There was no reason for me to stick around to watch Sly's dance with Neyla, nor did I really want to. I went to my father and excused myself for the night before heading back to my room and changing into more comfortable clothes. It wasn't really clear if I should expect Sly to show up or not. Not much time had passed since I had left my room for the party, either, so it was about nine o'clock and I decided the best way to pass the time until I got tired was to sit on the balcony and rest for a bit.
Just when I thought I would get some peace and quiet, bombing started on the other side of the palace grounds. My keen eyes spotted a small green helicopter, the design of which could only have been due to one person, the one it looked like, Bentley. I soon found out what he was trying to destroy, too. My father kept a jeep run by a couple of the guards that acted as ground to air protection for the palace which had missiles of all sorts to shoot down any devices trying to launch an aerial attack. As I watched the events unfolding, it was pretty obvious that whoever was driving the jeep couldn't even do that, as they were being taken down by a small helicopter. There was a slightly larger explosion and the helicopter took off as fast as it could as smoke began to float up from the location of the explosion. My father was definitely going to be twice as paranoid in the morning.
I took a seat and put my feet up, then laid my head back to gaze up at the stars. The sky was slightly cloudy as usual, but with the sun just having set, the twilight was beautiful. It reminded me of the time I would spend in this very palace with my mom as we stargazed and she would teach me about the constellations and the mythology behind them. She even once told me that someday there would be a constellation up there for me. It was hard to believe now. I wondered momentarily what she might think of me if she was still alive. Besides becoming everything she had asked me not to, I now had the feeling that I was defying my father directly, but after what Bentley had said back in Paris, were the Clockwerk parts really something that should be kept around? Besides, the only truly defiant thing I had done so far was to give Sly that bowtie and honestly he was going to find it anyway if he had ransacked my room while I wasn't there, so I didn't think I had betrayed my father yet.
Again, my mind wandered to Arpeggio and the movement of spice. I still didn't understand what his goal was, and seeing him in the ballroom had answered none of my questions, while bringing up a ton more. Why wasn't he concerned about losing the tail feathers to the Cooper gang? More importantly, without Dimitri's operation intact, the spread of spice would slow and interrupt business for the Klaww Gang, and especially since one of the members were caught, I was sure that we would start losing allies soon because they wouldn't want to get caught working with us. Did any of this matter to Arpeggio at all? Was spice distribution even his main goal? And who wanted spice anyway? I had seen the terrible effects it had on my father over years of continuous exposure through his spice operation. Not only had I seen them, I had felt them. He would have fits of rage induced by the spice, and they terrified me. Part of me really did wish that the operation would shut down so that my father would cease to be the monster that the spice could make him.
Taking this all into account, along with my pseudo-relationship with Sly, did this all mean that I wanted the Cooper gang to win this fight? It would get my father away from the spice, and allow me to be the person I wanted to be by freeing me from the Klaww Gang's clutches, but honestly, how did I feel about this? Self consciously I sat up and brushed my hair so that I knew it was covering my back. It was truly the first time in a long time that I got to sit down and think like this, but it wasn't about to last long, as I laid my head back again and looked up to find none other than the mischievous Cooper boy looking down at me from my rooftop.
"Fancy meeting you here" he said with a grin.
"I would never expect me to be on my own balcony" I said sarcastically. "Done dancing and killing ladies already?"
"There was no lady killing" he said as he dropped down off of the roof.
"What are you here for?" I asked, noting that he wasn't in his tuxedo right now.
"I was wondering if you wanted to get out for the night again" he said.
"You're asking me on a date?" I replied, slightly stunned that he would ask at all.
"I guess" he said. "That is, if you're up for helping me get some things for my gang's big heist and I know it's your dad and all…"
Wasn't I just thinking about this? As they say, speak of the devil and he shall appear. It was pretty much now or never in my mind. Defy my father and help the Cooper Gang or turn this down and stay the obedient child he loved so much… and watch him waste away under the influence of the very spice he was so proud of. "What do you need?" I asked, buying myself a little more time to think.
"I was going to start by getting the rubies off of the headdresses of Rajan's prized elephants because Bentley needs them to create a saw that can cut through the welds that are holding the Clockwerk wings to that statue" he explained.
My ears perked up at the notion of sabotaging the statue. I honestly had come to hate that thing in the two nights that I had seen it already. It was like a big reminder that I was going to take over this whole operation someday because it looked so much like me. That, and I just found it creepy that it looked like me. I felt like I was constantly staring myself down… it's a complicated feeling. "What's the plan?" I asked.
"Uhh… well… I was going to find the elephants and figure it out from there" Sly admitted sheepishly.
"No plan… okay" I said. I guess it couldn't hurt to help him out a bit. Besides, it wasn't like I was going to steal the wings for them or anything. On top of that, it seemed a bit unorthodox and impossible. There was no way they would get those wings out of there without a miracle, so I figured it would amuse me to entertain the idea. Not only that, but it was fun to pull pranks around here and my father would probably figure it was me who had done it anyway, may as well make an honest man out of him. "I'll help" I said with a smile. "Do you even know where they're kept?"
"Kind of" Sly replied. "Bentley gave me a marker on my Binocucom."
"It'll be faster if you follow me" I said. "But don't lose me or you'll have to catch up on your own."
"As if you could outrun me" he replied, puffing his chest a bit.
"I wouldn't be making any bets" I said with a smirk. "I kind of live here."
"That doesn't mean anything" he retorted.
"We'll see about that" I replied and I leapt off of my balcony and onto the rooftop below. The street would be quickest, but my father had beefed up security since the helicopter was shot down, so we would have to be careful not to run into any guards. I didn't want to get caught with Sly… and Sly probably didn't want to die.
After we crossed the bridge connecting the guest housing to the main complex, I took my tactics to the rooftops. There would be fewer guards up there, and honestly the monkeys were really stupid and they would be easy to chuck off the roof before they could figure out who I was. With the help of an overhang, I leapt easily onto a bridge over the lower walkway and then with the help of another, I was up on the roof. Sly was keeping up quite well, actually. I didn't really care who won, this was just going to be fun for me anyway because I had no intention of actually helping Sly get the jewels.
Using a lantern suspended between the roof and the balcony for the dance hall, I leapt across to the open area of the balcony but quickly noticed, of all things, a monkey standing guard. I dove behind a chair before he saw me, intent on taking him out myself, but then I heard a "thunk" and a small whimper and I peeked around the chair to see that Sly had taken him out with his cane.
"I figured you don't want your dad knowing" he said.
"Yeah… thanks" I replied as I got back up and looked around. After seeing where I was, I headed for the other end of the balcony, and leapt off of it onto the roof below and then onto the ground. Here was a building just like the rest but with big doors and a set of steps going up to them.
"This it?" asked Sly.
"Yeah, my father keeps them in here" I replied. "How do you plan to get them out?"
"I have no idea" he shrugged.
"Get on the roof" I told him. "It will just be a moment."
He did as I said and I got down on the ground and crawled through a small drainage vent in the side of the stairs. I knew that it led down under the elephants because as unsanitary as it was I still would hide there now and again for various reasons. Usually they were pretty good with noises, but I knew what would set them off. They hated growling, mainly because when my father would growl they knew they were going to get hurt. I figured the quickest way to get them out was by scaring them, and then it wouldn't look like someone just let them out. After taking in a deep breath, I let out a fierce growl, as fierce as they came for me anyway, and then covered my head as I was suddenly in what seemed like an earthquake and I hoped that the wooden floor above me wouldn't give way. They smashed their way out of the building and into the streets. There were only two, but they were some super strong elephants.
As soon as they were out of the building I got out as quickly as I could, finding Sly still on the rooftop looking puzzled as to how he was going to do this. "Have fun" I said with a grin. "And, you're welcome."
"What, you're not helping?" he asked.
"I just did" I said, gesturing to the elephants that were now rampaging about. "Besides, I don't have any fancy tools to get the gems off with and the guards will probably be chasing them. It's best that I don't get caught, right?" I gave him the most innocent look that I could under the circumstances and he groaned.
"Yeah" he said. "Ok, I'll go get them."
What ensued was what I considered to be the second best night of my life. I climbed a nearby minaret and sat up above the fire it held to watch as Sly ran around like a chicken with his head cut off trying to get the gems off of the headdresses of the elephants, who didn't care much for his existence or for him jumping on their saddles. To keep from laughing too loudly I had to cover my mouth because it was just too funny when he had to scramble to catch up with one of them, and it was funnier to watch the guards trying to chase down the scared beasts and instead get run over by them and flattened to the ground. After what was probably a good thirty minutes of spastic running around on the part of everyone involved, Sly seemed to have all of the gems and the guards finally got the situation under control. As they were putting the elephants back in, I sighed and laid back.
"Princess" Sly's voice cut through my newfound silence.
"Don't call me that" I said as I sat up again and looked at him. "Here I was so impressed that you really do know how to entertain."
"Haha" he replied, looking exhausted.
"Sorry" I said, feeling a bit guilty that I had allowed Sly to take on that chaos on his own… he looked terrible now.
"It's fine. I wouldn't want you to get hurt, anyway" he replied.
I tried to be mad that he implied that I was weak, but I couldn't because he was just so damn cute when he was this worn out. "Hey, let's go down to the river for a bit" I suggested.
"Do I have to swim again?" he said fearfully.
"That was not swimming, what you did, and no" I replied with a smile and slid off the top of the minaret and waited for him to join me.
It was practically just a hop and a skip down to the river where I wanted to go, but specifically off of the main wall there was a boulder just within leaping distance that stuck out of the water where the riverbed dipped into a short waterfall. I leapt out onto it and Sly followed with ease. He plopped down on his back immediately after sitting, and I hung my feet over into the waterfall.
"So what other tortures does Bentley have planned for you tonight?" I asked.
"I'll ask when I'm ready" he joked and he hung one of his arms over his face.
Absentmindedly, I began to play with my hair, pulling it over one shoulder to braid it as I recalled all of the fun I just had.
"Maya?" Sly asked, and the tone of his voice made me freeze. "What happened to your back?"
I was so comfortable with Sly and so zoned out that I had completely forgotten the engrained habit of keeping my hair over my back. "Uh" I started, but I didn't know how to continue.
He reached out and gently touched my right shoulder, where the top of the scar ended and traced its path down my back. I kept my hair down at all times to hide this. It was something that I didn't want to think about and that I wished didn't exist, and I didn't want others asking about it either, but I knew that I couldn't get out of this now.
"Who did this to you?" he asked.
It was a long scar, extending from my top right shoulder to my lower left back in one straight sweep. The only thing was it wasn't just one scar; it was four. Four long lines extended themselves across my back keeping an equal distance between each other but not exactly the same length. It was a claw mark. The fur had never grown back where my skin was actually sliced open and it left four very obvious lines to anyone who could see my back.
"Maya?" he asked again, seeming scared by my silence.
"It was my father" I said with a sigh.
"Why?" he asked, placing a hand on my shoulder.
"It was a few years ago" I said. "My father had been at his spice operation for weeks supervising the installation of a new grinding wheel that would increase production by two hundred percent. I usually stayed at a hotel nearby or with Arpeggio but this time he had decided that I was old enough to come along and help with the supervision, only he didn't think I was old enough to actually supervise the spice wheel. He wanted me to oversee the packaging and shipping of a large shipment of spice to one of his buyers because he would be too busy to do it himself, so I did. What happened that day wasn't my fault. It was an accident on everyone's part. Because the spice needed to be moved out of the forest before it could be loaded onto a truck and sent out, we used elephants to move it. One of the workers dropped a bag of spice, which didn't seem like a big deal at that very moment because very little escaped the bag. The big deal was that the spice cloud that came out of that bag blew into the face of the elephant we were working with. None of us knew that such a small amount of spice could enrage an elephant so much. There was no warning, it just went crazy. It broke the ropes we had it tied up with and took off in a blind rage right off the cliff… with three fourths of the spice shipment strapped to a cart still tied to it.
My father, who had spent all his time in the days before this in the factory working directly in what I could call a cloud of spice, came out to see the racket and then saw what had happened. I don't think he would have been so enraged if it wasn't for the spice in his system at the time, but all I could think was that I was going to die. It was like he wasn't even himself anymore. He was just so blindly angry, just like the elephant, and he took it out on me. I was supposed to make sure that shipment made it safe and on time to the buyer, but instead it had been dumped off the cliff on my watch. It started with yelling but it wasn't long before I saw him raise his paw and I knew what was coming. I turned my back to protect myself, but he sliced through my skin like it wasn't even there. The worst part of all of it was knowing that he had done it because of the spice. It took months to heal properly, and even then the scar remained and the fur never came back so I've always hidden it, partially because I know that it hurts my father deeply to see it and partially because I don't want to be reminded of the rage that the spice causes in him. It was terrifying. I didn't even know him at that moment. He hasn't allowed me back to the actual spice operation since that day. I think he's terrified of hurting me again in his spice induced rage."
"How can you defend the spice when you've seen what it does to your father?" Sly asked, and I shrugged.
"I guess I did because it was my papa. I loved him and what he wanted was right… wasn't it?" The question was more directed towards myself than anyone.
"Maya, do you feel like it's right for your father to be in a spice induced rage all of the time?" Sly asked.
"No" I said. "Sly, more than anything I never want to see him like that again, it's why I've never fought him when he told me I would never go back there. After all, what happened that day caused him more pain than it ever caused me."
"Then help us" Sly said.
I turned to him and gave him a confused look. "How will helping you get the wings stop my father's spice operation?" I asked.
"I don't know" he said. "But if you help, I would be willing to help you stop your dad from hurting himself any more."
"By what? Getting him thrown in jail? Oh, that would be fantastic" I said sarcastically.
"I'll think of something" he insisted.
"If you come up with a plan that I actually think will work then I will actually help you, but stealing the wings won't do anything for him except enrage him more. They have nothing to do with the spice operation" I replied.
He looked like he was about to say something, but his Binocucom went off and he pulled it out and looked into it. I didn't listen at all, instead I kicked at the water and tried to think about something other than Sly now knowing my secret. But it was also then that I thought about the wings and that honestly I didn't know what it had been like for Sly to come up against the being who probably rightfully could be called his mortal enemy. Did Clockwerk really terrify Sly that much?
"Maya" Sly said, breaking me out of my zone and I looked back at him. "I have to go, the guys are going in to hack your dad's computer system and they need some backup against the guards."
"Sly…" I started, but he stopped me.
"I don't expect you to come along" he said. "Besides, if the guards saw you they would tell your father. I won't make you risk that."
"Sly…" I tried again but he once again cut me off.
"Look, all I'm asking is that you don't rat us out to your father. Can I trust you to do that?" he said.
"Yeah, on one condition" I said.
"What's that?" he asked.
"The next time we get time, I want to hear your story" I replied. "You've already heard all of my sap storied about my father and when I was young, now I want to learn about you, and especially what Clockwerk was like."
"It's a deal" he nodded and then took me by the chin and kissed me gently. I was rather stunned by this, even if it wasn't the first time, because he always managed to catch me off guard.
"Be careful" I said as he turned to leave.
"Don't worry about me" he said with a smirk and then he leapt off of the boulder and back onto the pathway to the palace ballroom. I didn't know what he was up to, but it was probably better that I didn't know. It was time for me to head back and get some sleep anyway. Who knew what kind of mayhem tomorrow would bring and I wanted to be at least aware enough to not get caught up in it.
I went back into my room through the balcony of the guest house as to arouse the least suspicion for the guards inside who probably never saw me leave. As I turned and latched the doors shut, I heard a grunt which caused me to freeze in place.
"Sneaking out again, I see" my father said. "What were you doing?"
"Okay, you caught me" I replied. "I was with Thomas." It wasn't completely a lie.
"Why do you feel it necessary to lie to me?" he asked.
"Papa, why do you think I'm lying? Is it so wrong for me to go out with a man who could very much be my chosen suitor before being sure that I want him?" I asked in reply.
"It would not be so wrong, if what you were saying was true. I was informed by the guards that you were seen with a man who was not, in fact, this Thomas that we both so approve of. What do you say to that?" he said.
"They must have been seeing things" I chuckled nervously.
"They reported that he was a man in blue with a hat and a cane" my father said. "Do not lie to me Maya!"
"I'm sorry!" I said as I fell to my knees in front of him, something that just came as instinct when he was angry.
"Why would you do this to me?" he asked. "It was reported that the very same man stole the jewels off of my elephants' headdresses. Why would you help him?"
"He caught me alone on my balcony and threatened me" I said. "He told me that if I didn't help him he would kill me."
"And you did not call the guards, you did nothing. You did not fight, and you did not run even though you probably knew this area better than he did. Your reasons are weak. First your failure with the tail feathers then the pranks on the monkeys and the scent of a man in your room, and now this. You give me more reason every passing minute not to trust you out of my sight" he said. "I think it is for your own good that you be confined to your room while not at the ball. I will be posting guards to keep an eye on you and if you leave it will be reported to me, along with all visitors that you get. Tomorrow I will come myself to escort you to the ball and you will remain at my side until this event is over."
I hung my head. It was actually rather expected that my outbursts would eventually cause something like this, but it particularly hurt that my father had just told me that he didn't trust me anymore. Without another word, he stood and left the room, leaving me on my knees and wondering why I got myself into these things. Somewhat depressed, I crawled into my bed and curled into a ball. There was no reason to even try to leave right now, so I wasn't about to bother. Most likely, I would see Sly at the ball tomorrow and I could warn him then not to try to see me because my father was watching. I simply closed my eyes and let sleep take me, hoping that the next day would not bring the mayhem that I so expected it to bring.