Interlude [h.s]

ninety-four

Later that afternoon, everyone is back in the meeting room. Alouette's fingers tap against the table insistently as Gray, the second in command of the personal guard, and Jackson talk to each other in low tones, coming up with ideas on what to do next. Next to her, Elijah alternates between looking at her, Harry and Jackson, one of his knees tensely going up and down as he waits for someone to fill the silence. Jayden is looking at Gray but Jesse is looking at him, a glass of water halfway to his mouth, a curious look on his face. On Alouette's other side, Harry is the quietest she's ever seen him—he doesn't move, she can't even hear him breathe. It worries her.

"Ezra wants to attack the Shade in three days," she says when the situation becomes too much. There's a sort of violence in the way the sentence drops in the middle of the table, making every head in the room towards her.

"That's... soon," Grey replies. His blond hair falls in front of his eyes as he grabs the map and starts studying it with renovated interest.

"We need more time," Jayden adds, and she's surprised that he's going as far as to speaking to her directly on the matter. He must really think it's an awful idea.

Alouette takes a sip from her glass of water. If it were her, it would be pushed back a month ahead at the very least. But the longer they wait the higher the probability of the Shade attacking Northfair will become, and maybe something of Harry has rubbed off on her, because she can't deal with the thought of something happening to the capital. "If we wait too long they might move somewhere else," she finds herself saying. "Then we'll be back to square one. We've wasted two months already, we need to do something now. They still haven't dared to move against another city, but it won't be long before they do." Her gaze slides through the room and stops on Jesse. "Ezra agrees."

Jesse closes his eyes for a moment. "Of course Ezra agrees."

Harry, at her side, is still silent. Alouette tries not to focus on it, but it's hard. It makes her nervous, because she knows what his silences mean.

"Does the Palace have guards in Greenside?" Elijah asks, being met by a chuckle from the blond guard.

Gray lifts his head from the map, taking in the outraged look on Elijah's face. "Sorry, didn't mean it in a bad way. The Palace has guards all over the country, of course."

"None we can trust." It's Harry's voice that steps into the conversation, at last. Alouette's head turns to him in surprise. He sends Jackson a long look, one that she's certain must mean something, though she isn't sure what.

Jackson gives him a brief nod. "It's best to keep it between us. If this gets out it might become a problem."

Jesse lifts a foot on his chair. "So what, are we just supposed to run in there and... I don't know...?"

Jayden's lips curve up in a little smile. He seems to notice, because it disappears instantly, and he lifts his glass to his mouth to hide it.

Gray makes a face. "If we had more time we could come up with something better, but the way I see it, the Revolution's and our intelligence tells us they're no more than two hundred members, so we should be able to take them down with no more than fifty."

Elijah chokes on his own breath. "Fifty of us against two hundred armed men?! We're going to get killed."

"You greatly underestimate the Palace," Gray tells him with another smile. Just the slightest bit charming, just the slightest bit mocking. "The training of our soldiers is by far the better in the country. Fifty people will be enough. Besides, we're not going to get in there and kill everyone, that would be improper."

"We could," Harry says, his voice dropping low with the threat, sending a shiver down Alouette's spine. "But the country is already on edge, and the Palace has cut our communication with the citizens with the happenings of the last few months," Alouette doesn't miss the reprimand in his tone, "and they weren't informed about the situation with the Shade. So you can see how killing two hundred people out of nowhere would be problematic for our image."