Paragon - Book I

Disguises

Allayria holds the child's gaze for a beat longer, her heart thundering in her chest, and then, slowly, she raises a finger to her lips. The girl just stares, and Allayria eases the door open. When it is open wide enough, she slips through, quickly closing it behind her. She dashes through the hall, back out the door from which she came, her ears strained for the sound of a child's scream.

On the balcony, she risks a quick glance over the ledge, but the guards are moving out toward the gates, looking for Serfigue, no doubt.

She jumps on top of the rail, her knife sliding easily into another long hook which she latches onto the rail's side. She vaults over the edge, dropping into the thicket of bushes below as the metal lets go of the stone ledge.

She can hear Brezkin and his guards leaving through the main doors on the other side of the house, and she steals a glance up at the skyline across the way, but no light flickers back at her.

Move, move, move, move, move.

Crawling over to a clump of greenery away from the oil lamps, she sees the next stream of guards walk out from the house with their backs to herand she begins the low sprint back to the gate. The knife stays close to her side and her shoulders bunch in anticipation of a cry of alarm, a delayed shriek of warning, but none come.

Safe in the dark beside the gate, she eases the iron bars apart quickly, leaping through and closing them again, but when she turns around Rex is gone. She freezes for a moment, but the instinct to keep moving overwhelms all else and, with a brief glance around, she surges across the street, shooting straight toward the sewer entrance, where Rex last led her. She tries to remember what Keno taught her, sticking along the darker parts of the street and keeping her footsteps light. If the wolf isn't back there, she doesn't know where she—

Wheeling around the corner, she collides with a solid chest, stumbling, and hands grab her upper arms.

"Allayria!" Ben exclaims, holding her upright.

"Where's Rex? Where are the others?" she blurts out, grabbing a hold of his arm. "We have to get going, Brezkin's going to his stash now—"

"They're back in our stakeout spot," Ben answers, stumbling and then digging his feet in as she tries to pull him back to the street. "What's going on? How do you know Brezkin is going to the spot?"

"I overheard him talking to the Jarles messenger," she answers, turning back and giving his arm another tug. "He knows someone has the correspondence and it's only a matter of time before someone exposes him. He's sent guards to find Serfigue and he's taken a silver key out of his study. He told a maid he was going to meet Serfigue at his office, but that may have been a lie—he's going now, we need to move—"

"Alright, alright," Ben answers, and he follows her down the alley, back to the street. "Which way did they go?"

"They were exiting the north side when I got out," she answers, looking up and down the street. "I think they took the road toward the office."

"Then we'll go that way first," he answers, standing straight and sliding an arm around her waist, nudging her up into a similarly normal posture. "Let's go."

To the surrounding world a young couple walks, arms around waists, down the central street, heads tucked low together, and laughter sometimes rising up from between them. They spare curious glances at the large estate as they pass, marveling, perhaps, at its grandiosity, and watching as guards spill out and mill around. They smile at them as they pass and some guards even smile back, musing on how they would much prefer to wander down the street with a sweetheart in their arms and enjoy, with the pinpricks of anticipation, the cool, long night.