Chapter 30 Lucy
Lucy
How to Spot Trouble: look for pink hair.
The tavern door creaked open, and instead of the smoky, ale-stained chaos Lucy expected, the inside of Luna’s Tavern was unnervingly clean.
It shouldn’t have been. The sign said tavern.
But the floors gleamed like polished bone, lanternlight pooled warmly across spotless tables, and a faint scent of lavender-and-mischief drifted through the air. It smelled less like spilled ale and more like a crime scene waiting to happen.
Lucy had read enough mystery books to know what a potential crime scene looked like.
The first indication: nothing was that clean without having something to hide.
The second indication: the air itself felt… arranged. Not enchanted exactly—Lucy didn’t have the vocabulary for magic—but managed. Like the room had rules it expected everyone to follow.
Even the sound was wrong. The tavern should have been loud—laughing, clattering mugs, someone yelling about a card game gone tragic.
Instead, the noise was a careful murmur, as though each patron had been trained to speak in indoor voices and plausible deniability.
Conversations didn’t spill. They stayed neatly within the circles of the people who had them.
Lucy’s gaze flicked to the corners. Lanterns hung in just the right places to eliminate deep shadow.
Tables were spaced far enough apart that no one could “accidentally” brush shoulders. The bar top had faint rings carved into the wood—old stains. She leaned closer.
They were too precise to be stains. If she looked closely enough, she could see a pattern forming.
Basil noticed her noticing and subtly tugged her sleeve. She could read his thoughts as clear as day. Don't touch anything, you menace.
Lucy’s mouth twitched. She was going to touch everything.
Sylva noticed, but he didn’t stop her. Just shifted closer, like he trusted her judgment enough to prepare for the consequences instead of preventing them.
The third indication arrived before her fingertips could betray her.
A woman sat on the bar counter as if it belonged to her and also like gravity was a polite suggestion.
Beside her was a pile of scrolls, ledgers, and spy reports so blatant they might as well have been labeled “Definitely Spies.”
Her hair was cotton-candy pink, tied up in a high, glossy, dramatic ponytail that swished like it had an ego of its own.
Any hair that bright meant trouble. Lucy felt it in her gut.
“Good day, Luna,” Basil said, shutting the door gently behind them.
“Says the liar,” Sylva whispered, just loud enough to be heard and just quiet enough to pretend he hadn’t.
Basil shot him a practiced glare. The kind Lucy suspected had been honed through years of putting out magical fires started by people who were technically family.
Luna smiled like a cat presented with entertainment. “Oh,” she purred. “The rest of the circus arrived.”
“Another circus,” came a voice from the stairs. “I just got rid of Karl. He was so filthy, even the hellhounds didn’t want a bite of him.”
“Sable?” Basil’s eyes widened. “What happened to your face?”
“Rude,” Sable said, instead of answering.
Lucy squinted. Sable did, in fact, look like someone had tried to rearrange his face using only their fists and a strong sense of spite. One cheekbone was bruised, her lip split. She carried herself like it didn’t hurt.
Which meant it probably hurt a lot.
“And you,” Basil continued, pointing accusingly at Luna’s hair. “Why is it pink today?”
“Why not?” Luna twirled the end of her ponytail around her finger. “It brightens the room.”
“That is not an answer. You change it every week—purple, blue, teal, chartreuse. Do you use potions? Why is your hair a seasonal wardrobe?”
Luna gasped dramatically. “You remembered all my colors. How touching.”
“I remembered because they were distracting,” Basil grumbled. “And chemically questionable.”
Lucy leaned in, delighted. “So it is potions?” Her newest life goal was to change her hair to scream trouble.
“Oh, sweetheart.” Luna winked. “Everything’s potions if you’re creative enough.”
That sounded like either life advice or a threat. Lucy wasn’t sure which, and somehow that made her like Luna immediately. She was bright, sharp, and too comfortable in a room full of people who clearly knew better than to annoy her.
Before Lucy could demand instructions for hot-pink hair, Basil straightened, the way he always did right before doing something he didn’t want to do. He gestured stiffly.
“Luna, this is Baroness Irene Levon.”
The Baroness stepped forward as if approaching a wild animal she intended to domesticate through sheer social status. “Good afternoon.”
“And this is Lucy,” Basil finished. “Princess Esther’s maid.”
Lucy gave a little wave, because this entire situation was so absurdly not within her job description that manners felt like a weapon. “Hello. I promise I only bite when provoked.”
Sylva’s ears twitched, then deliberately settled. Lucy got the distinct sense he was choosing not to listen to something.
Lucy added quickly, “That was a joke. Mostly.”
Luna’s mischief-filled eyes flicked over Lucy like she was reading an invoice. Then she beamed.
“Oh, I like you already. Come sit. The actual tavern won’t open for a while, so we can talk freely.”
The Baroness hovered as if the barstool might be contagious. She chose a stool anyway, with the grim acceptance of a woman performing charity work.
Lucy hopped up without hesitation.
Luna poured water into mismatched glasses, and Lucy noticed the way she poured: not into the center of the cup, but slightly off to the side, as if avoiding a mark carved at the bottom. Basil noticed too. His jaw tightened.
“Haven’t seen you in a while, Sylva,” Luna said, not looking up.
“You know each other?” Lucy asked, eyes narrowing.
“Sparrow business,” Sylva said simply. “Sometimes Luna requests aid.”
“Mostly via bribery,” Luna added cheerfully.
“Your bribes are awful,” Sylva replied. “And expired.”
“It builds immunity.”
Basil wasn’t listening anymore.
His gaze was fixed on a boarded-up window to the left. Thick planks were nailed crookedly over shattered glass. A few splinters jutted out like teeth. Whoever had boarded it up had done it quickly and not gently.
Basil inhaled sharply. Then the entire mood of his body shifted from annoyed to alert in the space of a heartbeat.
“Esther was here,” he said. “Recently.”
Lucy’s head whipped around so fast her neck cracked. “I knew it was too clean! Wait—how do you know?”
“I can see the trace of her magic,” Basil said, voice low.
Lucy squinted at the boards. Squinted harder. “Oh, yes. I see it.”
Sylva snorted. “No, she doesn’t.”
Lucy elbowed him and kept squinting anyway, because she refused to be defeated by a piece of wood and her lack of magical education.
Basil stepped closer to the window, stopping just short of touching the planks. He didn’t have to touch them to know. His eyes tracked along the edges like he could read the air.
Lucy felt it then. Not the magic itself, but the way the room responded to Basil noticing it. The careful murmur of conversations in the tavern dipped. Not silent, but cautious. A few patrons shifted. One man in the corner suddenly became very interested in his drink.
This place was clean because it was controlled.
Basil’s voice tightened. “Her magic clings. It always has. Most spells dissipate like heat after a flame. Hers…lingers.”
“What does that mean?” Lucy asked, quieter than she intended.
“It means her emotions were high,” Basil said. “Often due to anger or fear.”
The Baroness made a sound that might have been a gasp or might have been the beginning of a faint. “My princess broke a—a window? In a tavern?” She clutched the edge of her seat. “I need water. Or smelling salts. Or both.”
Luna slid a glass to her with the ease of someone handing a knife to a person who didn’t know what to do with it. “She’s fine,” she said lazily. “Mostly.”
“Mostly?” Basil barked, spinning on her.
“Oh, calm down,” Luna drawled. “I gave her coffee and asked her a few friendly questions—”
“You interrogated her,” Sylva corrected.
“Semantics,” Luna said sweetly.
“Princesses do not get interrogated in taverns,” the Baroness declared, voice trembling with aristocratic offense.
“She wasn’t a princess,” Luna said, her smile softening in a way that somehow made Lucy more nervous. “She was simply Essie.”
Lucy’s vision sharpened like a knife. “Where is she?”
Luna hopped off the counter with a satisfied sigh, like she’d been waiting for that line. “Ah. That’s the part where I help.”
Lucy did not like her tone. Help from people like Luna usually came with fine print.
“She left a few days ago,” Luna said. “Took the Larkspire Road south. Flower fields. Very scenic. Very safe. Probably.”
Basil stiffened. “She went south?”
“Yes,” Luna said, blinking slowly. “Very south.”
Sylva’s ears flicked. His gaze turned distant for a heartbeat—the way it did when he was listening past words.
Lucy pointed at Luna like her finger was a deadly weapon. “She’s lying.”
Luna gasped, scandalized. “Excuse me?”
“Your left eyebrow twitched,” Lucy said triumphantly. “Everyone has a tell.”
“It did not—”
“It just did,” Sylva added helpfully.
Luna slapped her hand over her eyebrow.
Lucy stood, slamming her palm on the bar. “If you wanted to mislead us, why pick the prettiest, most postcard road? That’s just sloppy.”
“Sable,” Basil said slowly, eyes narrowed, “why is she misleading us?”
Sable leaned against the stair rail, expression bored in a way that felt practiced. “Because if she tells you the truth outright, you’ll walk straight into it. If you think you outsmarted her, you’ll run.”
Lucy blinked. That was… annoyingly clever.
Luna smiled wider, clearly pleased with herself. “I do like a motivated customer.”
“Customer?” the Baroness choked.
Luna waved a hand. “Metaphor. Mostly.”
Lucy narrowed her eyes, stomach twisting. “So Essie didn’t go south.”
“No,” Basil said, frowning. “The opposite of south is—”
“North,” Sylva said. “Caravans. Travelers. Trouble.” The way he said it wasn’t fear. It was familiarity. Lucy wondered how often he followed paths like this—and who he usually followed them for.
He tilted his head, listening again, and Lucy watched as his ears twitched. Whatever the distortion was, he was tuned to it like a predator.
“She went toward Greyhollow,” Sylva said. “I can smell it on Basil’s reaction too. Not a lie. Fear.”
Lucy’s stomach dropped and steadied with equal force.
Greyhollow.
The place Esther had run off to. The place she'd somehow ended up in, even without trying.
The Baroness squeaked, fan snapping open with military aggression. “Greyhollow? That dreadful, sheep-infested—”
“Yes,” Lucy said, already moving. “Greyhollow.”
Basil cursed under his breath, the kind of curse that had experience behind it.
Lucy paused at the door long enough to look back at Luna. “Why didn’t you just tell us?”
Luna leaned against the bar as if the entire kingdom was her stage. “Because you needed to decide to chase her. Not because Basil asked. Not because I told you. Because you chose it.”
Lucy hated that it worked. She hated it so much.
“Tell Cinnabun I miss her already!” Luna called, cheerful as a bell.
Lucy stuck her tongue out and slammed the door behind them.
Outside, the air felt colder. Or maybe Lucy was only noticing it now. Stonehaven’s streets were busy, but the bustle no longer felt comforting. It felt like motion for motion’s sake. The people were moving so they didn’t have to think about what chased them.
“She must not be that smart if she tried lying in front of Sylva,” the Baroness said, fanning harder as if she could blow away danger through etiquette.
“You’re right,” Lucy said. “And she did say they work together.”
“That’s because I told her I could only detect lies when I’m touching someone,” Sylva said casually.
Lucy stopped mid-step so abruptly that Basil almost ran into her.
She turned slowly. “The lie detector… lied?”
Sylva shrugged, tail flicking. “It’s better if fewer know how it works.”
Lucy stared at him, mind racing. “But you told us.”
Sylva’s ears angled back, strangely shy for someone who looked like he could bite through a lock.
“Well… you’re Uncle Basil’s friends.”
Basil made a small sound that might have been a cough or a suppressed emotion. “Don’t call me that.”
Sylva blinked. “Lie.”
Lucy barked a laugh before she could stop it. The laugh tasted of relief and panic mixed.
The Baroness snapped her fan closed with finality. “Enough chatter! We must leave immediately!”
She stormed ahead with the determination of a woman marching to war.
Lucy watched her for two full seconds.
Then she sighed and jogged after, falling into step beside Basil.
“I’m leaving the explaining to you,” she told him. “You can break it to her that we can’t travel north tonight without collapsing, dying, and becoming cautionary tales told to children.”
Basil pinched the bridge of his nose. “Perfect. My favorite job.”
Lucy grinned, heart pounding with determination and something sharper beneath it.
Esther was running toward freedom, or maybe running toward something she didn’t understand.
Regardless, Lucy refused to let her do it alone.
Lucy had chased princesses her entire life. She knew their patterns. She knew their stubbornness.
She knew how they ran when they were terrified.
And she knew, with sick certainty, that Esther had never been running away.
She’d been running toward the first place that might tell her the truth.
Lucy tightened her grip on the strap of her bag and picked up her pace.
Maid, menace, and professional princess-chaser, she survived another day of traveling.