Chapter Twelve Eugene
Twelve
Eugene
“You know, if we keep meeting like this, I’m just going to assume you have a thing for me,” Eugene declares as he once again finds himself blindfolded and bound to a chair in what he’s now assuming to be the hideout of the People’s Dagger. Or what’s left of them.
This time, though, there’s a bit of a complication.
It’s not that he’s been abducted again. In fact, he was gunning for that specifically.
Third Street Hospital happens to sit near the same plaza as Herbert he’s just leaving out the part where Enver arrested him for looking like a dead man.
“And then what?”
Eugene bristles. “And then you told me about my parents.”
“I’ll tell you more when you say something worth knowing,” Torch growls.
“Not much of a deal, then, is it?” Eugene barbs. “What’s to stop you from deciding nothing I say is good enough?”
“He does have a point,” rumbles a voice—the same deep, smooth one that mentioned his resemblance yesterday. “Perhaps we might set some tangible benchmarks.”
Torch snorts. “I don’t need your help—”
Eugene makes an executive decision to cut to the chase. “So is this really the People’s Dagger?”
The room goes quiet.
Finally, Torch asks, deadly calm, “How do you know that name?”
“I’ll tell you,” Eugene says at peak smarm, “when you say something worth knowing.”
“Just give the boy something already,” the unnamed voice snips.
There’s a scrape and rustle that sounds like pacing. Torch sighs. After a long beat, they speak. “Your parents, Marietta and Andreas, owned and ran the printshop you saw.”
“Herbert it sounds like every Asteran knows the story, after all. But he can hear Torch pacing again, their footfalls scraping harder against the floor with Eugene’s every word.
“He’s lying,” they bark when Eugene’s done. “He’s been lying for years.”
“Where’s the lie?” Eugene asks.
But Torch just says, “I need to talk to the others and figure out what to do with you.”
“We’re not releasing them?” queries the mysterious other voice.
“I don’t know that we can anymore.” There’s a rattle of hinges, then quiet.
Eugene sucks in a breath. He—he can’t think about his parents right now. This was just supposed to be a visit to fish for info, but now Cressien and indefinite captivity are in the mix.
And almost as unsettling as everything else…this feels right.
Another man might be sensibly distressed by the situation—and he is, at least a little—but this is what he used to live for: risk, danger, intrigue. His head feels clearer, sharper than it has in weeks.
And that might just be why, as Torch leaves, Eugene notes he only heard one set of footsteps.
He waits for a few moments, then says into the empty air, “You knew my parents.”
The deep-voiced stranger, whom Eugene has mentally dubbed Stranger, shifts with a creak of a stool as if surprised to be addressed. They clear their throat. “I did.”
“Anything you can tell me that isn’t top secret?”
“I really ought not to,” Stranger starts.
“Not even public knowledge stuff?” Eugene wheedles. “Things I should know, since I was born here?”
“You weren’t,” Stranger corrects him, then seems to realize their mistake and emits a resigned ugh.
“I suppose, if we’re not letting you go yet, I might as well…
The last I saw Marietta, she was barely showing.
She was involved with one of the Councilor of the East’s subcommittees, and she and Andreas had become the queen and king’s primary printers for royal records years before.
They wound up getting close with the queen.
Even gave her the first copy of Flynnigan Rider.
And Enver was…different, then. Closer to the man he was as a duke. ”
“I heard the, uh, Directions Council can’t overrule him anymore,” Eugene prompts.
“Cardinal Council, and correct. Following what he dubbed the Night of the Poisoned Dagger, he enacted a series of ‘emergency’ measures that became permanent—taking the throne himself, appointing his own council, stripping us of the power to oppose him.” Stranger shifts in their seat again.
Eugene resists the urge to pick at that very intriguing us while Stranger’s on a disclosure roll.
“He claims he’s only waiting to transition power until Verette’s old enough to take the throne.
And he let her grow into a leader the people love and hope for…
so much so that that hope alone is enough to placate most who would resist. That’s the game, you see.
Because year after year, he says Astera’s not stable enough to let her take over yet, and promises the next will be the one. ”
“But we were invited to Verette’s coming of age ceremony,” Eugene says, with no small degree of confusion.
Stranger lets out a bitter chuckle. “Dear boy…Verette has come of age at least four times. Perhaps six? I’ve lost count.”
Before Eugene can ask what on earth that’s supposed to mean, the door creaks. “We need you,” Torch rasps.
Eugene hears Stranger’s chair legs scrape. “Are you certain we can leave them—”
“Yes,” Torch interrupts. “One’s unconscious and they’re both tied up.”
“Say hi to Solena for me,” Eugene hollers as the door closes.
Then he yanks his hands free of the shoddy bindings—the People’s Dagger really needs to stop relying on a clove hitch—and pulls his blindfold off.
He turns to Cressien. The minister is already sitting upright. Eugene whips his blindfold off and finds him wide awake. Cressien drawls, “That was certainly illuminating.”
“But they drugged you,” Eugene says, utterly confounded.
“They held a kerchief over my nose and mouth,” Cressien replies with a scathing lip curl. “I held my breath and went limp so they would think it worked. Now are you going to do something about these ropes or not?”
Another complication manifests once Eugene unties Cressien: The minister attempts to stand, and immediately topples into Eugene’s side with a vexed oof.
“Excuse you,” Eugene says blithely, propping Cressien up again.
Minister Cressien mutters, “Don’t test me,” then tries to take a step and collapses face-first into the ground.
“I thought you didn’t inhale.” Eugene helps him back to his feet.
“May have underestimated,” Cressien wheezes, “the potency.”
Eugene studies the room again. It looks practically the same as before: drab stone everything, with a stool in the far corner, the chairs they were tied to, and the rope. Not much to use, no idea when Stranger or Torch will return. He stuffs the rope into his satchel. “Can you walk?”
“Of course I can,” Cressien says indignantly, only to lurch to starboard.
Eugene catches him by the elbow, then slings the minister’s arm over his shoulders, keeping his voice low. “I didn’t hear the door lock. If we wait, you might recover in time to help surprise them when they come back, but I think we’re better off trying to sneak out while we have the chance.”
“Agreed.” Cressien doesn’t sound thrilled—when does he ever?—but at least he stays ambulatory as Eugene maneuvers them to the door.
Eugene frees a hand to ease the door open and peers through the crack.
The light fixtures in the empty hall ring a chord in his memory, but he doesn’t spend time trying to place them, instead hunting for signs of life.
Very, very faint voices are murmuring behind a closed door halfway down the passage.
“I think we can make it,” Eugene whispers. “We just have to keep quiet.”
“You know where you’re going?” Cressien asks.