Chapter Seven Faith of Selûne #5
A mannerly guest shouldn’t be canoodling near the gallery, but there was no time to fix it now. He smiled, lazy and warm, and focused all his attention on Saeldian’s pretty disguise.
He chuckled. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you knew perfectly well this exhibit was closed, Saer…”
“Thezra,” Saeldian said. Kell nearly jumped at their light, airy voice. “I did deceive you. Was that…terribly wrong?”
“You’re already forgiven.”
“Good.”
They were the picture of a beautiful woman caught in the silken net of surrendering for a kiss. It was perfect. Anyone would believe it. But what Kell really saw was the Saeldian he remembered with their illusions unraveled, trying to make a mask of their hands to hide the truth.
“I think someone’s up there,” one of the guards said. “Quit fussing over that cat.”
Kell stopped just a whisper away from their mouth. Their breath mingled. Saeldian clung to him as if their knees had become jelly. But almost against his lips, they whispered, “Three, two, one—”
“Hey! You two.”
Saeldian startled. They stepped back. They wobbled, giggling, and laughed outright when the guard caught them before they could stumble off the stairs.
“Oh! Saer Guard!” They laughed again, a silvery little giggle. “I’m so sorry. We never meant to cause trouble! We just wanted a little privacy.”
The arched mirror illusion was still up.
“She wanted to show me a trick she could only do in the mirror,” Kell said, pitching his voice as tipsy as Saeldian’s. “But there wasn’t a mirror, but she said…she could do it in the reflection of my eyes…hey!”
He pointed a finger at Saeldian and laughed. “You tricked me!”
Saeldian laughed too. “He wouldn’t take a hint, Saer Guard. I had to trick him! Are we in terrible trouble?”
The guard set Saeldian on their feet and turned to the gallery. Kell quit breathing, but when the guard’s expression didn’t change, he looked too.
The mirror illusion was gone. The Kiss of Enduring Love rested in its stand, glittering. Not quite as much as the real one; this was the minor cantrip Saeldian could do at will. But even Saeldian’s hasty illusion was good enough.
“You’re lucky you didn’t try to get another peek at the gallery,” the guard said.
“We didn’t,” Saeldian said, and swayed. “But how did you know we didn’t?”
“It’s very well protected. There would have been trouble. Big trouble.”
“Oh! Perhaps we should go. Grandon…”
“That’s me,” Kell said.
Saeldian giggled again. “Would you help me find my carriage? And then do you think you could help me find my villa?”
Behind Saeldian’s back, the guard watched Kell, eyebrows raised.
Right. Kell was a guest of House Tarm. That meant that the House was responsible for him tonight.
Saeldian, in their disguise as a wealthy woman, had the power to harm someone in an apprentice wizard’s fancy robes if he rejected her affections.
The guard could make a polite excuse and rescue Kell… if Kell wanted to be rescued.
He smiled, fuzzy and jovial. “It would be my pleasant…my pleas…I could do that,” Kell said. “The first place we should look for a carriage is…outside.”
Saeldian laughed as if this were profoundly hilarious. She took the bannister in hand and picked her way down the stairs, and the guard followed them until they were outside.
Saeldian stumbled and giggled until they were lost in the line of parked carriages, slipping between a pair of them.
Saeldian stepped out on the other side as a young man in an outfit that was a match for Kell’s festival robes, and together, they made for the gate.
The bubbly, tipsy demeanor vanished. They walked out of the side gates as if they had a destination, and the guards hardly noticed them pass.
A tabby cat caught up and trotted beside them. Across the street, Jubilee strolled through the laughing, merry crowd, not in any hurry to go. She turned the first corner that took her out of sight.
Saeldian and Kell caught up easily, but Lorzok still trotted along as a cat. They turned a corner, still strolling. No shouts. No alarms. So far, no one suspected a thing.
“Don’t look now, but I think we did it,” Jubilee said. Joy leaked out as she tried to stay quiet. “We did it. We beat a Conundrum Chamber with lanceboard know-how and a couple of illusions.”
Kell’s grunt carried his objection. “We nearly slow-walked this gem right to Lady Elezia.”
“But we didn’t,” Jubilee countered.
“And then we had to fast-talk our way out of getting caught after you ditched out of a window.”
“Oh, that.” Jubilee shrugged. “You and Sheld are charming on demand. Didn’t make sense to distrust your skills when the chips were down.”
She had a point, and Kell hated it. “That was more of a mess than a success.”
Jubilee’s restrained grin dissolved. He’d won the argument, but Kell hated that too.
“Any theft you can walk away from is a good one,” Saeldian said. They caught the eye of a half-drunk young woman and left the girl staring after them as they kept walking.
Saeldian the scoundrel was back, then, and Kell didn’t have any reason for sympathy now.
“Right,” Kell said, putting a little more distance between them. “Let’s get this thing back to Briona and get paid.”