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This prompt was fun to write, but I botched the ending. After looking it over for a while and not coming up with anything better, I decided to leave it be.

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#94 – Pillow

Mark smirked as he felt a hand ghost inside his cloak. "Why, Matthew, I'm flattered by the attention, but I'm afraid I cannot return your love, as my heart belongs to another."

"Ay me!" Matthew responded, playing along. "For my affections are doomed to remain unrequited, and I shall wither away and die without such nourishment as love!" He winked, and began to saunter off.

"By the way," Mark called, "The book you have isn't the one I was writing in." The thief froze and turned around after a moment. "How did you know?" he finally asked, flipping through the blank pages.

"Besides Wil and Florina's complaints that personal items have gone missing, you mean?" Mark smiled. "You did a remarkable job in disguising your interest in my journal. Everyone else I've met has looked on it with unabashed interest."

Matthew laughed. "Outdone by my own cleverness, then?" He tossed the book back. "I'm a thief," he said in explanation. "It's natural that I'm a bit of a kleptomaniac."

"And you're a spy, so it's natural that you want to find out my secrets, and from them, Lyn's, to send to your employer." Mark bit the inside of his cheek, as Matthew froze. Now was the moment of truth.

"You know, Lord Tactician," Matthew commented in a cheery voice, "it's a pity that you chose to sleep so far away from the others tonight. After all, if you hadn't, maybe that bandit that found his way past the guard on duty wouldn't have come after you in particular." Mark's sharp eyes noted that while Matthew's mouth was smiling, his eyes weren't, and his hand was slowly making its way towards his belt.

"And it's such a pity that I've slipped a note containing words to that effect to each member of our group, ones that they don't even know about," Mark said cheerily. "And so sad that instead of saying 'bandit', it says something more along the line of 'spy'. Perhaps you could get them all before the end of the night…perhaps not. After all, I might have made copies."

Matthew sighed. "Five years, and never caught once," he commented, taking a seat opposite of Mark's. "I must be getting sloppy in my old age."

"It was simply your bad luck that Serra was with our group," Mark commented. "A bit of flattery, a bit of asking about a sandy-haired man in a red cloak that she had met, and she told me all about the Ostian spy who was determined to hide his love for her." As Matthew grimaced, Mark shrugged. "Personally, I don't have a problem with you being here," he said.

Matthew looked up in shock. "What do you mean?" he demanded. "I can understand keeping a spy close by and feeding him bad information, but telling him you know about his activities and keeping him there anyways? Are you mad?"

Mark shrugged. "Probably," he said. "But, here's the thing. Sacae has no need of spies. Bern wouldn't bother to send one all this way for anything less than high nobility – something that Caelin is not." Mark was banking on the fact that those facts were correct – he had guessed it, but having no memory, he had no way to verify it. "That means that you're from Lycia. Anyone coming from Lundgren would be an assassin, not a spy, and would have taken the opportunity to stab me instead of finding my journal."

Mark took a breath. Matthew seemed to be listening so far, so it didn't seem as if there was as much danger of the man deciding to stab him all of a sudden. "Serra said you were an Ostian spy, which would imply you were from Ostia. Since none of those places would have sent a spy, that would mean that you hadn't sold your services to someone else. As a spy, you're probably sending information back to Ostia about Lyn. Given that she is too honest to lie to anyone, even when she assumes command of Caelin, you're not telling anyone anything they won't find out sooner or later. In fact, your information is probably being used to keep foreign reinforcements from entering the fray." He smiled. "In short, all your actions are beneficial to Lady Lyn. Why would I want to stop that?"

If you've figured all this out, why remain silent?

Because your actions were beneficial to Princess –. I determined that even if left to your own devices, you would not harm the princess.

"Clever," Matthew finally commented. He stood. "I think it's about time for me to retire, don't you?" he asked, once more resuming his cheery tone. "I'll see you in the morning, Mark!"

"Just keep your hands to yourself when it comes to me, and you'll be all right," Mark commented, lying back down.

"Oh, you'll be singing a different tune when I find out your secret," Matthew said, walking away slowly.

"Secret?" Mark asked, closing his eyes. "What secret is that?"

"Why, everyone has a secret or two he wants to bury somewhere deep. Even you…Mark." Mark froze at the words, sudden déjà-vu sweeping over him, included with a deep-seated sense of paranoia. Slowly, he turned to ensure Matthew had left. Once he had reassured himself, he pulled out the journal from the pillow in which it had been all along, and opened it.

Important secret I do not want anyone to find out about… he began to write.