The Royal Thief

Chapter Seventy: Fire and Fire

I swear I feel terrible so let's just pretend it hasn't been almost two weeks since I last updated, ok? I want to finish this up before summer so at any rate to get that done I'll have to start getting updates out on time again from now on.

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Caer wasn't allowed in the seamstress's fitting room, but he continued to talk through the firmly closed door. "All I'm saying is that she's right, it's a good idea. The nobles should see you together. I would give them a nice healthy shock. Come on, we all know you'd like that."

 "And it would shock them even more if I wasn't dressed up."

"You can't," Magali insisted yet again, "go to a ball in regular clothes."

"What, would the guards physically stop me from entering? Because I'm stronger than they are."

"A serious fault in our training program," Caer remarked dryly.

More serious than hiring criminals? I wanted to say. But I wasn't sure I wanted to have that conversation about Magali, and certainly not around the seamstress, a sharp-eyed woman who stabbed her needle through cloth like a dagger and listened with undisguised interest in our talking.

"It doesn't even have to be a dress, Morane, it could be a nice tunic. Or— something. But please come."

"No thank you."

"Please."

"Nah."

"It seems begging will get us nowhere," Caer sighed dramatically behind the door.

"There's just no point," I said.

"Besides frightening the nobles all night," he reminded me, and I squashed away a rather amusing image of sitting in the middle of a crowd of silk-wrapped nobles scared into stiff silence by a Thief in the middle of a ball.

"That gets old before long, and then what am I going to do, dance?"

"You could."

"Yes," said Magali pensively, "you could. Do you know how?"

I did somewhat, but I had no intention of doing it in a ballroom. "I said no and I meant it. I don't want to dance. I don't want to act polite around people I'd rather push off a tower. I don't want to dress up and smile and listen to nonsense. I won't do any of those things just to make people nervous— I can do that perfectly well by myself. Half the castle is convinced I'm a Dark Guardian from hell, if you haven't noticed, and that reputation stands on its own without me prancing around in a ball gown and jewels like a snake with a bow around its neck."

"That's a strange analogy." I noticed he didn't dispute it.

"I didn't mean to try and force you," Magali said, sounding embarrassed. Her voice was also muffled as the seamstress pulled her gown over her head, small hooks catching on orange curls. "Ow! Stop— ow!"

"What's going on in there?" Caer demanded.

"She's being murdered."

"Funny."

"Not really," I heard Vain mutter behind him.

I sighed and leaned against the wall. I was still tired, as though the weight of everything that had happened in the last three weeks had come sinking down over my head overnight, and it was hard to focus on one topic without a million other thoughts demanding my attention.

I needed to do something about Iso, I needed to meet with the rebels, I needed to check on Nemia.

I wanted an easy solution to get Iso kicked out of Solangia. I wanted the revolution to go back to being a small, exciting idea I could hold like a forbidden secret instead of a vague thunderstorm spreading on the horizon. I wanted to know why all I saw of Nemia lately was quick snatches of her in the eating hall or at training, always training, always with dark shadows smeared beneath her eyes like she never slept.