiting the garden in her disguise, Lindsay set her eyes on her next objective: the royal guards posted around the perimeter of the castle. The guard uniforms in Fairy were absurd, nearly all white with gold accents, a gaudy blue sash and a ridiculous feathered helmet. And, of course, half-capes that didn't really seem to serve any function except to get snagged on low-hanging tree branches and provide a certain sense of dramatic flair.

There were plenty of female guards here. Probably female knights too. Up in Snow where they'd last been, women could apply to be guards but never become knights, but here, it only mattered whether you could pass the exams, and even if human women didn't qualify in large numbers, there were other species whose females were stronger. Like werewolves. There were a lot of werewolves serving as knights, royal guards, and on the police force. They'd come to her house, when Lindsay lived with her mother and her sisters and the royal family was searching for the girl whose foot matched the glass shoe. Those sons of witches stank.

Maybe Penny should try her hand at becoming a royal guard, Lindsay mused as she searched for a good target. Finally put that sword-swinging and arrow-shooting to good use for a change. Ha! Likely.

"You lost? The garden's that way."

"Oh!" Lindsay blinked up at the guard in front of her leaning on his staff. Centaur, godlike jawline, hair pulled back per uniform requirements, all party in the back. Hmm. Would she do a half-horse? She'd never considered it. But then again there was that satyr at that one high school party, and really, it was basically the same thing. The guard glared at her and she realized she was supposed to be spying, not pondering over the logistics of getting with a guy who had a horse for a bottom half. "Oh, uh... yeah, yeah, I was just looking for some..." Thank godmothers they were in Fairy and she didn't have to put on some fake accent. She glanced down blankly at her watering can. "...Fertilizer. I need to go inside and—"

"You go inside on schedule," said the sexy guard in his sexy voice, looking unbothered. "Same as everybody else. Just get back to work, alright?"

Seriously? It was always the good-looking ones that let you down.

Lindsay lowered her lashes, blinking innocently. "You wouldn't want me to die of heat stroke—"

"Lady, I couldn't care less. You think I want to be out here in the heat? Beat it."

She huffed, turning to walk away. She'd have to find some dorky guard instead. This cold, soulless hunk would be impossible to seduce into giving up anything. Or seduce period.

She paused, turning back. "You got a number or something?"

"Beat it," he emphasized again, so Lindsay finally gave up. She didn't have a phone anyway. Ramona thought that sort of thing was a, quote, "liability".

She went around another wall, yanking down her collar much further, and this time got smarter about what she was doing, locating the entrance to the indoor greenhouse so she'd be more likely to get in. The pair of guards stationed at the door halted her, saying it wasn't break yet, so she sidled right up to them. A good long look at her assets and a, "Can't a girl rest once in a while?" did the trick, and she made her way through the greenhouse, not to get fertilizer, but to sneak into the castle through the kitchen hall, avoiding the squawks and screeches coming from the nearby aviary.

"You know what we could use in all that magical artifact junk?" Lindsay said under her breath as she did her best to stick to crevices to get a few more pictures of the inside of the castle where she could manage it without being seen. "An invisibility cloak. Where's that when you need it?"

In the next hall, the number of security cameras doubled. She stashed her scoping camera away, determining it wasn't worth the risk, and joined a gathering of servants to blend in while she explored inside.

"And over on the west side, the king and queen's chambers—don't enter here without permission, under any circumstances. I don't care if a superior told you to, I don't care if you were told to scrub every window in the palace. You don't enter the royal chambers until you are given express permission by His or Her Majesty. Only the king's personal servants and the queen's handmaids have this privilege. Alright, now, come this way."

These were novices, she realized, servants-in-training. She kept her head low and continued to follow them, deciding it was probably her best bet. The group was led through an enormous room where Ella's wardrobe was designed, crafted, and mended, apparently on a twenty-four-hour basis. A glass case towering to the ceiling held tiaras for every occasion. Lindsay's lip curled to see her the absurd amounts of wealth she was swimming in now. She had dresses fashioned, by hand, on the daily.

And Lindsay was robbing her house to pay for her own clothes.

Giggling came up from the rafters as little creatures skittered across the walls and the ceiling, and several of the servants jumped. "Pay them no mind, those are the elves," the man leading the group told them. "They move between this palace and that of Rose Kingdom doing favors. Don't have conversations near them—terrible gossips."

"What... what are they?" a boy asked.

"Royal pets. The king houses them out of charity."

They passed by a hall that led downstairs to the vault, and Lindsay spotted more guards blocking the way. Excellent. They should have keys to the royal chambers, and likely to the wardrobe room, too. But how to slip away undetected...?

"Up ahead, the servants' chambers. This is where the lot of you will be staying. Curfew is..."

Lindsay plucked out her second Shadow Cover cube and clicked it on. These worked a lot better in dimmer places, but hopefully it would adjust to the lighting quickly. She only had exactly two minutes to use it.

Lindsay held to the walls, shuffling towards the guards. It was darker in the hall leading to the vault. As she got closer, she realized that the one on the right was monstrously hairy, with large teeth protruding from an even larger jaw. Ah, crudmuffins. Werewolf. They had really good senses. The one on the left was probably human or some unassuming type of fairy, but she was on the wrong side. Internally groaning, she carefully lowered herself to the floor and began scooting across the corridor to the opposite wall.

If anyone could see her, this would be humiliating.

She reached the left wall and flattened herself against it, making her way quickly and quietly over to the guarded doors. The time ticked anxiously in her head, but she'd lose focus counting the seconds she had left.

The guard closest to her shifted, muttering to his colleague in quiet conversation she could only barely make out through her concentration, but looking straight ahead with his halberd standing upright. She crouched down, reaching forward. Slow movements so as not to disturb her camouflage. She was so close—her fingers fumbled for the ring—don't fumble this, Lindsay—carefully, ever so carefully, it came loose.

She hesitated. Which one do I need?

The human (?) guard sniffed the air, and she froze. "You smell anything? Like that pesticide stuff they spray the gardens with?"

The werewolf used his halberd to scratch his goatee. "I can't smell anything, man." Abruptly he sneezed. "Still got that cold," he added, catching his breath.

The other guard rubbed his nose. "Think I'm gettin' it too. Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Relieved, Lindsay remembered she was nearly out of shadow cover and discarded the idea of picking a specific key. Shoot, I'll just take the whole thing.

The switch was quick and imperceptible. The key ring for one of Claude's gold bangles, laced with false replacements that clacked against each other softly. Still refusing to allow herself to breathe, Lindsay crushed the key ring in her fist so that they wouldn't make any noise, retreated into the remains of the cover spell, and ran.

She ran from the corridor, ran through the castle, and only slowed down once she was far, far away and the camouflage effect had long worn off. Then she moved with a sea of palace servants, the keys to the kingdom hidden in the pocket of her apron.

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

A fairly long chapter, you're welcome :D!! Please stay safe if you're dealing with hurricane season! I don't know how I'm gonna get to school Monday with the gas shortages (I'd walk but it's already an hour drive...) but hey, at least the toilets still flush where I live - if you're in Zephyrhills, I'm so sorry.

Had a lot of fun with certain parts of this chapter because I finally get to either pay off or set up things I've been planning forever. The little imp in my head just keeps going "hehehe the big stuff is coming"

Today's big question: vampires or werewolves🤨? I don't have a particular affinity for either, as I don't tend to consume supernatural fiction, but I'm just going to pick vampires because I really like Blade and I enjoyed the Twilight films in a semi-ironic way. I find both too melodramatic to be taken seriously as they're portrayed in most media, although to be quite honest I think werewolves are a little bit more interesting.