Chapter Eight Eugene #2
His mind is spinning even as he tries to keep his cool, even though he knows flustered people slip up.
And he almost slips up, too; it’s not until he’s guided around a corner that he realizes he should be counting the steps and turns.
He knows in his gut it can only help Future Eugene if he memorizes the way out.
Twenty paces. Right. Five. Right again. Thirty paces, stairs, left.
The air has a damp, earthy quality that comes and goes with the sound of rushing water.
Maybe he’s in a cistern of some sort? The smell isn’t anywhere near as foul as a sewer.
It’s still a relief when they exit into the open, even if the hood remains. Torch walks him around a few blocks to try to confuse him more, and when they finally stop and the hood comes off, Eugene finds he’s facing a stone wall.
“Keep still or the bag goes back on and we go for another walk,” Torch warns. “I’m taking the shackles off. Count to fifty, then you can leave this alley. Understood?”
“Sure thing,” Eugene lies. The moment the shackles unclasp, he throws himself back—
And stumbles into the opposite wall.
Torch is nowhere to be seen.
In fact, the only other living creature in sight is a seagull perched on a nearby barrel, its beady yellow eye fixed on Eugene. It holds his stare a long moment, then opens its beak and screams.
“Gah.” Eugene flinches back and elects to leave through the other end of the alleyway. His stomach lets out a ferocious grumble, which is his first cue that something’s wrong, not counting the seagull. He shouldn’t be that hungry; he got captured around noon….
Then, as he wanders into a completely new marketplace, he sees the length of the shadows. The social started well over an hour ago.
“Oh no,” he groans, eliciting a sidelong look from a nearby merchant.
Sure, light kidnapping is a decent excuse to be late, but Rapunzel’s going to think he flaked on her.
And until he figures out how to get back to the palace—preferably without the help of guards, since he’s still disguised as a servant—she’s going to keep thinking that.
His stomach rumbles again as he tries in vain to get his bearings.
There’s another one of those statues? Fountains?
Something at the center of this market, which feels even more run-down than the one he passed through earlier.
When he makes his way to the statue’s base, he can see the tops of the sunmills peeking over the roofs.
Eugene squints. From here, the fans all look alike, but the tallest ought to be the one on the palace, right?
No matter what, it’s going to be a long walk.
And to make matters worse, the nearby vendors will only accept Asteran currency, which Eugene discovers when he tries to buy himself a belated lunch.
He winds up successfully begging a day-old loaf off a baker, then gets a few mouthfuls of musty water from a public well before he sets off in the approximate direction of the highest sunmill.
He makes it five blocks and a quarter of the way through the loaf before admitting he’s lost. The walls of the narrow lane rise too high for him to see the sunmills anymore, and every passerby avoids eye contact and scurries away before he can ask for directions.
Then a familiar, dreadful toot sounds from above.
Eugene halts in place. Looks up.
A—the?—seagull is perched on a balcony, head tilted, yellow stare pinned. Not on Eugene.
On the loaf.
“No,” Eugene says instantly, “don’t you dare—”
The gull spreads its wings, lets loose a war shriek, and dives.
Eugene bolts down the lane, cursing and trying to shield himself from the beating wings. A sharp beak pecks at his arms, snapping after the loaf as he switches it from hand to hand. “Get off—leave me alone—I didn’t even get lunch today! Where’s a frying pan when you need one—”
The gull’s beak closes on the bitten end of the bread. It flaps and squawks and, worst of all, maintains perfect eye contact with Eugene.
For a moment, he has the horrible thought that for all his joking before, this actually could be Gothel’s escape plan gone awry.
“Eugene!”
Hoofbeats clatter over the paving stones toward them. The gull, clearly not expecting Eugene to have reinforcements, rips free a dry strip of bread and takes off.
Rapunzel slows Maximus to a halt in front of Eugene. Guilt zings through his belly; she’s even in a silk party gown. As she swings down from the saddle, he launches into the apology he’s been cobbling together: “I’m so sorry, I didn’t forget about you or the thing this afternoon, I was—”
“Kidnapped,” Rapunzel finishes for him, grabbing his arms. “Pascal filled me in. What happened? Are you all right?”
The back of Eugene’s neck prickles. We know where to find you, Moon Eye had said. Whoever these people are, they’re competent enough to snatch him off the streets unseen; they could still be watching him.
“It’s not safe to talk here,” he says under his breath, then adds loudly, “Just a misunderstanding! I look like some guy who didn’t pay his tab. Come on, let’s get going.”
Rapunzel nods with a tight smile, and mounts up again. “Max, you know how to get back?”