Chapter 24 Lucy
Lucy
How to handle a bleating noblewoman: pretend she is background noise.
Lucy skipped behind Basil as he led them through a dirty, narrow alleyway that smelled of mold and moss. The air clung to her skin, damp and sticky, as if the alley had not breathed fresh wind in years. Somewhere behind them, water dripped in an uneven rhythm that echoed off the walls.
The Baroness sounded like a dying rat as she trailed behind. Lucy did not know humans could make such high-pitched squeaks. She was almost impressed. Almost.
“Are you sure this is the correct way?” she squawked, tripping on her dress, which was much too wide for the route they took.
“I’m positive,” Basil groaned for what felt like the hundredth time.
Lucy, on the other hand, enjoyed their stroll. She was used to tuning out shrill noble voices. Selective hearing was a survival skill. Lucy had learned it young—what to listen to, what to let dissolve into static. Panic screamed. Danger whispered.
The smell of farm animals and sweat hit her first. They stepped out onto a dilapidated farm, where chickens scratched the dirt, goats bleated in complaint, and cows grazed lazily in the warm sunlight.
Damp hay and goat musk mixed in the air, earthy and sour.
A cow let out a long, mournful low that sounded like it objected to their presence.
“There is no possible way,” the Baroness whispered harshly, covering her mouth with her handkerchief.
“Yes, this is the Brass Sparrow,” Basil said.
Lucy liked places that lied about what they were. They usually meant business.
She did not know whether the sound that came next was the Baroness or a goat, but she laughed so hard she nearly doubled over. Her laughter carried all the way to the sagging barn door.
She clutched her stomach, fighting for breath, and made a special place in her memory to store the Baroness's horrified expression. It would be perfect to pull out whenever she needed a good laugh. Lucy treasured moments like this. Joy weaponized was still joy.
“That is enough, Lucy,” Basil reprimanded, using the same voice he used during Esther's lessons.
The barn door creaked when he pulled it open. It sounded like the hinges were screaming for mercy, which worried Lucy that it might fall off right then. Somehow, it survived. Sometimes the things that made the most noise were the ones that outlasted everyone.
Meaning the Baroness might be immortal. Lucy would put money on it. Spite fueled many long lives.
Inside, Lucy was about to stuff a dirty rag into the Baroness's mouth if she did not stop her constant bleating.
She complained about everything: the crooked door, the rickety stairs, the funky smell, the cold draft from a cracked window. Dust floated in slow spirals through beams of pale sunlight. The floorboards groaned under every step, brittle and splintery.
“Brom, I am here on official business,” Basil called out.
To whom he was speaking, Lucy could not tell.
The square room had no doors aside from the entrance, no stairs, nothing but cracked windows and old, mismatched crates.
It looked more like a storage room that had given up on storing things—or a backup chicken coop that never received chickens.
Currently, it housed only a spider, which was crafting an intricate web.
Lucy really hoped he was not talking to the spider. She wondered if the lack of sleep and traveling had taken such a toll on him that he was imagining things. He was no longer in his prime, after all.
Just as she opened her mouth to question Basil, she heard footsteps beneath them.
Creak.
A trapdoor snapped open in the corner. Metal hinges screeched, sharp enough to make her teeth ache.
Lucy shifted her weight automatically, ready to bolt or strike. Old instincts didn’t retire just because you were tired.
A flash of bright red hair appeared before the rest of the man’s head popped up.
“Basil. My dear brother and his companions. Come in, come in,” he said, cheerful and far too loud for such a room. Cool air rushed up from the dark opening, smelling of stone, old parchment, and something faintly metallic.
“Let us go,” Basil sighed, descending the hidden stairs.
“Go where?” the Baroness shrieked, but Basil was already gone.
Lucy had read about stranger entrances in adventure books, and she was too tired to question weird holes in barns. Heck, even the palace guards had secret passages to get intimate with the maids. She had seen some really creative routes taken there.
Stone steps led them down into a long hallway lit by glowing orbs.
Every step echoed sharply, bouncing off the walls in hollow rings.
The air grew colder the deeper they walked, until her breath fogged faintly in front of her face.
Dust mixed with the scent of leather, ink, and old stone.
The walls were slightly damp when her fingers brushed them, grit clinging to her skin.
Sadly, the Baroness also followed, her heels clicking angrily behind them as she muttered nonstop.
“Who are your friends? Oh wait, where are my manners. I am Brom, pleased to meet you.”
“This is—” Basil began.
“I’m Lucy,” she rushed forward. “I can introduce myself, thank you very much.”
“Wow. She is a spicy one. I like her,” Brom whistled and winked. His hair shimmered like copper wire in the orb light. “How about the well-dressed madam back there?”
“I am Baroness Irene Levon,” she said, executing a perfect curtsy despite the cramped stone tunnel.
Lucy rolled her eyes. They were in a creepy tunnel where there was no reason to maintain etiquette. She was beginning to see why Esther never graduated from her lessons with the Baroness—her standards were unreachable.
“Lovely to meet you, madam.” Brom took her hand and kissed the back of it. The Baroness turned pink. “No ring, I see. How is such a beautiful woman still single?”
Her eyes darted to Basil. Lucy nudged him hard in the side, silently screaming for him to save them all. Lucy had perfected the art of redirection. Unfortunately, Brom appeared immune.
“That is enough, Brom,” Basil sighed. “Stop evaluating my companions.”
“Spoil sport,” Brom chuckled, continuing to lead the way.
“So, who exactly are you?” Lucy jogged beside him. “You called Basil your brother.”
“Exactly as you heard, young miss.”
“Brother-in-law,” Basil clarified. “He is the guild leader of the Brass Sparrow.”
“This guy?” Lucy blurted, scowling. “He does not look like it.”
The Baroness scolded her for her manners while Brom laughed. Lucy still could not believe this stringy, flirtatious man was the infamous guild leader.
“Oh, we are here,” Brom announced in the middle of the hallway.
He pulled a small piece of paper from his sleeve and dropped it onto the floor.
Lucy froze as the stones beneath them shuddered. A low rumble vibrated up her boots and into her bones. The air tingled sharply, like the aftermath of a lightning strike. One by one, stone steps unfolded from the floor, clicking into place like pieces of a puzzle.
Lucy’s humor evaporated. This was not parlor magic. This was infrastructure.
She had never seen a key rune used in person. She knew the basics—they looked simple—but their execution required the precision of a master. One wrong placement, even a hair off, and the mechanism could collapse.
Which meant every wall and every section of this hallway had been built with runes. If Brom had misaligned even one of them while activating the passage, the ceiling could have crushed them all. Precision like that wasn’t luck. It was preparation layered on obsession.
A cold sweat prickled down her spine. Lucy quietly rescinded every internal insult she had made about Brom in the past five minutes. She respected people who earned fear honestly.
Brom was terrifying.