Chapter 17: Unexpected Guests

Scene 77

Over an hour after it started, people were still arriving at Monique’s party. There was a queue of carriages along the hilly street, as people waited to be announced and welcomed.

Zofia didn’t have time for that. After waiting for five minutes that felt like an eternity, she leapt from her carriage. She didn’t even try to get to the front entrance: she moved around a hedge, finding a side gate. It was guarded, yes ... but the second the guards saw her pink hair and tiara, gleaming in the sunlight, they froze. She vaulted over the gate and proceeded right into the gardens.

As she walked the stone path, she composed herself. That familiar, stoic mask over her face; a graceful stride and steady breathing, even though her body wanted to bend double and gasp for breath.

Then she rounded a rosebush and saw the party, colourful nobles entertained by monochrome staff. So many people. Her heart doubled its pace again.

She focused on her breathing, a pretence of stability and calm. She focused on her gait, one foot in front of the other. She focused on her arms, steady at her sides, her gloves hiding her shaking hands. Just be as unobtrusive as possible...

But it was hopeless. As soon as one person saw her, the whispers spread, until everyone — every single person, she was sure of it — was staring at her. Of course they would. Princess Zofia Tourmaline didn’t go to parties. Not as anything but an aloof presence, impatiently waiting for the host to help in her crusades; or maybe a sudden force, dragging a guest away to face punishment for their corruption.

Her senses blurred until the people were nothing more than streaks of colour, wordless whispers, and staring eyes. She hadn’t even felt this tense at Darlinalia, for all the gods’ sakes. Maybe if she undressed, she’d be more comfortable?

No! No, that would be stupid, ridiculous, humiliating. A princess didn’t do such things. Though Zofia ached for her collar.

Ached for direction. She didn’t even know how to exist in a setting like this; how was she going to find Exeter and keep him safe? She needed her master. Where was she?

Scene 78 (M/F, groping)

Val had been chained up for a few minutes when the silence finally broke.

“I’m ... sorry.” Cynthia Exeter was barely even mumbling, her gaze still locked on the floor to give the pair something resembling privacy. “For what’s being done to you. For what’s going to be done to you.” Val could hear the weariness in her tone. Cynthia had seen treatment like this before, too many times.

Liz took a deep breath, then offered a brave smile between the bars. “It’ll be okay, Miss Exeter. We’re here to rescue you.”

That, Cynthia had not seen before. She finally lifted her gaze, just to give Liz a bewildered look.

The last lingering guard snorted with amusement. “Bang-up job you’re doing, mate.” He turned to address Val’s chest. “What about you? Still think you’re rescuing anyone?”

“Hey!” Liz shouted. “Leave her alone. What, am I not pretty enough for you?”

The guard laughed, his eyes returning bluntly, crassly to Liz’s body. “Girls, girls, you’re both pretty.”

Liz’s cheeks flushed scarlet, but she didn’t back down. “Well, go ahead. Stare. It’s the only chance someone like you will ever get to see a body like this.”

The taunt made him snarl. He glared at her, but she met his eyes without flinching — and that just seemed to infuriate him further. He drew himself up to his full height as he stepped closer, making a show of towering over her. “Watch your mouth, girl. I can do a lot more than look. I don’t have to wait until that collar’s here, making it good for you.”

Cynthia winced, her gaze dropping to the floor again. She didn’t want to see what would happen next. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Val said nothing. She couldn’t speak. Her mouth was too full of the sharp, bitter taste of rage.

And keys.

While Liz held the guard’s attention, Val finally spat out the payload she’d been hiding throughout the whole mission: a ring of keys. As she caught them between her toes, they softly clacked against each other.

The sound caught Cynthia’s attention, and the second she saw them, her eyes went wide. Val couldn’t press a finger to her lips, but she ‘shh’ed the noblegirl as clearly as she could.

“Oh, big man!” Liz snarled loudly. “So brave, threatening a woman that someone else chained, stripped, and put on a platter for you. Admit it, you don’t have the balls to even lay a hand on—”

He interrupted her with a pointed grope, fingers sinking harshly into her breast. She hissed, playing up her discomfort.

And practically behind his back, Val stretched up and grabbed hold of her chains, using them for leverage. She flexed, folding her body in half to raise her feet — and their precious cargo — all the way up to the shackles. It wasn’t easy: they were slick from her mouth, and she only had her toes to work with...

But the third key slid right in, and with a twist, her cuffs were open.

At the same time, Liz whined from the sensation of her nipples being pinched, covering the little sound that Val made. The guard laughed. “Funny. Usually, you wouldn’t even feel it for another—”

Valerie grabbed him by the back of the head and smashed him into the hard stone wall. Then once again, before letting him drop limply to the floor.

Cynthia let out half a shriek before she clapped both hands over her own mouth, eyes wide.

Liz just smiled. “Finally.” She gave the guard another kick, just for good measure, while Val undid her cuffs. “As I was saying.”

Cynthia was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. “How ... who...” There were too many questions bouncing off each other in her head. One only managed to burst all the way out as Val approached her cell. “Wh-Where did you get those keys?”

“Made them.” Val tried them, one by one, on the cell door. “I got my hands on the Queen’s key ring, took casts of them all, and poured in some quick-hardening resin. Tastes foul, but as you can see, I couldn’t rely on hiding them on my body.”

Cynthia kept staring. Val wasn’t sure if she’d even blinked yet. “How, how are you moving? When people come in limp like that, it takes over an hour before they can start moving!”

“Shirshu Tongue, I know,” Val said. “We couldn’t know what she’d use, not exactly, so we took as many different counter-agents as I could dare. Our stomachs will not thank us for the mix tomorrow, and we could only do small doses...” She grimaced. She hated fighting alchemists. “ ... but it was enough to get us up and moving while she is, hopefully, still in the infirmary.”

Cynthia finally blinked. “ ... this was your plan. To get yourselves captured and stripped.”

“More that we planned for it,” Liz said as she finished checking over the guard. She tossed his shortsword Val’s way. “I admit we’re down to plan G now, but hey, it got us here.”

Finally, Val found the right key, and the cell door creaked open. Cynthia shrank back, near-panicked. “Wh-What are you going to do to me?”

Good things hadn’t happened for her for a long time. It was natural she’d be wary. Val smiled at her, as warmly and encouragingly as she knew how. “We work with Princess Zofia.” Thinking of her made it easier to smile. “We’re going to get you back home to your father.”

At last, it clicked. They weren’t agents of the Queen sent to torment her with false hope, they weren’t enemies breaking in to kill her. Liz hadn’t lied: they really were there to rescue her.

The girl’s eyes brimmed with tears.

Val smiled as she picked up the guard’s sword, so she’d at least have something more than keys. “First hard part’s done.” Now to see if they could get her out of there.

Scene 79

The party was a blur around Zofia. She stood alone in the middle of the stone path. The guests kept their distance, no longer whispering, but Zofia was sure she could still feel their eyes. The staff — had they tried to serve her like another guest, or had they given the famously sober princess a wide berth, too?

Then someone, a splash of purple, actually approached her, holding out a tray. “What’ll you have?” A feminine voice.

Her panic heightened as she stared at the glasses. She’d barely ever had wine before, always preferring to keep her mind sharp ... but she could hardly call it ‘sharp’ with that anxiety screaming between her ears. People drank at parties; if she wanted to blend in, she had to do the same. But even if she did take wine, which one? Each glass was filled with a different colour. What was the difference? Would it mean something if she took the pale yellow, the pinkish one, or the deep red? All the drink etiquette she’d studied fled from her mind. What was she meant to do? What did they want her to do?

A man’s voice cut through the screeching fog. “Don’t plague her with decisions, look at her.” He held out a glass full of something clear and scentless. “Drink. It’s water.”

Part of Zofia found some miraculous way to tense further. She was a princess, she shouldn’t take orders from a stranger. She was meant to be held above them, meant to know better than them.

But other parts leapt upon and grabbed hold of blessed direction. She hadn’t come this far by doing everything herself: she’d done it by listening to Lizabet, by trusting her master. If someone could help her over this last hurdle, she’d thank the gods for her luck.

As she took the glass and half-downed it, her heart started — just started — to calm. “My thanks.” And her vision cleared until she could actually see the man before her.

Maybe in his early twenties, his baby face was more ‘cute’ than ‘handsome’. His eyes were a sparkling sapphire colour, matching the singular blue streak in his short black hair. His outfit was slightly more muted than others at the party: a plain white shirt, plain black slacks, but a vivid purple waistcoat.

Her saviour. She would happily sink to her knees and—

No, no, she shouldn’t think like that. She obscured her blush behind the glass as she took another sip. And it really was just water: her aunt had maintained her cover too long to have someone drugged at one of her own parties.

The man smiled at her. “I remember how overwhelming it was, our first time at one of these. With that many options, how are you supposed to choose? But there’s nothing wrong with water.”

“Except it’s boring.” The woman plucked a glass off her own tray and took a sip. Zofia took a better look at her. She was practically the feminine mirror of the man, down to the same single blue streak in her waist-length hair. Instead of a suit, she wore a silk dress that matched his waistcoat and fit closely to her slender, busty body.

Zofia allowed herself just a glance downwards before returning her attention to face height. Those eyes, that blue-in-black hair. Now that she wasn’t panicking, she could search her mind. These two weren’t nobles; Monique invited them because of a different kind of prestige. “You’re the Wright twins, aren’t you?”

“Right you are, and Wright we are,” he said, earning a scathing look from his sister. “Eduard and Elys, artificers.” That was a modest way of putting it. ‘Up-and-coming genius artificers’ was what Zofia had heard, with enough fame to get them into a princess’ parties. “At your service.”

Thinking about what artificers could make led Zofia’s mind through the collars, back to the Owls, to the task at hand. Her hands wrapped more tightly around the stem of her empty glass. “Have you seen Magistrate Exeter?”

“Aw, so you’re not here to learn how to party?” Elys smiled. “Another time, I hope.” She lifted her chin, using its point to indicate a gazebo set between beds of pink carnations.

Yes, Magistrate Exeter was there: a tall and reedy man in a brown suit, his purple hair greying at the temples.

And, Zofia noticed as her heart started accelerating again, Princess Monique was with him.

Scene 80

Exeter paced restlessly back and forth, his eyes down. He hated being here, itching from how badly he stood out. This was the most colourful suit he owned — not out of some ascetic protest, but just because fashion was so alien to him. It was the closest he could come to fitting in with Princess Monique’s other guests. He didn’t belong here.

But...

Finally, the princess finished whispering with her maid. As the servant went on her way, it was just the two of them left under the gazebo. He swooped in close to Monique. “When can I see her?”

She shot him a look — just with her eyes, just for him, while her face still had her party smile painted across it. “Not so loud.”

Exeter’s voice had been a near-silent growl, nothing that could have been overheard even by someone else under the gazebo. But, though his face felt hot from his flush, he said nothing to contradict her.

After a moment — just long enough to emphasise her control — Princess Monique nodded. “Soon. She has guests right now.”

That was her euphemism for demonstrative victims. Exeter shivered, not just from the cold of the concept, but the casual ease of Monique’s tone. Not a scrap of remorse.

But still, Exeter didn’t say a word against her. She had his daughter, and she could do far worse than she already was. These visits she allowed were too few and too far between, but he didn’t dare push for more, not after demonstrations she’d already made. He didn’t dare pursue anyone affiliated with her Owls. He didn’t dare help Princess Zofia in her crusade.

The princess, the Queen, gave him a falsely-sweet smile. “Relax. Have some wine. You just need to wait a little while.”

If Monique said he had to wait, then he had to wait. Exeter pushed his frustration down, under the surface, and turned away from the gazebo to find a serving girl. Some wine would do him — well, not good, he couldn’t claim that, but that didn’t make it sound any less appealing.

He scanned the garden, feeling so out of place. All around him were brightly-dressed nobles, drinking and dancing and laughing, carefree. How many of them were completely fooled by Princess Monique’s charade?

Worse, how many of them were in on it?

Scene 81

After a minute — long enough for Liz and Val to borrow a pair of undersized dresses — they were away, creeping through the basement halls.

Val strained her ears, alert for the possibility of guards around every corner. If she was by herself, she could have just vanished by now, made her way out of the basement with nobody the wiser. But her prize this time wasn’t a gemstone she could secret away in her clothing, wasn’t a pile of papers she could hide under a tray. She could trust Liz, but with Cynthia in tow, she was sneaking for two.

She heard the soft jingling of armour around the corner. With a wave of her arm, she signalled the others to hang back and wait, backs to the wall.

The moment Cynthia realised there was a guard passing by, she gasped. The guard immediately stopped and called out, “Hello?”

Swearing internally — never aloud — Val grabbed the young scion and pulled her into a side room, hand clamped over her mouth to quiet her, while Liz followed by reflex. She hated escorting civilians. Not one of them knew what they were doing, they could never keep up with her pace, they made every step harder than it needed to be...