Interlude [h.s]

nineteen

Alouette finds out that Harry is not in the palace.

The rooms and corridors are eerily quiet on this morning, so different from the loud activity that usually pervades the building. People quietly speak to each other in their offices, minding their own business and lounging around in the common areas with a cup of coffee. The tension and strive to always do more and more that seems to be the very essence of the palace is nowhere to be found, and neither is Harry's presence.

Alouette had never noticed it until now, but the president's existence usually looms like a dark ghost on everything and everyone, even though he spends most of his time in his office or studio. Even though they can't see him, they know he's there. They can feel him being there. Now that he's gone, it's like a weight has been lifted off of everyone's shoulders. The very air she's breathing seems different.

She doesn't know where he is. She doesn't know when he left. She tries to ask around, but she gets no reply. All she's told is that he left early in the morning and will be back by night. She's tempted to ask Nathan about it but decides not to, not wanting to raise any suspicions.

Alouette goes over last night's events over and over again in her mind, checking for any clue that can tell her more about his sudden disappearance, but finds none. All she knows is that he was with her until half past four in the morning, and then they parted ways. He didn't seem to be in any hurry. Did he sleep at all, or did he spend the rest of his night awake, getting ready to leave?

She hates not knowing. She also hates the way he managed to get past her defences once again, so effortlessly and naturally, as if they never were a match to him. If they are indeed playing a game, he's undoubtedly winning it. Alouette shouldn't be as surprised as she is, after all he has told her that he never loses.

He knows how to make people like him, and he knows how to make people hate him. She wonders if any of the emotions she's felt towards him since the first day is real, or if they're all the result of some very clever manipulation on his part. He's smart and skilled, and worst of all, he knows what he's doing. She wouldn't put it past him.

But he isn't here now, so whatever happened last night doesn't actually matter. Oddly enough, she feels lonely. At the same, though, she's glad she hasn't made any friendships, because it allows her to go around the palace mostly unseen.

The rest of the morning goes by quite plainly. She does everything Evie tells her to without ever complaining, because the secretary promised she won't tell Harry about her waking up so late. It isn't that she actually thinks he would care, but she isn't particularly interested in discovering whether she's right or not.

It's in the afternoon that things start getting more interesting. Evie lets her go for the rest of the day, stating that there isn't much to do when Harry's out of the palace, and all of a sudden Alouette finds herself completely free to do whatever she pleases.

It takes her only a matter of seconds to come to the conclusion that, considering Harry isn't there today, she should take it as her opportunity to explore some more.

Unfortunately she didn't get to talk to Nathan last night, but she doesn't need to to know what she has to do now. Her first little mission hasn't gone as planned, she hasn't discovered much if not the name of one of the people Harry sleeps with, which certainly isn't going to help her when the time comes. She should've expected it, though. Harry doesn't trust anyone, so she's unlikely to believe he'd leave any kind of information about himself in the room of someone he isn't particularly close to. She has to make better plans, and she just might have the perfect one.

It's clear to her that, if she wants to find out anything about him, she has to look in places that hold meaning to him. Like his bedroom, his office, his studio.