Epilogue Backhanded, No-Good, Dirty Scheme
EPILOGUE
BACKHANDED, NO-GOOD, DIRTY SCHEME
And you’ve found an investor already?” Mina asked, turning to her wife. She was sitting in Esme’s lap, tapping a pen on her lip.
“Two, even,” Esme told her, stealing the pen. “Just need a name for the business.”
“Hmm,” Mina said, and shrugged. “Use mine. Make it a bakery. That would explain the number of women.”
Esme scoffed. “Do you have some fetish for taking part in schemes?” She leaned back and Mina followed her, draping her arms over Esme’s naked shoulders. They’d scarcely had time to plan before undressing each other, and then scarcely time to dress each other before they’d started planning.
“Yes, I do,” Mina said. “Just as you have a fetish for concocting them.” She brushed her nose against Esme’s before pecking her mouth. Then she leaned back over their map. “I think we should lead them by the wall.”
“Not the alleys?”
Mina twisted her lips. “Too many guards. They abandon the walls for the city when the night’s loud enough.”
Shrewd woman. “So, we start a party, and then get to work?” Esme asked as Mina drew out a path through the south.
“Exactly.” Mina winked before standing.
Bal had gotten caught up in some urgent meeting yesterday morning, and Esme had pretended to be bleeding to get out of it.
If she listened to him for a second more, she’d try to throttle him and then die because of it.
Instead, she lounged in her and Mina’s living room.
In a way, it was where all this mess had started, where Ryukyhn had first told her that Turiel had been killed.
Back then, his death had felt like the end of this life, of nights spent around warm fires with her little family.
Now, back in her home, with Gia asleep upstairs and Mina safely in her arms, Esme knew the only way she’d ever lose it was if she let someone take it.
She would claw into this existence with her whole might.
A hearty fire warmed the living room, turning the deep-green velvet furniture black.
Esme could have done this in the castle, but she couldn’t risk Bal noticing.
Instead, her town home was quickly becoming her base of operations.
Mina was downright pleased for it, but Ojalla!
If Gia ever found out they were scheming down here, she’d never go to sleep.
Mina padded upstairs and then skipped back down in a dress. She threw Esme a matching robe. “I assume you’ve planned to sneak out and meet other conspirators, and I plan to accompany you,” she said. “If you don’t let me, I will follow you, loudly and badly.” She set her hands on her hips.
Esme wrapped herself in her purple robe and snickered. “Dear Mina, I would never exclude you from that which brings you such excitement,” she said with a smile, just as a knock sounded on their front door.
“Esme?” The knock was light because of the time—late enough to be early.
“You’re exactly on cue,” Esme said, and opened her door to the four people on her porch.
“But what for, I still don’t know,” Maranna said, about to step into Esme’s home only for Esme to stop her with a hand on her chest. When the general opened her mouth to ask why, Esme simply pointed to her muddy boots.
“My carpets are imported,” Esme said.
Maranna sucked her teeth but bent to undo her evil shoes.
Daphna scoffed. “You are such a prude about those carpets,” they said, kicking off their shoes as they entered.
“Not like she’s a prude about much else,” Tagas said as he stepped in with his boots already in his hands.
“Surprised you didnt answer the door naked.” Isla snickered, dropping her shoes in a pile and finding the framing that ran along every wall of Esme’s house right at her hand level.
She followed it expertly to the living room, to the chair that Esme never moved, no matter how drastically she redesigned.
Daphna, Tagas, and a grumbly Maranna followed.
“What impossible task do you wish to set us upon this time?” Tagas asked, with a twinkle of mischief betraying his words. He loved Esme’s impossible tasks.
“Not yet. We’re waiting on two more,” Esme replied, pouring her visitors wine. She was a gracious host.
“Your goats are bastards!” Simon called from the back door, where he’d snuck in.
“Have you ever tried a front door, you creep?” Esme yelled at him, handing Daphna a glass.
“You like it when I sneak into your room,” Simon said, strolling into her living room, only for a shadow to stick to the bottom of his shoes and nearly upend him. “Fine, I get it. You buy cheap carpets that can’t handle even a speck of dirt,” he said.
“These aren’t cheap,” said a woman trailing behind him, barely free from her teens, with her arms crossed over her chest. Her long black hair was braided into a plait down her back, and her clothes were simple but new.
One might not even guess she’d recently conned a number of nobles out of a very sizable chunk of money.
“You’re his Wraith,” the woman added, pressing her lips tight. Her kohl-lined eyes ran up and down Esme’s figure, and she shrugged. “I can see your type now,” she said to Simon.
Simon blushed as the girl left her shoes by the step and sauntered down into the living room.
“My name is Jinna,” she said. “But you already knew that. Who are the rest of you, then? Why have you called us here?”
Esme smiled at her collection of conspirators as she stood before her crackling fire: Simon, the Song; Isla, the South Amaris Spider; General Maranna Karstain of the Scourge; Daphna and Tagas, two of Micrea’s slipperiest Wraiths; Jinna, the cunning night lady; and Esme’s darling spy of a wife, Mina.
Jinna and Maranna squinted in apprehension while Simon gave Esme a dreamy look she’d have to ignore should she have any hope of thinking straight. Daphna had a glint in their eyes that meant only the worst and best things. Tagas’s tongue punched his cheek because he knew exactly what this was.
“I am about to commit treason,” Esme said. “You’ll help me, won’t you?”