It was what Mosscrow was afraid of. But it was all they had, and Medagio’s sniffer had proven quite keen. He couldn’t lose faith that this would work.
Or start worrying about rampant gargoyles on the loose.
“Even if he fails to locate the girl,” Crow theorized, “he will return to his master.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“And yet, even if I am not, we will carry on. For this is just the beginning, Majesty. We will reach success employing the supernatural. Mark my words.”
“Is that a new obsession I sense, Crow?”
“If you call extensive planning to ensure you don’t fail obsession. I call it smart.”
“And how much is this ‘extensive planning’ going to cost me?”
Mosscrow turned from the window with a clever little half-smile over his shoulder. “Nothing, Majesty, if you play your cards right. All you have to do is draw those out of the woodwork who have ached to be set free, who have dreamed of fighting for a world where they and others like them might live in the open – who would jump at the chance to be champions of the cause, the faces that history remembers as the pioneers of a new magical age. If sanctioned, I think you would be surprised to find how many would volunteer their services.”
*
A week after the appearance of the gargoyle, the Shadhi braved emerging from their hovels. They had retreated into the stacks and the underground to patch their wounds and heal, but could not pretend there wasn’t also an element of lying low involved, a hesitancy to resurface in the wake of such a horror haunting the streets.
But eventually they crawled back out of the woodwork, wary and watchful, not straying far from the access points that led right back into hiding.
Despiris kept her eyes on the sky and the ledges above in a way she never had before, a lingering sense of something stalking her playing tricks on her awareness. Unlike weeks prior, Clevwrith hardly left her side, the two of them inseparable once again. They only went out armed to the teeth, and couldn’t seem to find inspiration for any of the usual heists. The air was tense, the Cob eerie in a way that troubled even the Lord and Lady of Night.
The encounter remained a haunting mystery, the origin of the beast a spine-tingling unknown.
But it was not so all-consuming that it kept them from investigating another curiosity that extended its feelers across their radar. In fact, they welcomed the distraction, and the promise of something they actually had the ability to put to rest.
An intriguing rumor had spread throughout Cerf Daine that the old cathedral was being spruced up for some above-average event, the nature of which was very hush-hush and the corresponding guest list invitation-only.
Naturally, the Master of the Shadows had to be there.
“We need to get out in the city, listen to the gossip,” Clevwrith said. “I want to know when this meeting is taking place. And just what measures they’re taking to ensure we don’t get in. Aristocratic scene or taverns?”
Although she didn’t look forward to the unwanted attention she might receive from drunks in the taverns, mingling with a bunch of nobles so soon after identifying herself as the Master of the Shadows at the palace felt like walking the line a little too closely. So she opted to hit the taverns, leaving Clevwrith to infiltrate the parlors and clubs of high society.
They donned their respective costumes and dispersed, but Despiris balked at the edge of the Cob, her recent experience during daylight hours sticking with her.
Clevwrith glanced over his shoulder, noting her reluctance. He paused to give her a moment to catch up. “You can do it, Des,” he said without pity – but not without encouragement. “There is nothing you can’t do. Easily.”
Once, she might have believed him. Now, it seemed like nothing came easily anymore. Reservations congealed inside her, making her dread the task ahead. “It doesn’t feel the same,” she admitted.
“Since when?”
“Since I was caught. Since I realized I’m not as gifted as you.”
“You are just as capable,” he countered sternly, trying to catch her eye to ensure she really took his words to heart.
And she felt them, but…she just wasn’t sure, anymore.
But she didn’t argue. “See you tonight?” she said instead, not exactly pretending she was convinced, either.
Clevwrith hesitated a single moment more, sensing her persisting disquiet. But he left it at that. “See you tonight.”
They parted ways, heading toward opposite ends of the social spectrum. And to Despiris, it just felt like one more way they’d been straying in opposite directions of late.
*
“I heard they’ve revived the lampposts along the fence,” Despiris reported.
“I heard they’ll be doubling the guard.”
“I heard there will be dogs.”
“I heard the king himself will be there.”
“I heard it’s to be held the first Tuesday of next month.”
“I heard the same.”
Arms crossed, Despiris tapped a foot. “What do you think it’s about?”
“I heard it’s a surprise birthday party for the king.”
“I heard we’re going to war.”
“Well,” Clevwrith said, the gleam returning faintly to his eye for the first time since the gargoyle attack, “I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”
*
Later, reclined with knees splayed in his favorite chair, sipping a cup of tea, Clevwrith declared, “I want you to plan how we’re going to get in.”
Though not unaccustomed to having her mentor challenge her, Despiris thought graduating to Shadhi had largely put an end to that kind of treatment. She stole a glance at Clevwrith over her own cup of tea from where she stood next to the tea cart, realizing it was probably a tactic to restore her confidence in herself. To remind her she was good at this, that she could pull a heist out of a hat alongside the best in the business.
That she was a criminal mastermind, and could not so swiftly pretend otherwise.
And, perhaps just because she was comforted by the idea of pretending everything was how it used to be, she slid smoothly into the role.
“I suppose just sneaking in way ahead of schedule would be considered far too easy,” she said as she seated herself opposite him, crossing one leg over the other.
“Naturally.”
“Very well. I don’t foresee the extra guard being too much of a problem. But the dogs…we’ll need something to cover our scent, and some kind of disturbance so they won’t pick our intrusion out of the ruckus. But not something so alarming that the cathedral is evacuated and the meeting canceled.”
“Can you think of anything that would accomplish both?”
She thought for a moment. “Smoke. A small fire. Enough to create camouflage and commotion, but nothing that could spread out of control.”
“Very good. What will we be torching?”
Despiris chewed her lip. “Flaming arrow to a carriage?”
Clevwrith grinned. “Brushed up on your archery skills lately?”
“Why don’t you challenge me to a little friendly competition, and we’ll find out?”
*
When the evening of the meeting came, the Shadhi duo perched behind a chimney on a rooftop across from the cathedral, waiting for the fun to begin.
Despiris checked the bow while Clevwrith laid out their supplies. They’d fashioned a few arrows for the occasion, wrapping a line of sparkdrops in kerosene-soaked gauze which was then bound around the shaft beneath the arrowhead. The arrowhead would be dipped in kerosene just prior to shooting, and a single sparkdrop skewered on the tip to ignite upon impact.
Guards and bloodhounds were already in place when Des and Clev arrived, patrolling the grounds ahead of the event. But it wasn’t long before members of the meeting began to arrive. Fine carriages rattles over the broken cobblestones and halted in front of the gates, where guards screened and admitted passengers based on the gu
est list.
Carriage after carriage deposited beautiful people at the gate, and then prattled around the curve of the fence to park in a long line.
“I didn’t anticipate the carriages would be outside the fence,” Despiris noted offhandedly, testing the tension of the bowstring.
“No matter,” Clevwrith dismissed. “The smoke should still spread to the grounds. And guards rushing to put out a fire outside the fence will only draw them away from the center where we’ll make our entrance.”
“Sometimes things work out better than planned.”
“Sometimes,” Clevwrith said. “But we still count on every step going awry, just in case.”
Despiris was about to respond when a braying hound distracted her. Peering around the chimney, she looked for the culprit, finding a guard struggling to contain a dog that was barking at the Lord Advisor’s gawky assistant. The assistant was dancing out of range and shooing at the beast, trying to get past without having a bite taken out of his calves.
New on the scene, a gorgeously-gowned woman in a fancy hat strode without flinching between the aggravated dog and the helpless assistant, giving the hound a sharp thwack on its nose with a folded fan grasped in one elegantly gloved hand. The animal gave a yelp and fell back to sit submissively beside the guard, instantly docile. Unperturbed, the woman continued toward the cathedral.
Cocking her head, Despiris eyed the woman as she finished crossing the yard, profiling her for later. She inventoried little more than the excessive glitter and glamour of the woman’s silver and ivory gown before she disappeared inside, but there was something about her…
“That one’s dangerous,” Clevwrith remarked, coming to a similar conclusion.
Who is she?
She was distracted again by the king’s arrival, announced by two stunning black horses pulling a gold and violet carriage. Pairs of guards on horseback preceded and followed the carriage, ensuring its safe passage through the city.
As the carriage prattled to a halt, the king stepped down onto the cobblestones and swept through the gates with a brief nod to the cathedral guards, something proud and bold possessing his manner for the evening’s event.
A strange flutter went through Despiris, seeing him again. A tingle of curiosity mixed with a pang of unrest. She averted her gaze, not ready to revisit the things brought to light upon their last encounter.
“They’re closing the gates,” Clevwrith noted, snapping her right back to the task at hand. “That must be all of them.”
As subtly as possible, Despiris drew a breath to compose herself, trying to stay focused. “We wait until we’re sure they’re settled, and then we make our move?”
Clevwrith nodded, shifting to get more comfortable. They bided their time in silence for a few uneventful minutes, and then Clevwrith peered over the top of the chimney with an air of readiness. “Care to do the honors?”
“With pleasure.”
Clevwrith opened the jar of kerosene, and Despiris dipped the arrowhead in, then pricked a sparkdrop onto the tip. Taking aim around the chimney, she inhaled to steady herself, then loosed the arrow as she exhaled. The arrow whizzed over the street and across the yard, flying true to her target. With a dazzling whoosh, the point of impact erupted in flames.
The horses noticed before anyone else did, the line of carriages jostling as spooked equines attempted to shy away from the flame. Someone called an alarm, but the coachmen had their hands full trying to control runaway carriages, and the guards could do little from inside the fence.
When it became clear the coachmen needed assistance from the ground, a few spritely guards delegated themselves, running to the gate to cross to the outside.
No one had come equipped to put out a fire. Guards stripped their uniform jackets and beat at the flames, but by the time they reached the carriage – which the coachman had wisely steered away from the others – the whole back of the contraption was ablaze. They made a valiant effort, appearing to decrease the blaze momentarily but losing control of it again.
In the end, the coachman unhitched the horses and led them away from what had clearly become a hopeless cause, and everyone stepped back to let the fire burn itself out.
The entire yard was hazy by then, eddies of smoke seeping into alleyways and drifting upward to the Shadhi’s perch. Ready with masks in place, they gave each other a nod, forsaking the rooftop for the shrouded streets.
Through the clamor of shod hooves on cobblestones, horses still whinnying with unease, and guards calling to one another to communicate through the fence, the spies made their way to the manhole outside the fence. Under the eerie light of the smoke-glazed streetlamps, they vanished underground.
Through the sewer shaft, under the fence, they surfaced in the yard. The acrid gloom obscured everything; Despiris couldn’t make out the fence in any direction, or the hulking cathedral at the center of the yard.
With a quiet scrape, the spies replaced the manhole lid and drifted like unseen ghosts toward where they knew the cathedral to be.
Good thing I’ve already mapped the yard and counted the steps–
Clevwrith stopped her abruptly with an iron grip around her upper arm.
The vague shape of a guard and bloodhound manifested before them, crossing their path in the congealing gloom.
Despiris held her breath, praying the smoke was enough to cover their scent.
Just as quickly as they had appeared, the patrolling duo melded back into the haze, leaving the Shadhi to slink undetected on their way.
Snatches of the cathedral wavered in and out of focus as the smoke began to thin, the obscurity becoming questionable as they reached the edifice. Without a moment to lose, they started up the pillars, but with the dissipation of their cover came the challenge of staying always out of sight of the guards on the ground. The result was an artful spiral, an awkward give and take of maneuvers around their columns – now slipping around to the other side, now ducking back because eyes appeared there too. Around and around and back and forth, at times one step forward and two steps back, it was slow going to the top.
But they found that sky-grazing ledge at last, hoisting themselves onto the roof.
They were met by guards there too, of course, but they slunk from statue to statue, hiding behind beastly shapes that no one would look twice at if augmented with an extra jutting limb or added hump.
“There are one hundred ways to be invisible,” whispered Clevwrith’s phantom voice from past teachings. Often, hiding in plain sight proved easier than one might think.
Or so Despiris thought, until she made as if to dart from the shadow of the gryphon’s great wings to her next benchmark–
And found the next statue missing from its perch.
19
Limits and Lures
“I gave you that emblem-maker for a reason. You are free to do as you please. Make your own mark.” – Clevwrith to Des after her graduation to Shadhi.
*
Despiris balked, but Clevwrith towed her onward past the gap. Then they were on to the hatch, while the guards were focused outward on the clearing grounds below.
Into the dome the Shadhi slithered, tearing off their smoke-saturated masks once inside. Finding their way out onto the rafters over the main hall, they tuned in to the meeting below.
“How go things with the hounds, Lady Verrikose?” the Lord Advisor inquired, taking a calm sip from his chalice of wine.
The silver-gowned woman with the fancy hat turned toward the Lord Advisor, her dark eyes gleaming beneath a short, black net veil. A raven-colored curl spilled over her bare shoulder. Taking a deep, slow breath, she closed her eyes in concentration before replying. “They are uncomfortable. Anxious.” Her nostrils flared. “There is smoke in the air.”
A frown pinched Despiris’s brows. What was she talking about? How does she know about the smoke? Despiris couldn’t sense even a whiff of it inside.
“Is that so?” asked Mosscrow with casual interest, the
n turned to one of the guards along the edge of the chamber. “Darvest, please take a look outside. Report to me whether there is indeed smoke.”
With a curt nod the guard strode off to do as he was instructed, returning momentarily. “There is smoke, my lord.”
A ripple of surprise murmured about the chamber, and Mosscrow turned to the other guests. “Lady Verrikose of Rovanda has just demonstrated a valuable skill. Some might call it scandalous, sacrilegious. But we are here tonight to propose the idea that it is, in fact, exquisite.
“Many are uncomfortable with these enigmas, the same way we do not readily relate to geniuses in mathematics or associate with eccentric acrobats from the circus. But if we allow them their place in society, equations otherwise unsolved will be ours for the solving. Wonders as those enjoyed only in contexts such as the exotic confines of circus tents will be confined no longer, but will color our world like wildflowers.
“Allow me to ask this… If sanctioned, how many of you could find use for a skill such as the lady’s in their employ? Show of hands?” At first, no one was bold enough to out themselves as magic-curious. After a moment of thought, a few offered a subtle flick of fingers just above the tabletop to indicate they were open to the possibility, at least.
Mosscrow took note and continued. “Perhaps many of you are hesitant to openly exhibit interest in something previously and vehemently viewed as taboo. I do not blame you. But the fact of the matter is, these gifted beings exist. They coexist, all around us. And if they were wicked, we would have been destroyed by their powers long ago. It is time we accepted them as fellow, empathetic human beings. And if we hope to combat those gifted individuals who are not so kindhearted, as all humanity varies in its goodness, we should bloody well be ready to rise to the challenge with an arsenal that compares.”
Despiris’s frown deepened, something nagging at her as the subject matter of the meeting came to light.
Expressions were turning thoughtful around the table, fingers tapping on crossed arms or wine chalices in consideration.
Girl of Rooftops and Shadows (The Shadow's Apprentice Book 1) Page 16