The Kings Personal Joker (boyxboy)

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty Five

[A/N] I've got a couple more pieces of art to show (!) They're really pretty stunning. This is by the same artist as the one from chapter 132, and I never got their username unfortunately, but it's fantastic. 

-edit- credit goes to Not-so-special  ✧

[Despina's POV]

There was a flurry of panic after the Joker jumped out of the moving carriage and flung himself into the street. Onto the bare face of cobblestone ground no less. A great many stifled screams as the carriage was ordered to a halt, and then the horses slowed their step we hurried out onto the floor, having no time to lower the step even Lady Thera followed out, jumping down onto the floor inelegantly in the communal panic.

Wide eyed, we watched the bustling street, eyes watching us with deep curiosity as we stood shocked and, certainly in Thera's case, angry, outside the grand little carriage.

Children in numbers of one, then two, then four, began to collect around us and the carriage. Gawping and whacking their sticks against the wheels, or brushing their little dirty hands on the gilding. I had to threaten them back. They scattered, but the distraction hindered any remaining hope in tracking where that bastard Joker had gotten to.

Thera's fists were closed tightly by her side, so tight they were white with pressure, her porcelain face cold with fury.

"He knew." She bit out.

I approached her nervously. "He may have genuinely been ill."

"Do you really suppose jumping from a moving carriage is likely to settle a stomach?" She snapped.

I bowed low, the action alone drawing eyes from the street.

"I'll wait for the others to return, if they do not find him and bring him back we will return before long, and hurry. The palace will be informed that the boy hid in the carriage and escaped when we stopped."

"Really?" I frowned deeply. "What if he talks..."

Thera considered it carefully, turning, the wind winding the silky pleated fabric around her slim waist. "That depends on what he knows. I cannot see a world where he is brought back alive with any amount of trust. The wound of sitting beside His Majesty one evening and running from the palace the next will not heal so quickly." She headed back for the carriage.

"Yes ma'am." I helped her to climb back into the carriage.

There was pink anger on her face. "Take me out of this second-rate mess of colours before someone steals the wheels." She whispered.

[Elpis's POV]

Some time later I realised my hands were shaking where I stood.

Never had I looked around me in the Mitter, so close to the exit doors, surrounded by people, across from my old favourite brothel, nearby the vendor of cheap sweets that my younger siblings liked so much, never had I stood right there among the throng of moving people and felt so utterly lost before.

So utterly and completely lost.

I brushed my hair from my face, feeling a little sick.

What would Thera do or say? She could only report back diligently to the palace that I had escaped. Or would she say anything at all if the result would get her in trouble?