Realm of the Sun

Chapter 24

After a long hour of deliberation, Roza was so exhausted she almost fell asleep multiple times.

"This is impossible," she groaned. "There are at least thirty members of the covert division we know about, and none of them are active operatives. Who knows how many suspects we actually have?"

Gwen patted her shoulder. "We do know that whoever delivered it does have access to this kind of stuff, so it eliminates half of our list, since they're just the financial bookkeepers. The only troubling bit is that everyone else here is a high-ranking officer," she sighed. "I don't want any of the people I know to turn out as traitors. I know every single person on this list and it would pain me to know they'd go to these lengths of betrayal."

After a bout of silence, Gwen continued. "I can't look at this list any more. Everything we've collected is starting to blur. Roza, darling, do you want to break into the archives with me?"

"Crimes after dawn while slightly intoxicated? Absolutely. How romantic." She immediately grabbed her coat, slinging one arm in and holding the coat up with the other.

"How are you slightly intoxicated? You can't keep alcohol in military offices!" Gwen exclaimed, mildly concerned.

Roza shook her head. "This is my office. I have my ways." she tossed Gwen's spare coat to her. "Let's get going. We have an archive to break into."

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Oddly enough, the archive building looked like an exact duplicate of the library inside the palace, just with an exterior.

There was no kind of special security, aside from the door lock itself and a couple of guards. While they could just talk to the guards and maybe persuade them to leave, it was unlikely they'd leave their posts without orders from higher above, like Constable Tang or any member of the cabinet. Unfortunately for the two of them, neither were members of the cabinet. In Roza's eyes, there really was only one obvious solution.

"Just in- weather says rain without shine." She lifted her fingers, her eyes no longer emitting the silver glow she was used to, but rather a rich emerald green shown through her pupils as they condensed to slits.

"I'm never going to get used to that." Gwen muttered, watching as the once clear skies turned muddled and the air turned damp.

Roza only turned her head slightly, enough for Gwen to see her eyes with the background of moonlight. "It has its benefits. They're apparently very scary to look at. The rebel I was interrogating seemed very afraid."

The rain was now starting to come down harder, but not on the two of them. Gwen focused her vision, allowing her power to come alive. She could see two of the guards shifting over to the side of the archives that were roofed, successfully providing a window of opportunity to sneak through the front door undetected. It would be pointless to try and get through a window; there were none, and all of these guards were senior members of the military. Convincing them that there was a problem with the documents was going to be difficult, since each and every one of the guards probably knew the two of them personally on some level. The easiest and only entrance was going to be the front door. After the guards, they only had to convince the one Cheng or Huang archivist on duty to let them look; keeping the air free from too much humidity was of utmost importance, in order to keep the books dry.

"You brought lockpicks?" Roza whispered.

Gwen nodded, and then they were off. With the cover of the rain and Gwen's naturally quieter footsteps, it was easy to get through the first bit of action. The harder part was actually picking the lock.