"I think we'll have to pause there," Rosie's voice, slightly tinny and very exhausted, came through the speakers of the laptop.
Bilba covered a flinch of guilt as she reached to hit pause on the movie and then stopped her screen from sharing to Rosie's computer. The small box that held her friend's image maximized to fill the screen and Bilba felt a second spike of guilt at how tired the other girl looked. It was almost noon for Bilba, which meant it was around midnight for Rosie, on a night when she had an early class the next morning.
Bilba pushed up from where she'd been leaning against the headboard of her bed and leaned a little closer to the screen. "Sorry, I should have stopped it earlier."
Rosie shrugged. "It's fine. I could have always said something." She scowled. "At this rate, it's going to take us forever to get through one movie."
"At least we know we'll have something to do," Bilba said with a forced laugh.
Rosie frowned in suspicion. "Speaking of something to do, how goes your brilliant plan?"
Bilba's smile faded. Her eyes drifted over her room, several times the size of the near closet she'd been forced to stay in while visiting the palace in Shire, or the tower she'd been forced into on occasion. She'd never had so much space and, given her experience with staring into nothing for hours at a time without going insane, had been perfectly convinced she'd never run out of ways to pass the time.
How very wrong she'd been.
Her eyes tracked across the rumbled bedding, extra pillows thrown on the floor with piles of clothes tossed haphazardly about. A pile of cardboard boxes was stacked precariously in a corner, leftover from unpacking. A gauzy white curtain lay on top, a victim of her attempting, and failing, to practice her dancing on the raised platform that led to her balcony doors.
Through the open door into her prized bathroom she could see towels laid out to dry alongside the clothing she'd washed in the sink, after sneaking out after dark to pilfer soap and toiletries from other rooms in the palace. Luckily, for her, Erebor kept even its empty rooms fully stocked which made finding what she needed simpler. It was about the only thing in her life that was simple at the moment.
She'd never dreamed it would be this way. She'd thought of the worst-case scenario, and thought she'd ended up in the best case scenario.
Instead, she'd ended up in purgatory.
She'd spent the first few days after her arrival almost exclusively on her little beach, brainstorming her plans and running them by Rosie. It wasn't easy. Rosie had a full schedule with work and school and avoiding the media, and then there was the whole-time zone difference, but they made it work as best they could.
Rosie had not been in favor of her plan, but had begrudgingly helped her work out the finer points when she'd realized how committed Bilba was. It had been a week by then, and Bilba had been convinced she'd never been so bored, even in Shire.
How naive she'd been.
Her plan would have worked gloriously in Shire, had worked in the past. She was a master of sneaking out of her room there, moving about the palace unseen and returning with others none the wiser. After her forced wedding, she'd made it to all of her aunts' rooms and Beatrice's rooms without being caught and had then gotten out of the palace itself and all the way to the airport. She'd have escaped entirely if it hadn't been for her grandfather effectively kidnapping Bofur.
She didn't have that concern here. She also didn't plan anything so dramatic as fleeing the country. Bofur and Rosie weren't here but they were still under her grandfather's control, and the alliance was still important.
So she'd be staying here, but it was all right because she had a plan.
Her first step had been to convince the Ereborean royals to leave her alone. That was easy enough as they didn't appear to want anything to do with her. Granted, she'd spent most of her time on her beach and, therefore, could have missed any number of knocks at her door but given the fact that the staff hadn't even bothered to come in, she highly doubted there had been any.
It worked out even better than in Shire where her family would often seek her out for no other reason than to torment her. Here, she didn't have to worry about any sort of connection that might cause them to look for her, for good or ill. She was a stranger, another random person living in the palace. The royal family had full schedules and did not have the time or inclination to personally look in on every person currently staying in the palace.
A plus for her, and one so easily achieved it had given her what turned out to be overly high expectations of the future success of the other phases of her plan.
She'd soon discovered just how very wrong she'd been.
The second part of her plan had involved getting to and from the kitchens without being noticed, and retrieving enough food to stockpile in her room so she didn't have to go every day but not so much as to be missed. This part had been a little harder and, really, that should have been a tipoff but she'd still been riding high on not being in Shire and having phase one go well. She'd noticed it was harder, but hadn't paid it much mind outside the initial thought that whoever ran Erebor's security was a paranoid bastard.
As good as they were, however, it didn't mean they were perfect and, of course, there was no planning against a Princess who'd spent her life learning how to avoid security. Evading guards, and poorly placed cameras, was second nature to her. Of course, the cameras in Erebor's palace were far from poorly placed but whoever had set them had made two critical errors, fixed motion sensors and dimming the lights in the corridors once the castle bedded down. Once she learned the boundaries of the motion sensors and where the darkest shadows lay, it was child's play to avoid them.
The guards had taken longer, so long in fact she'd almost, almost broken down and simply asked for someone to bring her food. She'd stuck it out, however, unwilling to risk the chance that reminding people of her existence would ultimately hurt more than help. She'd also firmly believed that no matter how good the rotations were, and they were scary good, human nature was human nature and that nature trended toward the familiar, toward patterns. Once she'd finally found them in the guard rotations it was relatively easy to find her way to the kitchens and back, and it had only gotten easier as time had passed.
So, so much time.
Her stomach sank and Bilba looked away sharply as tears stung the corner of her eyes.
"Bilba?" Rosie asked gently from the computer. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Bilba's voice wavered as she spoke, giving her away, and she gritted her teeth in annoyance.
Rosie sighed. "You don't have to keep doing this. Just take a chance and go talk to someone. Maybe your husband for instance." The last part she said low and mumbled but Bilba caught it and resisted rolling her eyes.
Rosie had been pushing for her to give the Durins a chance from the start. Bilba knew her friend just wanted her to be happy and not languishing in self-imposed exile, but she couldn't stop the resentment and often outright irritation whenever the other girl brought it up.
For one thing, Rosie had nothing to lose by it. Bilba could end up being all right, or she could end up being thrown in a tower for not keeping herself out of sight and out of mind. It was a fifty/fifty chance and not one she was willing to risk.
At least not anymore. On that first day, after she'd outlined her plan to Rosie, the other girl had made quite the convincing argument for Bilba at least greeting Thorin when she heard him enter the common part of their suite. They were bound to run into one another, living so close and sharing most of the apartment as they did, and Rosie had hoped the two of them might at least be friends.
Bilba had let the other girl talk her into it and had made sure, when evening arrived, she was dressed to impress. Too nervous to go and knock on his bedroom door, she'd sat quietly on her bed with her door closed and waited to hear someone in the common area.
She'd finally heard a door and, taking a deep breath, had gotten to her feet and forced herself to her bedroom door. She'd grasped the doorknob, taken a second to take another deep breath and smooth down her dress against the butterflies racing in her stomach, and had started to turn the knob.
Only to immediately freeze at the sound of voices from the other side.
One male.
And one female.
She could only assume it was Kyra, particularly when she heard the same woman's voice twice more that same week, and the following week and the one after. From what she could tell, the woman wasn't staying the night, in spite of having to enter and leave through Thorin's private chambers, but the fact she was there at all was insulting, and wildly unfair. Bilba had broken things off with Bofur and the two of them had gone a step further by coming to the mutual decision to only communicate via email. It added another layer to the distance between them, in addition to the physical distance. Chatting by video, or even instant message, creating a risk of them discussing things better left unsaid, and forming an emotional bond that wouldn't do either of them any good. Bilba didn't like the thought of Bofur eventually moving on and meeting someone else, but she liked the idea of him wasting his life pining after her even less.
She hadn't told Rosie about what happened, and let the other girl think she was unwilling to try. Telling Rosie would serve no purpose aside from making her angry. Instead, when it became clear that Thorin and Kyra would be hanging out in the common room several times a week, Bilba had dedicated those evenings to trying to work out the last, and most important, part of her plan.
Sneaking out of the palace.
She'd done searches online and found that Erebor's capital city did indeed have a very good university. It ran on a cycle similar to Shire's, meaning it was too late to enroll for the current term, but she'd been confident she could get all her paperwork filed and everything ironed out in time to start the new term in the fall.
To her even greater joy, however, her searches had revealed Erebor's capital was also in possession of a dance studio. It was several times larger than the tiny one she'd belonged too in Hobbiton but there had been a page talking about auditions and she was hopeful they might at least give her a chance. She didn't expect to join and instantly be a star, or even be in a show. She simply loved dancing and would be happy with anything they let her do.
She had no idea how she would be received, given the public's current extreme dislike of her, and had considered trying to hide her identity but none of it would matter at all unless she could find a way to sneak out of the palace and go visit.
She'd assumed she could do it. She'd done it in Shire and she'd found her way around the security inside the Erebor palace so how much harder could it be outside?
Hard, as it turned out.
She'd been trying for a month.
A full month, and she was no closer to finding a way out than she'd been when she started. The security outside the walls of the palace was insane. Guards everywhere she looked, cameras, motion detectors and a wall without a single nearby shrub or tree for cover and not so much as a chip in the brick to provide a hand or foothold.
There was no way to get out without finding a ladder, dragging it through the front window she usually clambered out of, hauling it across the lawn and down to the wall and even then she doubted she'd be able to reach the top to get over, much less get down safely on the other side.
"I'll figure out something," she said noncommittedly to Rosie, who frowned.
"Bilba-"
"It's fine," Bilba said, cutting her off. She managed a more genuine smile this time. "It really is, Rosie. I haven't given up yet. I'm going to figure it out."
Rosie didn't look convinced but she didn't argue when Bilba bid her farewell and signed off. Once the screen was dark, Bilba let the smile fall off her face. Her shoulders slumped and she looked around her room in resignation.
In a way, she'd ended up in a tower after all.
One of her own making.
She got listlessly to her feet and headed out to her balcony. The day was overcast and a brisk wind blew loose hair off her shoulders. She'd dressed warmly this time, jeans and a chunky sweater and sturdy boots so it didn't cut near as much as the first time she'd stepped out. She'd thought, at one point, she could never get tired of this view or being out here.
Turned out any view could get old if it was the only thing you ever saw, and feared it would be the only thing you ever would see.
She pushed open the little gate at the edge of her balcony and headed down the stairs, bypassing the ledge she usually sat on and continuing down to the beach itself. The stairs ended just a foot or two above the sand and she paused to remove her shoes and socks before jumping down to sink her feet in the fine grains.
The rush of the water racing on shore was loud, broken only by the cries of unseen gulls. Slowly, Bilba felt the tension start to drain from her shoulders as she watched the water bubble in and then slowly drain back out again. She'd spent quite a few days searching for shells and splashing in the water and walked forward again now, until the water rushed over her feet. The cold had her gasping and her toes curling into the wet sand.
When the tide was in it covered the tiny beach all the way to the base of the stairs but only to about calf deep and she'd sat several times on that last step and splashed her legs in the water while she read a book. When the tide was out, as it was now, it almost doubled the size of the beach, uncovering sand all the way to the tip of the rock wall, though the waves crashing into it dissuaded her from trying to find out way around it.
She wandered out slowly, until her feet sank in the wet sand and water pooled around her ankles. Far out to sea, she could see the distant outline of a ship sailing merrily along and felt a stab of jealousy at its ability to go where it wanted, when it wanted.
She sighed and shut her eyes, listening to the sound of the waves and tried to imagine she was a mermaid who could simply dive into the water and go wherever she wanted without concern to alliances or idiot princes or any other worries.
Something rubbed against her ankles and she jumped, biting back a shriek as her eyes flew open. A meow, that almost sound apologetic, sounded from her ankles and she looked down to see a small, tortoiseshell cat standing at her feet, tail in the air and head lifted to look up at her.
"Oh, hey, you," Bilba knelt and rubbed the small cat on the head. The small animal purred and then happily allowed Bilba to pick her up where she curled in her arms, tiny motor rumbling. "I was wondering where you were."
The cat had shown up toward the end of her first week there, curled up in a ball on the ledge where the stairs converged. She was clearly well taken care of, and very friendly, and Bilba had utterly no idea where she came from, where she went, or how she got there in the first place. She couldn't be scaling the rock walls, and there was no way down except from Bilba's room, or Thorin's but she wasn't coming from there. Her paws and belly were sometimes damp when Bilba saw her but not to the point where she thought the cat was swimming in. Bilba had tried watching her but she'd made the mistake of petting and feeding the small cat, which meant she had no desire to leave when Bilba was present and, no matter how much she tried to pay attention, Bilba never seemed to see her arrive. She'd stopped trying after a while, simply happy to have a little companion to spend time with.
Turning around, she started to head back toward the dryer part of the beach, only to stop as the cat's ears perked and her head came up.
"What is it?" Bilba asked. She knew cats had crazy good hearing, but couldn't guess what the small animal might be listening too.
Without warning, the cat suddenly shifted and began wiggling to be put down. Bilba obeyed and watched in surprise as the cat bounded back into the wet sand.
She approached the wall...and suddenly wasn't there anymore.
Bilba blinked, and then blinked again thinking perhaps her eyes were deceiving her. The scene stayed the same, however, stone wall and no cat.
Hesitantly, Bilba followed the small pawprints in the wet sand, out to where the rock bulged in one spot before tapering off toward where the stone ended. Water squeezed out from under her toes as she walked and filled the small prints, partially erasing them.
So focused was she on the prints that she very nearly ran into the wall, only pulling up with a gasp at the last second, head jerking up to find stone inches from her face.
Except...there wasn't stone.
It was shadowed, and the rock folded in a strange way, creating an almost optical illusion that, from a distance, she knew looked like solid rock. It was only now as she stood within inches, and felt a cool breeze coming from it, that she realized it wasn't.
A cool breeze...which meant it had to be coming from somewhere.
Along with her little cat friend.
A surge of energy ran through her and her heart was suddenly racing in her chest. Hesitantly, she reached a trembling hand up toward the slit in the rock. As she did she tried to temper her emotions, telling herself firmly that just because a breeze and a cat fit through didn't mean she could.
Her hand vanished into the darkness and she carefully slid a foot forward, then the other and then repeated the process. A moment later she was standing fully inside the space, edges of the rock rising on both sides of her and over her head. She let out a slow breath, trying to calm the way her stomach was twisting inside her, but it didn't help. She strained, attempting to see in the dark but either the tunnel was very long, or it twisted and turned, preventing her from seeing the other side.
She started to take another step, only to freeze as her subconscious demanded her attention by presenting her with very clear images of all sorts of awful, creepy crawly things that might be currently living just inside the darkness.
Chewing on her lower lip, Bilba spun around and practically ran back to her room. Her stomach grumbled, reminding her she hadn't eaten lunch yet, but she ignored it as she searched frantically for her phone. She had no service in Erebor so hadn't bothered much with it, but she now desperately wanted the flashlight app the phone came with.
She dropped to her knees in front of her desk, dragged one of the bottom drawers open, and gave a short shriek of happiness at the sight of the phone tossed in a corner. She turned it on, and let out a sigh of relief to see it was still almost fully charged. Jumping up, she flew back to the cleft in the rock, barely pausing long enough to find a loose rock on the way down.
Creepy crawlies beware.
Once back she turned on the flashlight app and shined it into the darkness, revealing a narrow passage with a thin layer of water on the bottom. She had a vague knowledge of when the tides came in and out but made a mental note to check for sure as she had a feeling she didn't want to be caught inside when a tide was coming in, or trapped on the wrong side waiting for the water to go back down.
Clenching her hand at her side and straightening her back, she strode forward into the passage. The going was very narrow and there were a few areas where she had to turn sideways and suck in her gut, squeezing her way carefully past the rocks. At one point, she experienced a burst of panic at the thought she was going to get stuck and die in that place, only to gasp in relief as she gave a final jerk and slid free. It was possibly the only time in her life she was happy to be so small, as only someone her size, or perhaps a child, would be able to fit.
Finally, she rounded a corner, and almost burst into tears at the sight of fractured bits of sunlight shining through what turned out to be thick ivy covering the far end of the passage. Turning the flashlight off, she carefully knelt, grimacing as water seeped into her jeans. Shoving the phone into her pocket, she leaned forward on her hands and peered through the breaks in the ivy.
She found herself looking at a beach, but not the one she'd seen every day for the past month. The rush of the ocean was every bit as loud but, over it, she heard the faint sound of people laughing and talking. A flash of color drew her attention and she caught sight of several people in brightly colored swimsuits running into the surf laughing and shouting.
Bilba pushed up and sagged on her heels, drinking it in like a person dying of thirst might stare at an oasis filled with water.
She couldn't go out right then. She knew that. She had deliberately avoided the news but knew she'd been plastered on it so much that there was little chance she wouldn't be recognized. The memory of the protestors lining the road as she'd been driven to the palace surfaced and she shuddered at the thought of being among them without the benefit of a car, and guards lining the way to keep them back.
An idea began to percolate in her mind and a slow smile began to cross her face. Then she was scrambling up and making her way back toward her tiny beach and her room.
She couldn't go out yet, but she was certainly going out.
Her brilliant plan was back in action.
The rest of the day went agonizingly slow, and she finally ended up sneaking into the common room to snatch a video game to play. She'd broken down and searched the large space during the first two weeks of her stay, after noticing Thorin was rarely ever there during daylight hours. She'd found a massive library of movies and games that, as far as she could tell, Thorin never touched. She doubted he'd miss one.
Time passed much quicker after she immersed herself in the game and, before she knew it, evening was falling. By that time, she'd braided her hair and pinned it up under a straw hat and added massive glasses Rosie had bought her once as a joke. They had no lenses but Bilba doubted anyone would look close enough to notice. To this she added her oldest set of jeans, shoes and an oversized shirt she may or may not have stolen from Bofur. The size hid her frame, while the age and overall sloppiness of the outfit would never call to mind the refined Princess of Shire image she'd tried to put out before arriving.
People saw what they wanted. She'd almost failed to recognize Rosie once when the other girl had spontaneously decided to cut and dye her hair, and a new pair of glasses on an acquaintance in a class had utterly changed how she looked. In Shire, Bilba had always made sure to wear her hair down, dressed at least nicely if not fancy and carried herself with all the refinement and polish of a Princess. There was none of that in her clothing or attitude now and she was confident no one would ever look at her and think she was the princess, especially after a month of not having seen her.
She heard Thorin and his overly giggly oh-so-perfect girlfriend in the other room and rolled her eyes with a grimace. She gathered her phone, some money Rosie and Bofur had foisted on her before she'd left, and her trusty rock, and headed toward the balcony.
Thorin and Kyra were welcome to each other.
She was going exploring.
And here he'd thought his night would be boring.
Gareth casually closed the lid of his laptop and stood from the wildly uncomfortable chair, stretching his arms over his head and listening to the sound of his back politely popping his vertebrae into place.
"Change your mind?" The dark-haired woman at the next table, who'd developed a poorly concealed crush and now showed up every evening when he did, gave him a nervous smile.
"Writer's block," Gareth replied smoothly. He slid his laptop in his bag and pulled the strap over a shoulder, other hand reaching for his coffee. "Figured perhaps a change of scenery might spark something."
"Want any company?" she asked with a slightly awkward laugh.
"Afraid it wouldn't be much fun. I'm going to be staring at a computer screen the whole time," Gareth replied easily. "Sorry."
He tipped an imaginary hat toward her and then wound his way through the tables filled with guests just starting their evenings. Outside, the streets held a good number of people, a mix of those who wanted a brief break before returning to work the next day, and those who held no job at all and didn't care about how late they were out.
The figure that had drawn his attention as she'd passed outside the window of the coffee shop was about a half block ahead of him, walking slowly and stopping to look in almost every store window.
Fishing a phone out of his pocket, Gareth dialed and held the device to one ear.
"Priority?" a no-nonsense voice asked.
"One."
"Transferring." She didn't ask for any further information. It was expected that if you called in with a priority one then you damn well better have a priority one.
"What?"
Gareth never understood how his boss, given how busy he knew the man was, always had the ability to instantly answer his phone no matter the time of day or night, but he'd long since stopped questioning it. "Someone owes you a paycheck."
A low chuckle came through the phone. "He's never going to live this down."
Gareth snorted. The captain was already eating proverbial crow over the motion sensors debacle. The debate between him and the Spymaster over whether roving motion detectors were necessary inside the palace had been legendary, with the captain finally winning out in favor of stationary ones. He'd insisted that, combined with his guards and the cameras, there was no way to beat his system.
The spymaster had taken great joy in showing him proof of how soundly a simple young woman, who supposedly had no training in evasion, had moved without anyone being the wiser.
Well, almost anyone.
Six guards had lost their jobs over that, and the motion sensors had been quietly replaced, not that anyone would know from looking.
Not that it mattered if "anyone" knew or not.
It only mattered that she not know.
After all, she wasn't supposed to have any training.
On the opposite side of the street he noticed two men, lounging against the wall of a nightclub, suddenly straighten and begin slowly moving along the sidewalks. The way they kept shooting looks at the woman showed an unusual level of interest, but he couldn't tell if there was any connection between them or if the two were simply a pair of thugs.
"Any idea where she's going?" came the voice over the phone, pulling his attention back.
"None." The girl was an enigma. On the one hand, she'd evaded the captain's security, and was clearly well trained in evasion. On the other hand, her disguise was basic and could only hope to fool an untrained eye, and she didn't appear to be watching her surroundings. She'd stopped several times to look in a shop window but he saw no sign that she was using the glass to survey the area. She'd also shown no hint of being aware of his presence or that of the two across the street.
Which meant she was either very good, or very innocent. Shire was considered rural by just about every other kingdom, and he knew she'd come from the most rural part of that kingdom. It stood to reason she might not understand how a city like Erebor's capital worked, or what dangers it posed. Or, it could be she was so well trained she simply didn't fear those dangers. It was impossible to tell from looking at her, or from what little evidence she'd given them to work with so far. The file on her suggested no training in her background, but her mere presence on the street in front of him showed that wasn't true, and that raised the question of what else the file left out?
She turned a corner and he noted she was heading slowly out of the center of town and toward areas where a young woman did not want to travel alone, and certainly not at night. He'd been wandering slowly behind her, pretending to be engrossed in his phone call but if they left the populated areas he'd have to fall back on a far more fun way to keep her in sight without giving himself away.
"You need backup?"
"Yeah." His eyes went back toward the two on the other side of the street. She still showed no signs of seeing them which meant she was either the greatest actress in the world or she wasn't associated with them. "May have to take care of a few things."
"Try to stay out of sight if possible. She gets spooked and we won't find out where she's going."
"Understood." Spotting a couple of familiar faces in the crowd, he hung up and crossed the street, absently throwing his coffee in the trash as he did. Behind him, his colleagues took up his prior position of tailing the princess, giving all the appearance of a giggling young couple totally engrossed in one another.
Gareth headed down a side alley, handing off his satchel to another man already waiting for him. There were agents placed all over the city and when one called for backup it rarely took more than a minute or two to arrive. Some might call it excessive but, then, he doubted those people had ever watched their kingdom fall into the hands of a psychotic bastard.
"You want me to handle it?" the man asked. He nodded at the dress shirt and slacks Gareth usually wore when playing his struggling writer guise. "You aren't dressed for it."
Gareth shrugged, heading toward the wall and jumping easily to grab the lowest rung of the fire escape. "I've got a little sister."
He pulled himself up by his arms until he could set his feet and made it to the rooftop in record time. From there it was a simple matter of pulling ahead of the two men and dropping into an alleyway they would soon be passing by.
As he crossed the rooftops, making sure to stay low and out of sight, he saw the young princess stop on the other side of the street, attention caught by something in the window. Crouching down, Gareth pulled a small set of binoculars from a pocket and held them to his eyes, zooming in on the window.
It was a television set airing the news. There was a shot of the princess on the screen with a headline that was...less than flattering. After staring at it for a few seconds the young woman resumed her trek, her head down now and her arms wrapped around herself.
Gareth's jaw tightened and he felt a surge of sympathy for the young woman. He wasn't the only one who felt the media was going overboard in their vitriol toward the princess and fanning the anger the public felt toward injustice dealt to the prince. There was very little the royal family could do without being accused of censorship so they'd simply refused to comment, and also began shunning interview requests from the more overzealous stations.
Gareth wasn't paid to have an opinion and, to be perfectly honest, truly didn't. He didn't personally know the royal family or this girl but had no doubt a lot of what he heard was heavily slanted one way or another. He did know four of his colleagues had been fired for making disparaging comments about the girl, one of whom he'd reported himself. The captain and the spymaster valued integrity in their people, even over skill. Gareth could still remember the start of his training, as both men had stood at the front of the room.
"Your skills with weapons or hand to hand combat don't impress me," the captain had stated bluntly. "I can teach you how to kill. I can't teach you character, loyalty, or basic decency. I expect all those qualities, and more, in every man and woman in this room. You can't produce, get out now."
Gareth had passed every test they'd thrown at him, and had been proud to accept the transfer to espionage when the captain had informed him that's where he'd be put to best use. He'd joined to serve his king, and so he would, and that included every member of the king's family without judgment.
He started moving again, and soon reached the edge of the building overlooking a narrow alley. He was ahead of the two following the princess now and he quickly leapt over the side and headed down the fire escape. As his feet hit the concrete he wasn't at all surprised to find the spymaster leaning against the wall on the other side of the alley. Somewhere, there was a breach and if that didn't warrant the man's personal attention Gareth didn't know what did.
"All right." His boss straightened and turned toward the opening. "Try to make it silent and quick, and keep them alive if possible. We have no idea what they may be responsible for." He gave a hard grin. "If they resist, however..."
Gareth smiled back and fell in behind his boss and mentor as they waited for the two men to pass the entrance of the alley. Gareth curled his fingers toward his wrist to tug on a slender strip tied there, little more than a bracelet to anyone who noticed, and a dagger dropped from his shirt sleeve. He closed his hand around the hilt as it fell past, and pressed against the wall on one side of the alley while the spymaster took up position across from him.
The princess walked past on the far side of the street, so small a stiff wind could probably knock her over, and Gareth felt a burst of anger at the two bastards who looked at her and only saw a target.
He really hoped they resisted.