Chương 68: Chapter 67: Worth it

There is an old saying among those who have learned it the hard way: do not make an enemy of a PfP member. They are everywhere and nowhere, and they do not forget. More importantly, they do not talk - not about each other or what they've learned. The consequences of being on their wrong side have historically been severe. - Oral tradition, origin disputed, recorded by the Sixth Area 3 Settlement Archivist He tracked the flow of her words.

She was seated, facing the window, voice rising and dipping with the shape of the conversation. He had watched this from the doorway over four weeks of drop-offs, and he used it now, standing inside the wardrobe with the recording running and the suit active, waiting for the moment she was most absorbed. She laughed hard at something, the almost empty bottle adding to her laughter. He moved. Through the wardrobe doors in one motion, timed to her voice, two fingers guiding the latch back into the frame.

It was well oiled, courtesy himself. He tiptoed across the room on the balls of his feet, keeping to the side of the rug where the stone was thickest. His path to the door from the wardrobe was clear except for a narrow point between a side table and the bed. He had made sure of that with minor adjustments over the course of three weeks at convenient moments. He crossed the narrow point carefully just as she reached for her glass, completely distracted. Four steps from the door, her voice shifted.

She had not moved. Still seated, still facing the window. But the conversation had turned somewhere quieter and she had gone quiet with it - listening rather than speaking, and the listening was the kind that made the whole room still. He was four steps from the door with nowhere to go and nothing to do but wait. Every second of delay was a second off the back end. She was not known for patience, and a delayed knock would register.

He stood completely motionless and watched her shoulders, the tilt of her head, the grip of her hand in her lap. She started speaking again. He moved the moment her second sentence began. Three steps. Hand on the door handle. He unlocked it through his interface and turned it a fraction at a time until the latch cleared the frame, held it there, and knocked four times with his free hand, like he'd been doing the past few weeks.

"Come in." He released the handle. The door eased open under its own weight just enough to look like someone had pushed it. He slipped through the gap and pulled it shut behind him from the outside. Then he ran. His footsteps hit the stone corridor deliberately loud, rounding the corner at a half-jog, making sure the sound carried. At the alcove behind the tapestry - dark every night he had checked - he stripped the suit in four movements and folded it into his inside pocket.

He was a hundred feet further down the corridor and walking at a normal pace when Lucianne's voice came from behind her door.

"Again?" He cupped his hands.

"Yep. Getting naughtier by the day. Sorry about that, just give me a couple of minutes." Her door stayed shut. He kept walking. The hanging gallery was one level down, set into the interior face of the west tower - a narrow corridor converted into a vertical garden, iron brackets fixed to the stone all the way up to the vaulted ceiling, each one holding a planter of something that grew downward and trailed. Ferns, succulents, small-leafed things that needed no direct sunlight.

Someone in the settlement's history had cared enough about this place to maintain it properly, and the result was a corridor that smelled like wet stone and watered plants. Waggy was already there, sitting below the lowest bracket, watching Pip swing between two of the iron fittings, enjoying his late evening entertainment. Pip saw Kara and made the sound she reserved for him - short and bright. He collected her. She climbed his arm to his shoulder. Waggy fell in at his heel.

He walked them back to Lucianne's suite, handed Pip through, exchanged four words, and walked away. The quiet smile came before he had rounded the corner. Three weeks of careful preparation had just paid off. The three weeks before had looked not much different from each other, which was the point. He had started with the route. After the first party night, once he confirmed the gallery went unused at that hour, he began taking Pip and Waggy through it on the afternoon walks.

No stated purpose - just a different path, different smells, a different environment. Pip had been suspicious for one day before the climbing vines settled the matter. A few days after that, he started leaving treats. Waggy's preferences he knew thoroughly - dried meat pressed thin, the kind that crumbled. Pip's he had learned in the first week: fruit-based, slightly sticky, requiring the brackets wiped down afterward.

He placed them at multiple points along the route - not at Lucianne's door, but starting from his own, which he left a crack open on those afternoons so that Waggy could pick up the scent and Pip, given the chance, would follow Waggy. Once they reached the gallery, they entertained themselves. They always did. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. He had watched this play out across three afternoons before he was willing to bet on it.

Others had seen them there by the second week. Two residents had stopped at the gallery entrance one evening and watched Pip swing between brackets while Waggy sat below her on the floor. They had said something warm to each other and moved on. Kara cleaned up after each visit and left nothing behind. The first party night, Lucianne had come down herself when his knock went unanswered longer than she liked. He said Pip and Waggy had run off to the gallery again and apologised for the delay in tracking them down.

She walked down, found them there, and left without much comment. The second party night she had sent a message instead of coming, accepted his reply, and that was the end of it. He had tested the full sequence the week before - in the suit, in the alcove outside her room, waiting while Pip and Waggy followed the trail from his doorway all the way to the gallery and stayed there playing until he came to collect them. Clean. No complications.

Three weeks was enough time to plan, establish, and test out a set of patterns. It might have looked like luck from the outside, but going into tonight he had been confident the sequence would hold. If anything, it would have been very bad luck if something has gone wrong. The moment at the door had been the one thread he could not fully pre-empt, and it had held too. The recording was in his possession.

Lucianne had confirmed the affair with Davan, confirmed Ghilim had been the more convenient explanation, admitted she felt bad about what had happened to him and his family. Her words, her voice, her grief tangled up with the admission in a way that made it real and very difficult to deny. It might not hold in a legal court, but it sure would hold in the court of public opinion. He sat on the edge of his cot and pinged Moghli. Mission success. I have her confirming his innocence in full. Her words.

The reply came back in under four seconds. WHAT. Then, How. Then, before Kara could respond to either: No - doesn't matter - this is incredible - do you know what this means - Kara had seen Moghli move through some difficult situations with his trademark patience. He had never seen him type like this - messages arriving before the previous one had finished, the sentences running without punctuation, the composure completely gone.

It was the most unguarded Kara had ever seen him, and it lasted for almost a full minute before the next message came through, slower. I will make sure justice is served. Whatever it takes. Kara read it twice. He had not been sure, going into this, whether Moghli was an ally. Neutral had been his read of him - supportive but careful, giving information without steering. All he had known was that he could trust him. This was something else. Thank you, he sent back. I mean that.

But please - wait until I'm back at the University before you do anything with this. He just hoped PfP wouldn't look too closely and out him. Three days is a long time when you're holding something like this. I know. Just three days. Fine. Three days. But Kara - this is going to land hard when it does. Thank you. I'm counting on it. The last two days passed by slower than Kara would've liked. He was half expecting something to go wrong at any moment.

He folded up his duties with the same care he had given the first ones. He took Pip and Waggy through the gallery one last time in the evening. Pip swung between the brackets. Waggy sat on the floor in his usual spot. Kara watched the trailing ferns move in the draft from the narrow window. He double checked the soil, water and overall plant health of this particular gallery more than the others. It had earned it.

The last evening, he handed in the final care log to Brenn, who received it with a nod and said he had been the easiest member of staff she had worked with recently. Kara thanked her in return for all the guidance. The morning of departure, he was packed before the settlement stirred. Waggy sat on top of the bag. Just as he made it down, Lucianne came to the entrance hall herself. She had Pip on her shoulder, and Pip was quiet.

She was rarely quiet and still, but now she was just sitting, fingers wrapped loosely in Lucianne's hair, looking between Kara and Waggy.

"I wanted to say it properly," Lucianne said. There was something briefly different in her face - the princess affect set aside, a genuine smile on her face.

"Pip is better these days. I mean she was always healthy, but she just seems happier, more active. Thank you."

"She's a clever animal," Kara said.

"She just needed something to do."

"She needed someone who knew what they were doing." She shifted Pip on her shoulder.

"I hope our paths cross again."

"I'm sure I'll be seeing you in the news soon enough." Her face shifted expressions, confusion at first, then a forced smile. By now, everyone in the settlement knew about her marriage date. The announcement had not been made public yet, but it was close. It would be in every bulletin the moment it went out - her name and Edric's, the faction alliance written up as the natural conclusion to something long arranged. The mention of news landed exactly where she expected it to.

"Probably, yes." He looked at her for a moment. There was a version of this where he felt sympathetic - the grief she kept behind closed doors, the brightness in her face when she dropped the effect, the way she had said Pip is genuinely better like it was the thing she was most proud of from the last four weeks. That version was there, briefly. Then he thought about the wardrobe. The nonchalance in her voice as she talked about Ghilim, about his family, about what had happened to them. A bit excessive.

But what was I supposed to say. The lightness of it. There was no cruelty in it, only the ease of someone for whom the cost had always been paid by someone else. He let the version with the sympathy go. Pip made her small bright sound and held two of his fingers for a moment. Then she was back on Lucianne's shoulder, and Kara stepped back, and that was the end of it. Aldric walked him down from the settlement himself, which was a little unusual - Seren generally managed departures.

They went down the slope in the early morning light with Waggy ranging ahead on the path. At the transfer point, Aldric shook his hand.

"You did well here," he said.

"Your placement record will reflect it."

"Thank you for all the help and guidance." Aldric nodded. He was quiet for a moment, weighing something.

"Well, all the best going forward, young man," he said.

"It was nice knowing you." A pause, followed by a wink.

"Even though officially, we never met." Kara held his gaze for a second, briefly puzzled before a small smile settled on his face. He nodded. Then he stepped onto the bicorn pegasus.