Chapter 31
Thirty-One
Rain-slicked streets glistened under the lamps that shone like lifelines in the dark, overcast night.
The gas lamps meant Jade was close now. As she approached the drive to Lesseine, the street was lined with lampposts and had no ruts or divots.
The impeccable maintenance of the road here could only be indicative of the nearby estate.
After curfew, Jade had snuck off base and made a detour by the farmhouse to see if the horse Nicolas had provided for her to take to Arthur’s home was still on the land.
She’d wandered through overgrown grass and rye and white-petaled firra around the dilapidated barn to eventually discover a small body of water and the horse there, taking a drink.
He wasn’t saddled, so Jade poked her head into what was left of the barn in search of tack, and, surprisingly, she found it.
Once the creature was ready to go, they rode off toward Lesseine.
Jade hid the horse in a cluster of woods on the other side of the road and down a little way before covering the bottom half of her face with her black mask.
She retrieved her grappling hook and unfolded it as she crept down the length of the wall, surveying for a spot to climb.
In a swift movement, she flung it up to the wall and it caught, and she hoisted her body up and over.
She landed in a shadow on the other side of the wall provided by the trees on the outer rim of the estate—the perfect cover for her to scout out any nearby guards.
The low hum of voices perked Jade’s ears, and she looked to the right, following the sound.
Two guards stood about a hundred paces away, deep in conversation.
Jade blinked through the shadowy trees for any others at the perimeter but found none, so she snuck off in the opposite direction of the pair of guards, keeping her eyes peeled for more.
With the guards out of earshot, Jade listened out for any other sounds out of place for the late summer night.
Crickets chirped a somber melody that matched Jade’s mission.
She inhaled the warm, damp air, already smelling of early-morning dew.
A night this muggy meant the day would only be hotter still.
Jade slunk through the trees until the house came into view, and she paused in a crouch to examine the massive structure. From this angle, only two dim lights broke through the darkness, coming from rooms on the top floor—no doubt the bedrooms of the last of the staff turning in for the night.
A crunch of a twig shot Jade’s heart to her throat. She dipped behind the closest tree, listening intently.
Slow, heavy footsteps thudded on the hard ground somewhere between her and the house. They didn’t sound as though they approached her, rather skimming through the trees parallel to the manor. Jade held her breath, waiting for the sound to diminish until it was gone entirely.
She had to be on high alert tonight. With the amount of security on the estate, there was no room for error.
With the guard gone, Jade left her hiding place and surveyed the grounds around her. Nothing. In her dark clothes, she was no more than a shadow as she left the cover of the trees under a moonless night.
Another guard rounded the corner of the house as Jade reached it, and she dropped to her stomach, flattening her body against the warm earth. The shorn grass this close to the house would do nothing to conceal her, but she hoped that in her stillness, she would simply blend in.
She cocked her head to the side to keep an eye on the guard as he patrolled past. He was a stone’s throw away, but he kept his face forward as he walked, never turning to peer out over the grounds.
Once his back was to Jade, she slid her body up from the ground and bolted to the shrubs bordering the walls of the home, where she could take better cover.
Lesseine was not unfamiliar to her. She had been here many times before on furtive missions, and the best paths to take both on the grounds and in the house were seared into her brain. The additional guards complicated things, but it was nothing Jade couldn’t maneuver around.
No further guards hindered her path to the staff yard at the back of the house. A quick glance past the wall hemming it in showed that the coast was clear, so Jade snuck in the door to the yard.
She didn’t even bother trying the door to the house.
It would be locked. It always was after the staff went to bed.
Instead, Jade went to the far right window in the staff yard that led to the butler’s pantry.
The window did not seal, and the gap between the panes was enough to slip a file into and flick the latch undone.
Gripping the wooden casing with her fingertips, Jade pulled the unlatched window open and slipped her body inside the dark room.
The only problem with sneaking into the Fellsrin home through the butler’s pantry was that the room itself was locked, housing the family’s fine silver, porcelain, and crystal.
Jade grabbed a set of picks from the pouch on her belt and kneeled before the door, working them in the lock until she heard it click.
She turned the doorknob, pulling slowly and glancing outside for any sign of life beyond.
Nothing stirred in the hallway. Jade stepped out and locked the door back with her picks.
The lingering scents of the night’s dinner wafted from the kitchen, making her stomach rumble.
The sound was the roaring of a lion in the quiet space.
Jade wrapped her arms firmly around her middle, hoping to quell the raging beast. She would not be caught tonight, least of all by a hungry, grumbling stomach.
Jade tiptoed up the stairs from the kitchen and staff rooms, bypassing the main floor. Her goal tonight was Arabella’s suite on the second story.
Of all the rooms in the home where Jade expected to find evidence of what Arabella had discovered, Jade had narrowed it down to three: the sisters’ private morning room, the second-floor library, and Arabella’s bedroom.
Jade hoped to avoid the last one if possible, but she also knew it was the best place for Arabella to ensure something was kept safe.
At the landing to the second story, Jade paused and listened. The ticking of a distant clock pierced the silence occasionally, but other than that, the house was still. If there were guards patrolling inside, she’d found no indication of them.
Candles in sconces along the wall flickered here and there, providing a soft light to see by.
Like a thief in the night, Jade crept down the carpeted hallway to the first room on her list: the morning room.
No light shone from the cracks around the door.
Jade pushed it open silently and stepped inside.
After letting her eyes readjust to the darkness, Jade crossed to the large windows, where morning sunlight would stream in, and flung open the curtains.
Without light from the moon, the outside world did little to help illuminate the room, but the gas lamps on the home’s exterior provided enough to help Jade find a candle.
She lit it with a match from a nearby box and began her search.
The room was neat and orderly, organized exactly to the Fellsrin sisters’ standards. It should make searching for evidence straightforward, but it also meant a greater chance that Jade would leave something out of place.
Plush, comfortable-looking chairs were arranged in a circle around a low table in the center of the room.
A cold fireplace took up the middle of one wall, with a painting hanging above it and doors on either side.
Low cabinets ran the length of the opposite wall, and near the windows sat two desks with enough room between them for a person to walk.
The desks were as good a place as any to start.
Jade chose one and opened a drawer, picking up a few letters to see who they were addressed to. Alanna. She placed the letters neatly back into their pile and went to the other desk.
A small stack of papers sat on Arabella’s desk, but Jade didn’t bother with it. Anything of such importance as the evidence she sought would be hidden away. She opened drawers and thumbed through the papers, digging for anything that might indicate the event from eleven years prior.
Jade took her time, studying each piece of paper, but her search yielded no results.
It was possible that Arabella had not only hidden this information but kept it locked away.
Jade dropped to her knees to run her hand over the underside of the desk, searching for a secret drawer or opening.
Pulling all the drawers open again, she pressed down with her fingers and felt for any type of release of a false bottom, to no avail.
So the desk was a bust. Jade checked the cabinets along the wall, but they mostly held things such as blankets, trinkets, more paper and ink for letters, and other such items. She ran her fingers along the smooth wood inside, again trying to find a latch, but found none.
Jade huffed. She hadn’t entirely expected to find what she was looking for in the first room she’d chosen to search, but she’d hoped to.
She opened the door to the left of the fireplace, which led directly into the second-floor library, carrying her candle with her.
This would be a greater challenge than the morning room.
A letter or piece of paper could easily be tucked between the pages of a book.
Jade wouldn’t consider the room cleared until she’d leafed through each and every volume.
Luckily, she had all the time in the world.
Three of the walls in the room were lined with bookshelves, though they did not extend from floor to ceiling and there were gaps in between for chairs and lamps. Jade chose the first shelf to her right, starting at the bottom of the bookshelf and working her way up.
She pulled volume after volume from the shelves, fanning the pages and turning them over to see if anything was tucked inside. Once or twice, a piece of ribbon marking someone’s place or a pressed flower fell out, but nothing that Jade was hoping to find.
More light in the room might have helped her make faster progress.
Jade relied on her single candle to thoroughly examine each book, but she wouldn’t risk lighting more or turning on an electric lamp and potentially attracting attention.
On the off chance that a guard or a member of house staff—or even Alanna or Arabella themselves—came down the hallway, she didn’t want them to notice a light coming from the room.
The top few shelves were too high for Jade to reach on her own, so she dragged an ottoman from one of the chairs over to stand on. She checked in the books, between the books, behind the books, but as she checked off shelf after shelf, she was still coming up empty.
Creak.
The tiniest screech of hinges ripped through the deathly silence, arresting Jade where she balanced on her tiptoes on the ottoman with her hand on the spine of a book. It was a door—or a window.
Adrenaline surged through her veins as her heart pumped faster.
She’d been careful, quiet. There was no reason to believe anyone was coming after her.
Regardless, she had to be smart. If one of the sisters was having trouble sleeping and on her way to the library to get a book, Jade had to find a place to hide.
She hopped down from the ottoman, blowing out her candle and setting it on a table. Jade strained her ears for any hint of another sound, but she heard nothing: no footsteps, no door, no voice.
The morning room was a better place to take cover, considering both its small closet and the fact that it was less likely to be used until daytime. Jade pressed her ear to the door between the rooms, and when she decided it was safe, she opened it and returned to her previous location.
A twinge of a new scent met her nostrils, one that she had not noticed the first time she’d entered the room. She sniffed, trying to place the subtle scent and determine if she was going crazy.
It was the smell of dewy grass wafting in from the open window.