Marinette let out another jaw-twisting yawn as she carefully stitched a seam by Moon's light.
Almighty, I could have used more than four hours of sleep, she thought.
Unfortunately, four hours was all that her mother had been able to give her. They had to have someone with Cat Noir at all times, at least until he woke up and they could tell him where he was and what was going on, and her mother needed at least a few hours of sleep before getting up to start the baking.
We may have to bring Alya in again, she thought. Mom and I can't care for Cat Noir and keep up everything else we need to do, not for long. But I've never brought Alya in on anything half this big before. Can I trust her to keep her mouth shut?
I suppose I don't really have a choice,
she thought, stifling another yawn and looking enviously at where Cat Noir lay in her usual bed. She'd be sharing her mother's bed for the immediate future.
At least I can do something productive while I wait, she thought. Moonlight might not be good for judging colors, but when she already knew which fabrics she wanted it was enough for stitch-work.
Kagami danced with the winds. Her sword Ryuko flashed and twirled around her, the Tsirugi blade shining red in the diffused light of just-risen Sun.
"As elusive as the winds…" Kagami whispered. She leapt about, springing away from imaginary attacks and dodging around phantom foes.
"As powerful as the floods…"
Kagami shifted her stance. Now she stood still, barely swaying in order to dodge attacks or parrying them with Ryuko, then retaliating with precisely controlled thrusts.
"As swift as the lightning…"
Again Kagami shifted tactics. Now she pressed forward, attack flashing into attack in a reckless storm of blows that sliced her phantom opponents to ribbons. With a final shout, she stabbed forward, driving Ryuko's blade through the heart of one last shadow opponent. She held that pose for a moment, just breathing.
Her focus was interrupted by a twinge of pain from her breasts, and she grimaced slightly as she straightened and slid Ryuko back into its sheath. Her Miraculous leathers had been carefully fitted, snug but not too tight. Had they somehow shrunk?
Never mind, she thought, the deep dread that she had momentarily escaped through the practice seeping back into her stomach. Not the time for that now.
She made her way back through the trees towards the campsite. As they drew nearer, Kagami felt her stomach twist at the odor of cooking meat. That was odd, she had never been repelled by the odor of roasting meat before. Not if it was competently cooked, at least, and Turtle was a gifted cook.
Turtle was serving breakfast to the other Miraculous, and Kagami let him pile her plate high with bacon, eggs, and biscuits. Her nausea had passed as swiftly as it had come, and she was suddenly aware of how ravenous she felt. After everyone had been served, Kagami finally spoke up.
"We all know what happened yesterday," she said, a lifetime of practice keeping her face emotionless and her voice level. "Cat Noir is missing, and the balance of probability is that King Bourgeois has him. We need to find out where he is and what's going on as soon as possible. Raven, the Liberty should be returning today with the supplies from Lavillant. Make contact with Serpent and pick up the supplies, but also pass the word along to Serpent, ask him to investigate. We can also rendezvous at the Liberty for lunch, to compare notes. She'll be docked in Paree harbor, right?"
"That is the plan," Raven said in a low monotone.
"Excellent," Kagami said, continuing the plan that she had formed during her morning prayers and drills. "Turtle and I will go in directly. Turtle can try and make contact with Horse, of all of our assets he's probably in the best position to have spotted something. Rabbit and I will be on general circulation, see what we can find in the way of local gossip and be on hand in case we need to move quickly. Boar, I'm afraid that leaves you minding the camp."
"Not a problem, Dragon," Boar replied with a quick salute.
None of these were their birth names, of course, but it had been the rule from the very start that the Miraculous addressed each other by their titles rather than their birth names. Who you had been before becoming Miraculous was irrelevant, except when it impacted a mission, and it was even permissible to keep your birth identity a secret. Cat Noir himself had tried to do so, with mixed success.
"Oh, I almost forgot," Rabbit said, "a pigeon arrived from Fox last night, after everyone was asleep. Apparently, Duchess Graham de Vanily has been blackmailing Duke Jagged Stone into lending his support to Franeaux. Apparently the good Duke has a bastard child, one younger than his marriage to boot. Anyway, Fox managed to get ahold of the letter that proved the girl was Duke Jagged Stone's, but she couldn't be certain Graham de Vanily hadn't made copies so she decided just to burn the asset for both sides by telling the entire Franeaux court the story. She expects that the tale will get back to Albion's court within a few weeks."
Kagami considered this development. House Graham de Vanily was one of the great houses of nearby Albion, and they and the several other Albion noble houses they'd bribed, blackmailed, or persuaded to lend their troops to the war effort was one of the main factors that had let Franeaux keep up with the mercenary companies Paree had brought to the war. With the Albion court and Graham de Vanily's alliance in chaos, Franeaux's troops would likely lose momentum for a time. Which was just as well, Franeux had been gaining the upper hand of late. Even Paree's economy could only support so many mercenaries, especially with the trade routes wrecked by the war.
"Good to know," Turtle said, "But right now, let's just focus on getting A- Cat Noir back, Ok?"
"Agreed," Kagami said. "Come on, let's get our civilian clothes on. We all have work to do."
The bell attached to the shop door chimed, indicating that someone had just walked in. Sabine hustled forward from the kitchen to the shop proper, stuffing down her worries and calling up her cheerful tradeswoman's face.
Standing in the front of her shop was a young woman with pale orange hair and blue-green eyes. She was clad in the black-trimmed yellow of the Crown's servants, the same as the two men-at-arms that flanked her. At the sight of the woman, Sabine had to take a moment to double down on her façade, trying her best to keep her fear and irritation hidden. This was Sabrina Ranicomprix, Princess Bourgeois' maidservant and somewhere on the top ten list of people Sabine really did not want to meet right now.
"The king wants five hundred fruit tarts and a honey drizzle cake for the Princess's twentieth birthday party," Sabrina said, not looking up from a checklist. "The tarts should have a mixture of fruits, including strawberries and raspberries but no peaches, and make sure that they're not overripe. The cake should have a subtlety depicting the Princess with Venom and in chain mail, looking regal and fierce. Got that?"
"Yes, ma'am," Sabine said, her mind racing as she grabbed a notepad. Get a royal order wrong and you were lucky to escape with your hide intact, let alone your business. "Five hundred fruit tarts, including strawberries and raspberries but not peaches, and a honey drizzle cake with a subtlety showing Princess Chloe, armored and with her sword." She finished the note and set the pad down.
"Good," Sabrina said. "Here's twenty-five gold for expenses," she added, offering Sabine a small bag. "I see you've done palace deliveries before, so you know where and how to deliver. Do remember to do an itemized list of expenses, the faster the clerks can check your figures the faster you'll get the rest of your payment."
Sabrina turned to go, then stopped. "And I'll have half a dozen of those cheese-and-sausage rolls," she added, fishing in her pocket.
"Thank you," Sabine said with a slightly distracted smile, her mind racing as she accepted the payment and turned over the pastry.
Ok… fresh fruit's expensive, but twenty-five crowns plus what we've got in the cashbox should be plenty, and the palace clerks are generally good about paying if you give good service so I probably don't have to worry about the second half of the payment. But five hundred tarts… just baking the shells will take the better part of a couple of days, and that's really the only part of this I can let sit even for a couple of days. The cake and the actual fruit cutting and filling will have to be done at the last minute… Marinette's right, we'll definitely need to bring Alya Cesaire in to free up Marinette to help with the baking. The Princess's birthday is in nine days…
Almighty, I miss my Tom. Please bring him back safely…
The sparring room rang with the chime of metal on metal as Sabrina slipped in through the door. The Princess was out on the floor, Venom a blur of gold in her hand as she pressed back a terrified-looking guardsman.
Sabrina idly wondered what the idiot had done that had gotten him nominated as the Princess's sparring partner. It was one of those duties that nobody would ever take by choice. Princess Chloe was actually quite good with a sword, good enough that even a trained soldier would have to go all-out to match her, and that always brought the risk of hurting her and getting both Princess and King mad at her. But you couldn't simply take a dive either, or at least not too obviously, because she was furious when she thought her partners were going easy on her. And on top of that…
The guard let out a yelp as the tip of Venom pierced the boiled leather of his breastplate.
"Halt!" a voice bellowed from the far side of the ring, and Sir Kim strode out into the circle.
"I think the bout goes to you, Your Highness," Kim said, shooting a quick smile in the Princess's direction. The Princess dimpled at him in return. "Now come on," he said to the guard, "let's get that breastplate off and see if that needs bandaging."
Sabrina grabbed a towel from the nearby stack and scampered out into the ring, while the guard peeled off his breastplate. This sort of incident was unfortunately quite common, as the Princess always trained with a live blade. Sabrina supposed you had to, wielding a Tsirugi blade. Venom was not merely one of the finely crafted deathsteel blades that the Tsirugi smiths normally produced but one of the named blades, the peerless masterpieces that had made House Tsirugi a legend. And a Tsirugi named-blade was always, by some technique nobody outside of House Tsirugi understood in the slightest, perfectly shaped and balanced for its rightful wielder. Venom fit Princess Chloe like an extension of her very body, answering her will as readily as her own arm did, and to fit a training guard to the blade would ruin that perfect balance.
"Here you go, Your Highness," Sabrina said, stuffing the bag with the rest of the rolls under her arm and offering the Princess a handkerchief. The Princess took it with a quick nod and wiped the blood from the tip of Venom's yellow blade before sliding the sword back into its sheath.
"Here's a towel for you," Sabrina said, proffering the towel to Princess Chloe, who took it, "and I got you some sausage rolls. They're good."
Chloe draped the towel around her neck with one hand and grabbed the bag from Sabrina with the other. She pulled a roll out of the bag and took a bite.
"Not bad," she said with a smile. "I assume these are from whoever you got to handle my birthday pastries?"
"Yes indeed, Your Highness," Sabrina said, pulling one of the rolls out of her pocket. "You're very smart," she added before taking a bite of the roll.
Having reached a stopping point on her dress, Marinette had decided to go through Cat Noir's things, to see if there was anything important she'd missed in the previous night's scramble. Some way to contact the other Miraculous, for example.
The pockets of his leather suit hadn't yielded up anything particularly useful: a few coins, flint and steel, some jerky and a wheel of soft cheese, basic things you'd need to make camp in the forest long-term. He'd worn two rings: one was a simple band of silver that she'd left on his hand, but the other was made of black-enameled metal, with tiny chips of emerald forming a cats-paw design.
Finally, she came to his sword. She suppressed a slight shudder as she inched the blade a bit out of its sheath. The blade was black, darker than even cast iron, and oddly glossy. She brushed the glasslike surface of the flat with a finger, then noticed something almost hidden under the sheath and pulled the sword a little further out.
A complex symbol she didn't recognize was set into the blade, written in what looked like bright green enamel.
I'll have to show this to Mom, Marinette thought. This looks like Kazanchi, maybe Mom can translate it. I wonder if there's more?
She pulled the blade further out to reveal more writing, this time in Prench.
"Plagg" she thought, Is that the sword's name? Wonder if it's famous? Luka would know, but I'll have to be careful how I ask.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a groaning sound from her bed. She quickly shoved the sword back into its sheath and rushed over to Cat Noir's side.
His eyes blinked open, and he stared up at her.
"Here," Marinette said, offering him a glass. "Have some water." Need to get him hydrated before anything else. Food can come later.
Cat Noir carefully sipped the water. "Thanks," he said after finishing it. "Who are you?"
"My name's Marinette," Marinette said. "I'm… the girl you rescued in the forest," she added, feeling herself blush.
"Ah," Cat said, nodding his head slightly. "Uh…" he added, looking embarrassed, "I don't suppose… you know who I am?"