Responses to Reviews:

yoitsyourstruly: I loved your review! Hehe please do, I agree that Mortmain is a vile creature. ;) Hopefully the next chapter will be from Jem's POV. Yay! I'm really glad I'm keeping it mysterious and unpredictable, and I liked the comparison to a labyrinth. Hopefully it stays that way for a while! :)

Luna: Thank you! You're awesome too. :)

AnnaLuck0201: Aww, thank you so much. Being compared to Cassie in any kind of way is a great honour.

gabreader: Thank you, my exams did go well. :) And Tessa and Jem will be okay… hopefully. ;)

Mia: Sorry, but it may not be for a little while. :( Just focusing on the plot for a bit first. But hopefully soon!

Moonlight and Ashes: Your review really brightened my day, so thank you! I'm so glad I've kept to the medieval setting, because I agree that it's annoying when someone doesn't stick to the time period, and I definitely want to stay true to it. Hehe sorry about Chapter 18… but hope you enjoy the rest!

Spying, Cecily decided, wasn't nearly as fun as she thought it would be. She'd had grand dreams of hiding in corridors, dressing up in disguises and swooping in to save the day.

In reality, it was hard, boring work.

Of course, Will had no idea of what she'd been planning before she'd left. It would have been disastrous if he'd found out, as she knew he would have stopped her. He'd lock her in her room, if he'd had to, or use his 'gift.' Gabriel wouldn't have been happy either, so she simply didn't tell either of them.

It wasn't good, she knew, but she was sick of waiting until she was older, and not getting to help out as much as the other Clave members. She was sick of being sheltered and missing out all the time. Sometimes you had to do something drastic to break out of the mould you'd been put in.

Charlotte had been looking for volunteers to be spies in the castle to gather some more information, and Cecily had been one of the first to apply. Will had wanted to, of course, but Charlotte had refused, since his appearance was already too well known. There were still wanted posters up, after all.

She'd gone to a variety of meetings with Charlotte, and had finally managed to prove her point. Charlotte had been worried that Cecily would be too young and impulsive to be able to carry out the task. However, she'd eventually managed to convince her. She had no idea who the other spies in the castle were, since it was all kept a secret, even from each other.

Word around the towns was that the castle kitchen needed some new young kitchen hands. It hadn't been hard for Cecily to get the job, especially when the Clave had created some papers recognising her previous employment in a manor kitchen. Besides, she could easily pretend to be a silly, ignorant girl. The trip to get there had been long, but she'd been bright-eyed, and filled with excitement at the prospect of finally being able to help out the Clave.

The problem with her job, she'd soon found, was that she spent every day slaving away in the kitchen, not even getting time to explore the castle, let alone see the daylight. Then at night, she only had time to roll onto her bed, before falling asleep, her feet aching, and her hands sore from the careless scratch of a knife, or a brush with the flames.

Looking up from her task, she glanced around the bustling kitchen. There was two cooks on duty – one was the head cook for the night - and around a dozen kitchen hands, all working to make dishes to a royal standard. It was always so noisy, and hot, and the myriad of smells followed her, even in her dreams.

When a cook yelled at her to get back to her work, she hid a scowl, concentrating back on her task of pounding spices with a mortar and pestle into a fine powder, doing it a little more vigorously than necessary. What the spices were exactly, she wasn't sure, and she didn't care. At least it was better than the repetitive task she had to do the other day - turning the roasting spit. She'd literally had to stand there all day and turn the abominable stick, to make sure the meat didn't get burnt. She didn't think she'd ever been that bored in her whole life.

A sigh escaped, and she tried to ignore her aching back. Couldn't she have gotten a better job? She would have preferred anything else – a maid, or a seamstress or something else.

Hearing some girls talking loudly near her, she listened closely, although she didn't turn to look at them. One thing that the kitchen was good for, was gossip. She learned all kinds of things about the castle there.

"Did you hear about the Queen?" One of the girls asked, and Cecily saw the other girl nodding, out of the corner of her eye.

"That she's emerged and has taken a few trips out of her room? That's old news now," the second girl giggled. "Isn't it great? Everyone was so worried about her welfare."

Rolling her eyes, Cecily eventually tuned them out when they agreed and moved on to discussing how absolutely gorgeous some of the serving boys were. The information about the Queen though, that was interesting. She filed it away for future use in her mind, deciding to ask someone a few more questions when she had a chance. Everyone in the kitchen was so nosy, that she could just pass it off as an overactive curiosity.

Looking down to inspect whether the spices were a fine powder consistency yet, she pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, As boring as the job was, she knew she had to keep going, for the Clave's sake. If she worked her way up to a higher position, she might even get the opportunity to serve dishes to the King one day.

Hiding a grin at the thought behind her hand, she picked up the mortar and pestle, and added the spices to the pot hanging over the fire. Royals, it seemed, got to eat the best food. Just for dinner that night, there was an array of savoury roasted meats, fowl, and fish with sumptuous sauces, tasty stews, rich pastries, and fancifully decorated sweets of sugarplate and almond paste. Her mouth watered, just from the smell alone. She couldn't even imagine what it would taste like, if it smelled so good.

Finally, a cook told her she could go and get some sleep, since the dishes were ready. Breathing a sigh of relief, she took off her apron, hanging it up, before walking out the door. She started back towards the common rooms where she slept with the other kitchen workers, ready for another deep sleep, exhaustion slowing her steps. Hearing voices ahead as she turned down a hallway, she glanced around for a place to hide, wanting to listen in to their conversation. Unfortunately, there was nowhere she could go, so she kept to the left hand side of the hallway, to allow them to pass by.

She tried to keep her eyes averted, as her station dictated, but she quickly glanced up as they walked closer, wanting to see who they were. Looking straight into Jem's eyes, she drew in a quick breath. Jem was here at the castle! She felt her excitement grow at the fact, as now that they knew he was there, they would be able to rescue him, when they took the castle. Careful not to let her excitement show too much, her eyes darted to his companion, who was walking close beside him. The girl was obviously a noble, judging from her clothes, and her blonde hair shone in the firelight.

Jem stared at Cecily, his mouth agape in shock, the sentence he had been in the middle of suddenly dying on his lips. Realising he was being too obvious, he coughed awkwardly and turned back to the girl, looking sheepish. "What was I saying again, Clara?"

The girl – Clara - narrowed her eyes slightly, glancing between him and Cecily. She could feel her palms grow sweaty as she scrutinised her. Please, don't let her work it out, she thought, holding her breath.

Laughing lightly, Clara rested her hand on his shoulder. "Oh, don't worry Jem, I can see you're distracted this evening. You were talking about…" Although Cecily listened as hard as she could, Clara's voice grew fainter and fainter as they continued down the hall and around the corner. She stopped to watch them before they disappeared, although Jem didn't look back, likely not wanting to get her into trouble. It was a very close call, after all. Closer than she'd like to admit.

Her curiosity piqued, Cecily pondered who Clara was. It seemed Jem had a bit of freedom to walk around, although the girl was likely keeping an eye on him. Slowly continuing on to her room, she decided she needed to contact the Clave representative residing just outside the castle walls as soon as possible.

She had some very exciting news, indeed.

A/N: Yay, twenty chapters! I'm so happy I've made it this far, and I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone who's read up to here and has stuck with me. :)

~ SilverJem5