The Royal Thief

Chapter Fifty-three: Gargoyles

I was just looking at the plot plan and OH MY GOD THERE'S SO FEW BULLET POINTS LEFT.

I know most of them will require more than one chapter each so it's not that close but I just... yeah. I mean, I'm finally going to finish a book! There's really nothing I could type that would accurately describe the squealing going on in my head right now, so I'll leave it at that.

The real point of this authors note was to assure people that there will be a sequel, and third book unless something goes drastically wrong. Or everyone goes "Why would you make a sequel? Everything got tied up so neatly in this one!" which... is not gonna happen. So hopefully a sequel is good news haha

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I woke up grumpy, which was all the rebels's fault-- one rather runty rebel in particular. The moment I walked in the door to the plotting room, as I'd come to call it in my head, Kemp burst into an obviously rehearsed monologue about how he never saw me anymore, which I took to mean that I wasn't giving him enough attention. He hadn't been at the last few (rather boring) meetings, and I hadn't thought it necessary to search him out in the castle. Obviously a mistake. Even Nali gave me a disapproving look. 

Once he got over the indignity of having been forgotten for several days, he commenced trailing me everywhere and insisted on staying until I left, refusing to walk back to the castle himself. I didn't mind that-- why Aiden was okay with a ten-year-old walking through the lower city alone was beyond me-- but I minded his incessant chatter. I was trying to figure out why we had been thrown out of the meeting earlier than usual, and I needed quiet to sort out clues. Well, I did know why we'd been thrown out. Dell announced she had an informant to meet with, and shooed us all, including an exasperated Aiden, out the door. But I really wished I knew what they would be discussing. 

But the real reason Kemp's chatter grated on me, I think, was because of my decision not to tell him what I'd figured out weeks ago. All my reasons for not saying I was his sister made sense, but would they have made sense if he'd heard them? What a nonsensical question. Besides, as though Kemp could have answered a question like that without sentimentality. He was ten.

". . . and then he makes me stack all the jars up again, even though I wasn't the one who knocked them down!" He glanced up to make sure I was listening. "Every single one of them!"

"Every single one," I repeated, sighing.

"Something wrong?" He tilted his head, dirty hair flopping in his eyes.

"No," I said, but I woke up the next morning still wondering if I should have said something else.

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The sky outside my window was a grey growing slowly lighter as a wash of pale pink rose up in the east. Barely sunrise, and I was restless. I paced around my room, picked up a book Nemia had lent me and put it down again, tried to sharpen my weapons before finding they were all in perfect condition from all the free time I'd had recently. Lord, how long had it been since my usual practice schedule was ruined by my exile? A few nights at the match house every week wasn't enough to use up my excess energy. Maybe it was time to broach the subject with Tobias again, now that I was having regular lessons-- since I now had to spend a few hours each day in the princess's rooms, I took part in some of her mathematics, language and strategy lessons as well as history. 

But wait-- Abram had said not to tell Tobias about those lessons with Magali. Did the Sage even know if I was having any lessons? That made no sense. If he didn't know about the lessons I was having, why hadn't he assigned other tutors to me? I had to clear that up with Abram, I thought. There was a flaw in his plan.