Strike at Midnight(15)

“Oh, sure.”

I leaned over and picked up the quill. After a quick dip in the ink, I wrote down the address on a spare bit of parchment.

“Thanks for that,” she said, looking at me like a disgruntled schoolteacher when I spilled a bit of ink on her desk. Oops.

“I’ll get out of your way,” I said, standing up. “I’ll come by again tomorrow and see what you’ve got.”

“Wait until after sunset. I’ll make full use of the day.”

“I thought you said the doors locked at night?” I asked, remembering the snippets of information she had begrudgingly explained to me before.

“Only for me,” she said with pursed lips. “You’ll be fine.”

“I’ll do that then. And hopefully I won’t get captured and killed by coming through the forest so late at night,” I said, trying to get some guilt for my trouble. I didn’t get any. “I can bring you a copy of the list then too.”

She picked up her quill and went back to work. “You can always use the cage on your way back down,” she said without looking up.

“I value my life, thank you very much. See you tomorrow evening.”





CHAPTER FIVE

Everybody wants a Piece





I returned Dainty back to the stables at the Inn of the Briar Rose and decided to walk the rest of the way on foot.

It wouldn’t take me too long, and I needed the fresh air to wake me up a bit. The mixture of too much alcohol from the night before and the pastry I had just shoveled down my throat, was starting to take its toll.

As I neared the central part of the city that led to its lower counterpart, a piece of parchment nailed upon a tree caught my eye. Is that my damn slipper?

The parchment tore as I snatched it off the nail with a vengeance.

“What the hell?” I muttered as I saw a sketch of my glass slipper staring back at me. Underneath, it said that the slipper had been found and the one who had found it was eager to find the owner. They wanted all inquiries to be directed to the castle so the slipper could be returned. Oh, he has got to be fucking joking.

Lemonade Guy. I bet any money he had instigated this. Who else would go to such lengths to return a shoe? A shoe. Honestly. I’m sure he had been hit in the head at some point in his life.

The parchment rolled up easily enough in my hand and I stuffed it into my pocket. It had a name of who was heading up the inquiries—a cleric called Edwin-something-or-other—so I supposed I could go and check it out at some point. Or Melody could. She would have the guy eating out of her palm in no time, and I wouldn’t have to go risk facing Lemonade Guy again. Or buy another gown to get through the gates to the Royal Castle.

Happy I had a potential solution to try and get my slipper back, I denied the urge to rip down a few other parchments along the way. Surely they wouldn’t just give the slipper to just anyone who turned up, and it wasn’t exactly like they would have a pair even if they did. But I also knew what the ladies of Carena were like. It would be hard for them to resist the opportunity to be allowed entrance to the castle and grab the chance to run into their pretty prince.

Prince Charming was famous among them all, not that I had ever seen him. He didn’t exactly move in my circles—nor I in his—and I never got to see him at the ball the evening before. He had supposedly been given the name “Charming” because of his ways with the ladies. Well, he could keep his ways for all I cared. So could Lemonade Guy. I didn’t have time for pompous princes who sat in their ivory tower or overeager gentlemen who ran about like puppies. I just wanted my slipper back and that was that.

It was coming up to dusk when I finally got back to the inn and made my way inside. The alcohol could wait until my stomach played nice, so I avoided a sneaky drink and headed towards the back stairs that led to my quarters.

“Rella,” Marcel said as he peeked his head from the back of the bar. “I need you.”

“That’s what all the boys say,” I replied, batting my eyelids provocatively.

“Until they’ve spent five minutes in your company,” he said, waving his hand for me to go behind the bar with him. “Then they just run the other way.”

“You’re so hilarious,” I said as I begrudgingly followed the wave of his hand. “What’s up?”

“You’ve got a visitor,” he said in lowered tones, and I couldn’t help but raise my eyebrows in surprise. What the hell is up with him?

“Where?” I asked, looking around the bar for someone I recognized.

“In there,” he said, nudging his head in the direction of the back of the bar.

“Who?” I asked, and my heart raced slightly at why he was acting like this. Not to mention why he hadn’t made them wait in bar portion of the inn. A few faces of my past came into my head at that very moment and I tried not to freak out.

“No one you know,” he said as if to reassure me. He was one of the very few people who knew what I had left behind. “Just…come and take a look.”

He led me behind the bar where he had a few seats scattered around in the back.

On one of the chairs sat a kid of around fourteen years of age who looked like he could do with a good meal. The tattered rags he was wearing were torn and filthy.

“Okay,” I said, pleading for someone to let me know what was going on.