Chapter 22 Entering and Almost Breaking
ENTERING AND ALMOST brEAKING
Kat
“What am I doing again?”
Kat hadn’t known Zaiya that long, but she’d never heard the demon’s voice so wobbly. It couldn’t be helped, she supposed, after all the crying and then the plotting and now this.
“You’re luring him out—”
“No.” Kat slapped her hand over Azrion’s mouth to shut him up, his voice too loud for the shadows they were skulking in.
Well, she was skulking. The other two were just sort of standing there and not even doing a very good job of that.
“Don’t lure Tarzul out. We decided out is dangerous. Lure yourself in.”
“A clever if confusing plan.” Azrion whispered from behind her palm.
She rolled her eyes. “I just think if we’re all in the house at the same time it will be safer for Zaiya. No one will be out of ear shot of the others, and we can protect each other. Unless there’s someone else in the house, or if he has a weapon, or—oh, fuck, you’ve all got magic, don’t you?”
“Don’t over think, darling.” Azrion gently shifted her hand away, the smile beneath it glinting in the dark with that sincerity she’d come to crave. “And there is no blazing way Tarzul is more skilled than I.”
Kat took another breath, choosing to believe his blustering, and eyed Zaiya. “So you just need to knock on Tarzul’s door and convince him to invite you inside by being apologetic about the trial and then maybe try some flattery—”
“Are we sure I shouldn’t”—Azrion bit his lip when Kat glared at him—“right, no, never mind.”
“And you’ve got that second letter we forged. If nothing else, he’ll be intrigued by that and should let you in.”
Zaiya pat her pocket where the folded parchment was.
It was probably a good idea to tell Tarzul a second letter had arrived from Elliran.
If he was innocent, he would want to read it in hopes it would get his long-suffering assistant back, and if he had sent the first, he would think it impossible and would want to scrutinize it for who his mystery nemesis could be.
Kat was particularly proud that she could copy the handwriting of the first, using Azrion’s words of course, though they couldn’t find parchment that was an exact match.
“And while you’ve got him busy downstairs, Azrion and I are going to slip in upstairs and find that satchel, so ask a lot of questions, interrupt him, change the subject, anything to keep him distracted.”
It was a plan Kat had pulled off with Kaly many times, especially if they had others to work with.
Someone distracted the owner at their door while the others ransacked the place.
It was easier with a specific mark and an agreed upon signal to shout if things went wrong, but it was risky, so they only utilized it when time wasn’t on their side.
With Elliran missing, it certainly felt like time was the greatest of their foes. But Kat had never done it without Kaly.
She looked from one demon’s face to the other, a pair of siblings who had never stolen a single thing out of necessity or sneaked into a room they didn’t belong in if not outright owned, but they were no strangers to exceptionally tall tales.
One out of three wasn’t…well, it wasn’t that good, if she was being honest with herself, but she was supposed to be good at lying too, so she told herself one.
A small one about three idiots preparing to break into a council member’s home who could make a demon as important as Elliran go missing…
“Brilliant, darling.” Azrion squeezed her shoulder, pulling her out of the silent spiral, then he gave his sister’s arm a punch. “As long as she doesn’t fuck it up.”
Zaiya glared daggers at him. “Me? You don’t fuck it up!”
“No one’s going to fuck anything up,” Kat emphatically assured the others, and then it wasn’t really up to her anymore, because the plan was put in motion.
Tarzul’s garden was sprawling, so it made for easy cover, a stupid choice if one didn’t want to be burgled, but the wealthy often chose opulence over security.
From their spot behind a bush with lush blue leaves, Kat and Azrion watched as Zaiya knocked, her lips moving in practiced phrases until warm light spilled over her with the opening of the door.
Kat held her breath, unable to see Tarzul but hearing the muffled sounds of his low voice.
Then Zaiya disappeared over the threshold.
“Tell me again how long we have?” Kat whispered.
“About two minutes until the alarm runes reset.”
“Fuck.” Kat sprinted across the yard to a lattice she’d identified on a solo prowl of the gardens while the other two loitered down the road—badly, probably, but she was grateful to have not seen.
She gave the wooden structure a test then hauled herself up.
Thankfully she still had a pair of pants she’d been altering for Rosalind.
The tail hole was sewn up, but the hips weren’t quite right yet, so they were a little too snug.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Azrion was already following her, and he didn’t seem to mind the tightness of her pants at all. Maybe she would need to alter a pair for herself.
She reached the open window she had found on her prowl and pushed at the pane. It swung inward, and she pulled herself over the ledge, dipped her head, and flipped down onto her feet. Kat didn’t think twice about the move, but then it was a skill she had cultivated over many years.
If only another human heroine had Kat’s agility to climb through windows, but at that same moment out in the woods, Brioni had her own help in the form of a wobbly veilhound giving her a boost. Though Brioni’s generous breasts and hips were decidedly unhelpful, she too made it inside, but returning readers will already know that story.
Kat found herself in a bathing chamber exactly as she expected, so she plunged into scheming.
She had estimated the number of rooms and potential layouts when she’d circled the place.
A dormer suggested a bedroom, a windowless stretch was likely storage, and the chimney flue indicated where the largest of the bedrooms was most likely located unless demons did it all differently.
When she poked her head into the hall, it appeared that demons weren’t terribly unique when it came to architecture.
The hall curved in a horseshoe around a set of descending stairs, open on its innermost side to the entry below.
Kat immediately identified the upper floor’s sleeping chambers, another bath, and if demons appreciated afternoon moonlight, a room that would serve best as an office stood just at the top of the landing in the middle of it all. That’s it. It has to be.
A grunt from behind her announced Azrion’s arrival at the sill.
His eyes shimmered with blackness even in the dark, shoulders flexing under the tight, dark top she’d instructed him to wear.
With a quick glance at Tarzul’s bathing chamber, Azrion hauled a foot up onto the window’s ledge and perched on it like a cat.
And then he dared risk the last of their security-rune-free seconds to give her a wink.
Kat’s insides went right to mush. She grabbed the door jamb to remain upright and buried the dopey grin she wanted to give right back to him under the gooeyness roiling in her belly. Not now, you idiot.
But the idiocy was all his. Azrion hopped himself inside except he forgot his other foot, and it valiantly tried to keep him from entering, which would result in a much worse crime: breaking.
Kat darted forward and flung her body beneath his knowing her arms wouldn’t be strong enough to catch a falling demon no matter what the series title might suggest. But she forgot demons had tails, and his went flicking because of course it did, it always did, and it knocked the only glass bottle on the lone shelf beside the window to the floor.
The crash would be astounding, they would be found out, and everything would be ruined.
Except it didn’t, and they weren’t, and miraculously it wasn’t.
Kat thought she’d fallen, but she hadn’t hit the ground, nor had she been squashed beneath a demon.
Beside her, the glass bottle hovered an inch above the floor, cradled by a soft purple glow, and oh, there was a little more of that, or rather a lot, and it looked like it was underneath all of her.
Azrion was sprawled horizontally to match her, but they weren’t touching.
Unfortunate, floated through her head, until she read the struggle in his expression, fangs bared as he gestured to the bottle.
She snatched it out of the air, Azrion huffed, the magic dispersed, and they both toppled the last inch to the floor.
Kat cradled the glass to her chest between them and listened to the silence long enough to confirm no one else had heard. Azrion held himself up, but her hips had found his like a homing drayk, and fucking hells that was nice. Cave nice. Oh, no.
“Don’t do that again,” Kat whispered harshly.
He frowned. “What, stop a ruckus with magic?”
“Cause a ruckus in the first place.” She regrettably slid herself out from beneath him and replaced the bottle. “And keep your tail under control.” She was back at the doorway in a flash, and the heat of Azrion right behind her showed up just as quickly.
“Apologies, darling, but this is quite the thrill!”
Kat pinched the bridge of her nose but noted the curving hallway was still empty. “Okay, well be thrilled a little more quietly.” She crept out into it, away from the largest bedchamber at its end and toward the head of the stairs.
“I can’t help myself,” he whispered in her ear as he followed. “We’re thieving together! Like a couple of scoundrels!”
Kat held up her arm, the signal to stop. He ran into her because signals meant nothing to him, teetered a moment, then finally took note of the light that glowed upward from the foot of the stairs.
“I supposed this is exciting when you’re not doing it to keep from starving,” Kat muttered.