Chapter 15 Galwell
Galwell
Galwell had fond memories of the Realm Chalice. Revels in the village square with his school friends, watching the conjuration
with a basket of shankfries. Hearing stories of decade-old matches from his grandfather, who’d played one season with the
Devostos Dragons. Galwell’s father proudly presenting Galwell with field-side passes for the two of them when Elgin hosted
the match, then pulling some local strings for one more ticket when Elowen—who’d never showed the least interest in horseball
but sought to follow Galwell everywhere—insisted on coming with them.
Ordinary memories, uncomplicated memories.
Not like now, on the eve of the Vestriya-hosted match. Now Galwell found himself useless once more as they headed into the
next important part of their quest. Bait, he thought miserably. Heroes weren’t bait.
While recuperating from some undisclosed illness, Thessia had a letter delivered via Vestriyan guard—the parchment was scented
with the smell of fresh brew, so whatever malady had affected the queen evidently required fortification in the form of the
spicy liquid. She thought the Chalice could be a chance to draw the guild out. Galwell needed only attend the game, safe in
the royal box in view of everyone in the realm. Then, accompanied by Hugh, he could lure the guild assassins to a tavern nearby,
where they would think him vulnerable—but where River would be waiting.
Celine, for her part, had published precisely the story they needed in the press, proclaiming the Deathrose Guild outmaneuvered. They would be desperate.
Everyone was doing something heroic.
While Galwell would do . . . nothing. Except get shot at and find himself the damsel everyone else was protecting.
He was miserable. He hated how Ghosts-damned restless he felt, spending the early morning rearranging the part in his rust-colored hair in his mirror because he literally had
nothing else to do. He felt vain and vaguely irrelevant.
Except worse, for Galwell the Great was also homesick. Not for Mythria—Galwell was homesick for his past. When the villains
were evil men who owned their villainy. Not beautiful women with whom one was forced to work, who . . .
No, he would not venture there.
Except . . . he had, quite literally, physically ventured there. Leaving his chambers and his mirror in the late afternoon,
he had wandered the streets with motives he refused to let fully coalesce in his mind, until he found himself camped outside
Mona’s hideout.
When she emerged, he followed.
Though he left some cunning distance between them, Mona promptly paused, then looked over her shoulder, smirking. Not meeting
Galwell’s concealed watchful gaze but subtly indicating she knew he was there. Of course she does, he reminded himself. She was a mind reader.
It mattered not. Mona herself was not Galwell’s objective.
No, he was determined to undo every stroke of villainy she’d wrought on Vestriya’s capital this lavender-skied evening.
This he could manage. Villains might look like voluptuous, charming shadow play stars, but the raw materials of heroism—courage,
generosity, consideration—wouldn’t change. Couldn’t change.
Or he hoped they couldn’t.
He watched Mona closely. First, she pickpocketed a man longingly eyeing the enormous flanks of fire-dusted hroxen roasting
on spits in a roaster’s stall. Shameless! Nevertheless, Galwell was there, heroically, offering to purchase the man the fattest sandwich on the menu when
he found his pockets empty.
Leaving the stand, Galwell caught Mona’s eye. In the shade of a street corner, he found her watching him, scowling.
He nodded to her cheerfully. Game on, he sought to say. He knew she could hear him even with the words unspoken.
Mona rushed from his sight. Galwell pursued. The winding stone street she led him down held numerous carriages, all jostling
for position on the chaotic road. Galwell momentarily wondered whether he should revise his view of the sorry state of heroism
in Vestriya, for mere pedestrianism here required great courage. Folks took their lives into their own hands crossing the
road to get from the silk spinner’s stall to the brewshop.
Yet whether heroism could be found here or not, villainy definitely could. Galwell spotted Mona down the path, confidently
slashing the harness of a carriage with her dagger. No doubt to steal the fine horses!
“Good sir!” Galwell called out, hailing the coachman directly. At Galwell’s urgent waving, the sleepy-eyed man straightened
up from his slump. “Your harness,” Galwell explained, coming closer. “Inspect your carriage’s harness.”
“I’ll be,” the coachman muttered, leaning down to look. When he clambered down from his post to rectify the damage, Galwell
noticed the man shivering in the cool evening.
Readily, Galwell shrugged out of his coat.
“Here,” he said, offering it to the coachman, who knew a good deed when he saw one. Wordlessly, meeting Galwell’s insistent gaze, the coachman pulled on the comforting fur-lined leather.
Galwell grinned. He probably thinks me one of the Ghosts themselves, he thought proudly.
Mona slunk into the shadows, glaring.
Now this, Galwell could concede, is fun. Good, clean heroism. If it delighted him in some modest measure to vex the woman who’d kept him in a cage while dancing
provocatively in front of him and who’d shot him in the leg and shoulder while he was wearing his favorite sleep clothes,
well . . .
He was a hero, not a monk.
Pursuing Mona from street to street, he spied her ducking into a shabby inn crammed between nearly identical brewshops with
wide patios spilling out into the street. Looking for tourists as easy marks, Galwell guessed.
He entered the close-quarters lobby, where conjurated miniature musicians played pipe whistle tunes on the marble check-in
counter, just in time to watch Mona sell counterfeit Realm Chalice tickets to some gullible guests. When she headed for the
stairs, her con complete, Galwell strode neatly forth, noting he felt the family’s new tickets looked “outdated.”
Fortunately for them, Galwell had his very own Realm Chalice tickets on him. He’d kept them in his farthing pouch. Without
hesitation, he implored the visitors to use his instead.
Mona was close enough for Galwell to overhear the scream she restrained in her throat with a frustrated sound. He smiled to
himself.
When she dashed upstairs, he gamely followed. In the upper hallway, he glimpsed her picking the lock on a grand door at the
end of the corridor.
Galwell flew downstairs. “The room at the end of the hall,” he half inquired, half demanded of the innkeeper—pleasantly, of course. Heroically. “Is it occupied?”
“Why, no,” the innkeeper—Lanzelo, his nameplate informed Galwell—replied. “Our Regent’s Suite is our loveliest room. Rarely
occupied except by our most esteemed guests.”
“I’ll check in now,” Galwell declared, depositing his entire coin purse on the counter.
Though clearly surprised, the innkeeper did not question the high-paying hero. He handed over the indulgently curlicued metal
key immediately.
Galwell grasped the object, started for the stairs, then doubled back.
“You’ve been very helpful, Lanzelo,” he remarked. “I shall—leave you a warm review on Mythria’s most frequented travel message
tapestry.”
Lanzelo raised a hand in perplexed parting.
Galwell rushed upstairs. If the room was unoccupied, Mona couldn’t do much damage in the way of purloining valuables. Perhaps,
however, she intended to use the balconies or side doors for ingress and egress of other rooms? He wished he had her mind-reading
power, but even without magic, he knew one thing. She meant no meager mischief with her dastardly presence here.
He reached the upstairs hallway—
The door to the Regent’s Suite was half open.
Curious. Galwell strode closer, cautious now, the way he would venture into enemy fortresses . . .
When he neared, he glimpsed through the open door—Mona. Smiling, on the coverlet of the enormous burgundy bed inside. Propped
up on her elbows, waiting.
For him.
Well played, he thought to himself.
Mona smiled, hearing him perfectly.
He slowed his pace, eased open the door, and stopped in the doorway, going no farther. “You should lock your doors in places
like these,” he said. “You never know what sort of unsavory sort might be engaged in crime or villainy here.”
Mona smiled. She shifted to lie on her side, head resting on one elbow. “I take it,” she drawled, “this room has been let
to one Galwell the Grating?”
Pleased with himself, Galwell the Grating held up the curlicued key. Mona’s eyes landed on it with a mixture of amusement
and annoyance.
“Would you like me to lock it for you?” Galwell gestured to the door, moving as if he planned to depart. “It’s yours for the
night.”
Mona’s eyebrows rose. “You don’t intend to come inside?”
“I’ve not been invited,” Galwell replied.
Rolling her eyes, Mona stretched—the contours of her body curving and coursing under the ever-impeccable crimson fabric she
wore. “You mustn’t always wait for an invitation to the things you want.”
Galwell shrugged. He felt on firm footing now—how often had opponents taunted or sought to confuse him with intimidating word
games? “I wasn’t aware there was something I wanted in this room,” he returned. “I’ll admit the furnishings are quite handsome,
though, and the view of the canals rather marvelous.”
This was true. Past Mona, the window framing the evening revealed the reason this room was the Regent’s Suite—the view of
the Vestriyan capital’s widest waterway, where gondolas and skiffs maneuvered in the dazzling sunset.
In damning contrast, Mona’s expression darkened imperiously.
“Not”—she stood, her movements poised and fluid, her hair falling loose over her shoulders—“what I was referring to.”