Chapter 20 George has a plan.
twenty
George has a plan.
“Does everyone know what to do?” George double-checked with her gaggle of friends.
A chorus of agreement rang out. A full day had passed since Isahn and she spied on her father and Peros.
Yesterday, they met with the group to plot.
Today, they gathered in her sitting room for a final rundown of the plan to retrieve the note from Gasparo’s tablinium.
She felt a mild sense of guilt for keeping Isahn’s impending departure from her friends, but it was nothing compared to the sourness of her stomach since she realized he’d have to go, and what that might mean for them.
It was midday, a decidedly odd time for skulking.
But the cover of darkness wasn’t necessary when one’s friends possessed the ability to hide themselves using magic and had a wily elf on their side.
The timing couldn’t have been more perfect.
Her father had taken his guests out onto the grounds for archery and games, and the guards were due to change shifts in twenty minutes.
“Let’s do it.” Hildy’s voice was dry and serious.
Dunstan’s was flat. “Never been more excited.”
They organized according to plan at the various exits from her insulae.
Dunstan, Burke, and Ean left via the exterior stairwell to wander toward the kitchens and meet up with Adda.
Isahn slipped into the hidden passage after pressing a lingering kiss to her forehead and wishing her luck.
With a lantern in one hand and George’s key in the other, he took off to hide in the wall beside the king’s study as a final precautionary measure, ready to cause a distraction should they be interrupted.
Wynnie stood beside the main exit where she plumped up her breasts, pinched her cheeks, gave her girl friends a saucy wink, and set off.
Gianis sauntered through the corridor when Wynnie exited, but her presence wasn’t attention-worthy. He didn’t even glance their way.
“Deiwa hathemi.” George closed her eyes and inhaled slowly when the door clicked shut. She helped herself to another deep breath, trying to quell the thunderous pace of her heartbeat. “I can’t believe we’re going to do this.”
“We’ve got it. Don’t worry. I wouldn’t have agreed to the plan if I thought it would fail.” Hildy chuckled, clapping her on the shoulder.
She flashed her friend half a smile, then threw up a shield around them both, ensuring they’d look like whatever backdrop they stood against. It was a distinctive and hard-earned facet of her sight magic. She’d been perfecting the skill over the past ten or so years.
“We’re shielded,” Hildy said, her gaze dipping to the doorknob. She’d deadened the sounds of their movement and conversation, allowing them to move through the halls as little more than ghosts.
“Same. No one will see us if you don’t distract me. Let’s get this over with.” George opened the door a crack to ensure no one was nearby. The corridor appeared silent and empty—but appearances in Domos were a tricky thing.
They slipped out and made their way to the stairwell, heading down to hide in wait near the king’s study until Dunstan and Burke arrived—in disguise, assuming all went well.
Wynnie was off locating and hopefully seducing the two guards due to start their shift outside the tablinium.
Her goal was to convince them they had time before rotation to share a “snack” with her in the kitchens, something fun and sultry to tell the other boys about.
Knowing Wynnie, her suggestive words would be accompanied by blatantly erotic images pressed into their minds.
“Do you think they’re in the kitchens by now?” George whispered to her guard and best friend.
“You don’t have to whisper, and I hope so,” Hildy replied at a normal volume, just fifteen feet from the two legionaries currently outside the study. The men didn’t so much as glance in their direction.
Once Wynnie got the guards to the kitchen, she’d present the soldiers with a special icing, prepared by Ceadda, for their “diverting activity.” Ideally, the two men would lap up the frosting infused with the same herbs used to knock individuals out for mindmolding.
Adda’s taste magic would mask the distinctive flavor of the sleeping aid.
George tapped her foot nervously as they waited.
“Stop that, you’re making me stressed.”
She poked Hildy with magic.
While this was all happening, Dunstan and Burke were supposed to be hiding in the pantry with Ean, who would glamor them to look like the sleeping guards. They’d have approximately twenty minutes while the real legionaries were knocked out.
A set of perfectly in-sync footsteps marched down the hall at her back, and George turned to see two men headed their way.
Heart beating erratically, she eyed the incoming soldiers. “Are those our guys?”
“Hard to say, we’ll know in a moment.”
The two guards, a chubby legionary with warm dark skin and cropped black hair, and a tall lean man with sleek brown hair—sort of like Wynnie’s—approached. The shorter man paused in front of the ladies—who hopefully looked like the wall. Bending, he readjusted a shin guard.
The signal. George exhaled. It was them.
Hildy did her thing, masking Dunstan's and Burke's voices to match the guards whose bodies they were mimicking. “Done,” she announced.
George tapped the guys in the crooks of their elbows with her touch magic, the agreed-upon sign that they were good to go.
Remaining hidden and behind a protective sound barrier, the women slunk behind the men, staying several feet away as they changed shifts and bid the departing legionaries farewell.
Wynnie slipped around the corner, having come up a different stairwell. Her second task was to ensure the outgoing guards were well distracted, far from the tablinium.
“You’ve had such a hard shift, big boys,” she murmured, sashaying up to the men and stalling both with her palms pressed to their chests. “Would you come play with me? I’m so dreadfully bored.” She simpered, extracting nods from both soldiers.
Hildy stiffened beside George, who looked over in question.
“She’s taking too long. We don’t have much time,” Hil snapped.
“It’s fine, everything’s going to plan,” George replied, feeling far lighter now that Dunstan and Burke were guarding the room. They were one step closer to their goal.
Wynnie spun to walk between the departing soldiers, and they disappeared down the hallway. Four legs and a billow of skirt vanished around the corner.
“All right, let’s go.” George couldn’t help the grin that split her face.
She was nervous as can be, but she was also happy—or almost happy—for the first time in her life.
Surrounded by her friends, including Isahn, teaming up for a common cause.
She felt... oddly fulfilled, despite the precarious situation they were putting themselves in.
They stepped into the tablinium while Dunstan and Burke remained on guard in the corridor.
Pausing just inside the door, George dropped the concealing mirage and took a few deep breaths.
Doing magic that complex—and invisibility was complicated—for an extended period was draining.
She felt as though she’d raced up a flight of stairs, twice.
Hildy expanded her sound buffer to pull in Isahn, hidden in the wall. She stayed in position just inside the door to handle her double duties: masking any noise they might make and falsifying Dunstan’s and Burke’s voices in the corridor.
“It’s all clear.” Isahn was muffled by the wall. “Look down. Don’t touch the wire there.”
“That’s new,” George muttered as she crossed to the desk, carefully stepping over the discreet cord Isahn had coated in mist, now nothing but a harmless ghostly snake bisecting the room.
“I used vapor to check for trip wires and alarm bells, as you asked. I’m good at taking commands.”
George snorted, squatting before the drawer where her father had stored the scrap of paper.
Knowing Isahn was close and calm enough to crack jokes soothed her soul.
Stealing information from the king made her hands clammy and her heart race.
She’d have to get over that, though. Killing him would be a much bigger hassle than thieving.
The damn drawer was locked. George jostled it for good measure before sliding her palms under the desk. Catching Hildy’s gaze with wide eyes, she searched for a latch.
“Hurry up, my well’s half empty,” Hildy hissed.
Isahn asked, “Everything all right?”
The drawer wouldn’t budge. Of course. “It’s locked.”
“Shit,” Hildy cursed.
“Is there a keyhole?”
“Yes, why?”
“Move over,” Isahn said as a thin cord of water magic tickled her bottom.
She swatted at it and stepped to the side. Awestruck, George watched his minuscule thread of water slip into the keyhole. It wavered and hardened as it took a new icy form, then, with a click, the lock opened.
“Oh my gods, I could kiss you right now.”
“Soon,” Isahn chuckled through the wall, his magic slinking back through the peephole.
“We need to go, I’m getting tired.” Hildy gestured to herself.
“He got us in. Give me a minute,” George replied.
When George grasped the handle, it was cold to the touch. Thank the gods for his help.
“I think I might keep you around. That’s handy,” George spoke to her lord in the wall as she fished around for the bit of paper.
His warm laughter rolled over to wrap her in a hug.
A sudden, shiny realization had George’s mouth dropping open: Isahn could have escaped their shackles, could have walked right out of their holding cells at any point during his imprisonment.
Her heart thumped back in ardent approval.
He wasn’t going anywhere, not then, and not now—not by choice anyway. He chose to stay, from day one.
Finally, she found the note, tucked away in a far back corner of the drawer.
“Hurry up! Quit dilly-dallying,” Hildy snapped when George waved the paper in the air like a flag.
“Yes, my lady!” she retorted, earning a laugh from her lord. Producing a scrap of paper and charcoal from elsewhere in the desk, George hastily copied the missive verbatim. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t make heads or tails of half the words, Eanraig would help.
She was halfway through when she was socked in the thigh by an invisible hand. Hildy must’ve received the same ominous signal from Dunstan, because their eyes met, wide with panic.
“Someone’s coming,” Hil hissed. “Hurry.”
“I’m not done, I need—”
“Now, George.”
A double punch to the thigh. They were fucked.
“Here.” George’s whispered demand successfully beckoned Hil to her side. She’d stared at the wall behind her father’s desk enough times to recreate it, and she thanked the fates for that when the handle twisted and the door swung open.
She didn’t breathe.
Marinos stood in the entry with a frown on his face, eyes sweeping the office from side to side, then back again. Seemingly satisfied, he stepped into the hall.
The door closed with a thunk, and Hildy gasped for breath. “Hurry,” she said, hushed, before racing back to her post.
A light tap to George’s inner elbow confirmed the threat was gone, but her hands shook as she copied down the final lines.
When the task was done, she slipped the original note back where she’d found it—all the way in the corner—Isahn locked things up with a new icy key, and they left to go their separate ways.
Their forms blending into the stonework, George and Hildy slipped from the room, leaving their glamored friends on duty for a few minutes longer.
The men’s false voices faded with each step Hildy took away from them.
They’d be vulnerable until Eanraig could drop their glamors and set their bodies back to rights.
Rounding the corner to the kitchens, Hildy almost ran smack into Marinos, who slipped out from behind a pillar. Cloaked by George’s magic, he didn’t see them as they skirted past, but they shared a nervous look upon realizing he was headed back toward the tablinium.
Without preamble, Hildy shot a bang of sound down a distant hall, drawing Marinos away from Dunstan and Burke. She tugged on George’s wrist, and they took off at a jog—though George snatched her arm back to keep her breasts from bouncing. The strophium binding them only did so much.
“Go, go, go!” she panted to no one but Hildy and herself as they pushed into the kitchen where Ceadda and Ean were watching over the sleeping soldiers.
They looked at the door, opened by a ghost, and George nudged Adda’s inner arm with her touch magic, letting him know it was time to wake the men.
The women remained miraged while Ceadda awoke the guards with slaps to their faces, followed by an overly dramatized apology. He told the legionaries there’d been a gross error; they’d been served the wrong frosting—one meant for guests of the Great Assembly.
It was a good lie, one the soldiers believed without complaint.
“My sincere apologies. I feel so awful for the mix-up!” Adda laid it on thick.
“I begged my friends to cover your shift. Morelli and Caruso?” He used Dunstan’s and Burke’s surnames; it was how the soldiers knew one another.
“Really nice guys. They didn’t mind, said they didn’t want you two to get in trouble due to an unfortunate accident. Anyway, you can head up there now!”
The groggy and slightly confused men helped themselves to glasses of water before departing to take up their posts.
The moment the kitchen door swung closed, Hildy and George dropped their mirages, and Ean buzzed over to perch on her shoulder.
“Release the glamor on Dunstan and Burke,” she said to Ean. “Then follow the guards to make sure the exchange goes well.”
“Aye, P Georgie.” Ean flitted to the door, and Hildy shoved it open so he could zip out.
“Thanks, Adda,” George’s voice was soft as she turned back to her dear friend. He may not remember the opening banquet, but she did. Her gratitude wasn’t confined to tonight. A pure soul trapped in a terrible situation, he was always ready to go above and beyond.
“No, thank you, George. Now, go. Don’t you have decoding to do, or something?”
“You go! Don’t you have... flour to knead, or something?”
“Flour? Do you mean dough? Gods, Georgie, you really need to spend a few minutes in the kitchen—helping—not just snacking.” Adda chuckled. “I hope you found what you need.”
“I do too.” Anticipation bubbled within George as Hildy ushered her out the side door.