Road to Ruisea

❆ ❆ LXXII. ALEXEI ❆ ❆

They make it through the village with relative ease, Alexei thinks.

Relative being an, erm, relative term, he thinks, as there had been guards crawling everywhere and it had gotten to the point where Kumari had to snatch a blanket from a market stall just so she could throw it over their heads, partly to keep herself warm and partly to look as inconspicuous as possible.

"Kumari!" Alexei had hissed in protest. "This is stealing."

"No, it's not!" She protested his protest. "It's borrowing. I'm gonna give it back!"

"We might not get the chance," he wailed.

"Just be quiet and be optimistic!"

He'd obliged, not seeing what else to do, and at least they were now well within the palace walls. He heard her giggle to herself when she saw there were no guards inside.

"Back in Cevalon," she whispers quietly to Alexei as they crept through the halls, as still there were people to avoid, butlers and maids and lords and ladies. "All the guards would be in the castle. As Jae put it, they were more concerned with keeping someone in rather than keeping someone out..."

"It was the same, formerly," Alexei says, just as quiet. "All the guards would be in here... Hardly ever needed any out of doors, as it had gotten to the point where I suppose everyone was too afraid of being sent to the dungeons, or worse, the crystal caverns, to commit a crime. But now that I and my party are outside..."

"Everyone's out trying to drag us, specifically you, back in."

"Exactly that." He seems to pause, lost in thought for a moment, before he asks, "So tell me, where exactly are we headed?"

"The library?" She suggested.

"Cieux nyet," Alexei shakes his head. "Heavens no! That's where they'd expect me to be. That's how I got out... I saw the curtains I tied together still hanging out the window. They would've removed it so I wouldn't get back in, except... They want me to come back. They know I'd go to the library."

Kumari frowns, "Then I guess we're going to my room."

"Your room?" Alexei furrows his white brows, but slowly leads the way. "I don't know if I quite understand what you're searching for."

"A book," she replies simply. "For a spell."

"You have a spell book, Kumari? I thought Chiro was the magician."

Kumari shakes her head, "No. It's just a regular book, but I need it so Chiro can do a spell."

Alexei knows that his face is giving away the fact that he has absolutely no idea what she's getting at, but he doesn't disagree, and chooses to go along with her plan.

"Can I ask what kind of spell, at least?" He finally says as they reach the doors of her guest room. Looks like it's been left untouched since she was last staying here, so he pushes inside with ease...

"It's not that it's a secret," she mumbles as they enter and she begins to dig around her very messy room. She'd only been here for two days and Alexei simply couldn't believe how unorganized she'd made everything even though she'd arrived with so few things on her person, but still he finds the clutter quite adorable. "It's just... I don't want to jinx it, if it doesn't work."

"Well," he thinks, as he sifts through a pile of Kumari's things. "Isn't that why we say that word you always say?"

"Huh?" She looks up from where she'd been looking under her bed. "What word?"

"That word," Alexei says, not really wanting to say it aloud in case he says it wrong. "It starts with an m?"

"Manna? Oh wait no, not that, I'm stupid!"