The two nobles who’d accosted me look at each other, and then start laughing. “Way to burst your cover, dude.” The young man, probably ‘Master Malin’ himself says, grinning.

“Are you one of Yaluda’s?” The lady asks, suddenly friendly. I glance between them, bemused at their strange reactions, and then suddenly remember how Blix had called them allies of Yaluda.

“No need to answer that.” Master Malin says, patting my shoulder. “Only one of his and Blix’s would dare use my name but not know my face.”

“I don’t know his face from the guard though.” The lady peers at me. “Were you recruited specifically for undercover missions?”

“How did you know–?” I begin, and she misunderstands.

“Even though Prince Yaluda doesn’t really talk to us anymore, we still try to keep an eye out for him. That includes watching who comes and goes in his guard. We’ve been friends for forty years after all.”

“Although the last nine of them he hasn’t been very interactive.” Master Malin says, clearly sour about it. “At least he still trusts us enough to use our name for his spies though.” He adds, suddenly brightening up

I glance back and forth between the two as they continue chattering. “You’ve got it wrong.” I break in, “It was Sir Smedigan who told me to use that excuse, not Yaluda.”

“Sir Smedigan?” Master Malin says, and then bursts out laughing. “SIR Smedigan? My goodness, if he knew you were calling him that–! Lutti did you hear the man? Sir Smedigan!” Master Malin struggles to get his guffaws under control. The lady, Lutti, pats his back, struggling to control her own giggles.

At my confused face, she explains. “He hates his given name, don’t ever let him hear you calling him that. The fact that you paired it with his title? Even worse.”

“Oh.” I say, slightly disappointed. I had thought him telling me to call him by the Prince’s nickname for him meant we were closer. Did I misunderstand?

“So,” The lady says as soon as Master Malin has regained his composure. “Where were you off to in such a hurry?”

“Well, I wanted to get away from the chapel. There wasn’t any real need to run, since I’m disguised like this, but I wanted to get back to Yaluda’s study as soon as possible.”

“Well…” Master Malin winces as he glances up and down my outfit. “There could be a small problem with that. Manservants that work for the royal family have a different uniform from those that work in the general palace. You’d stick out like a sore thumb. Sir Smedigan as you call him–” He chuckles lightly again, interrupting himself, and the lady elbows him to get him back on point. “–probably never even noticed. He’s good at the hands on parts of disguising a person, but not great at details like that.”

“Oh.” My face pales slightly. “How am I meant to get back inside the tower then?” The two glance at each other and nod.

“We could help you.” The lady offers. “We have access to the same disguise kits as Blix, as long as he hasn’t moved them.”

“Or,” Master Malin adds on “We could bring you to where Yaluda is right now. He, the King, and the Generals should be finishing up a strategy meeting right now in the War Room.”

“True.” the lady concedes, turning to look at him. “Yaluda didn’t tell us about this, so he may not appreciate our help.”

“That’s why I suggested delivering him. It might be received better than just hijacking his mission, whatever it is.” The man concurs.

“It certainly gives us less time that we could have spent questioning him.”

“You think Yaluda would think we’d go so far as to question his subordinates just because he cut us out of his shenanigans?”

“Who knows? These past nine years he’s been… Different”

“Are you two married?” I break in, seeing a pause in their conversation. The way they banter, and almost accidentally cut me out, feels like what my parents used to do.

“Oh, no! No!” The man claims “We are not married. My goodness, we completely forgot to introduce ourselves. This is Lady Lutti Tong, professional spinsteress and charmer at the same time. I’m Master Malin, as you may have guessed, but nobody calls me that. My enemies call me Benkint or that Bastard, and my friends call me Beni.”

“We didn’t mean to exclude you from the conversation. Sorry if it felt that way.” Lutti says, smiling at me. “We just need to know, would you rather get re-disguised by us, or meet up with Yaluda?”

“Meet up with Yaluda.” I say firmly. These people are nice, but I need to tell him about the moles in the PPG as soon as possible.

“Then it will be our pleasure to escort you.” Beni says. He smiles at me, and so does Lutti. I smile back.

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They lead me into the antechamber to the Great Hall, but instead of heading forwards into the Hall itself, Luti presses one of the tiles to our right that make up the wall, and the wall itself seems to ripple before a small section slides inwards and allows us to enter. The scribes nearby pay us no attention as if this is an everyday occurrence, but I’m shocked. How many secret places are there in this castle that I’ve never seen?

I turn and stare as the wall slides shut behind us, a soft rumble the only acknowledgement that it's moving at all.

“How?” I ask, turning to look at Beni and Lutti after it’s done.

“Levers mostly.” Beni says, understanding the rest of my question. “Try not to look so shocked in the future, all the real servants know about these pathways. Your expression is a dead giveaway that you don’t belong in here.”

“Possibly literally.” Lutti adds on, snorting and moving forward in the dimly lit passage.

“Don’t be rude Lutti!” Beni admonishes, following her. “Although,” He continues, more seriously. “What she says has some truth to it. If you’re going to be a spy here, you have to get good, and fast. Learn to control your expression or you very well could end up dead.”

“I’ll… keep that in mind.” I say hesitantly as I walk next to them. Do they really not know who I am? Do they just think I’m some random bloke Yaluda has working for him?

“When was the last time you actually talked with Yaluda? Didn’t you say nine years ago?” I ask, trying to figure out how much they do know.

“Yep.” Beni sighs, “Nine long years of silence. He went quiet right after that attempt on his life.”

“His and his sisters.” Lutti cut in. “We think he might blame us for her death. But we have no idea why. We’d been working together for so long, if we were going to rat him out we would have done it when he first got rid of the stupid doccuments. He has to know that.” Her shoulders slump disheartenedly.

“They were close.” Beni says, picking up the story where she left off. “After her death he became… a lot more moody and suspicious. The only person he still seems to trust is Blix.”

Moody? Suspicious? Those adjectives don’t sound like the Yaluda I know at all. I glance down at the floor in front of us, raising my eyebrows. The Yaluda I know is sincere, charming, and clever. I remember the expression he made when he laughed and feel my face heat up. I’m glad it’s dark in here.

“I wish he would still talk to us.” Lutti says, more than a little nostalgic. “He had the best schemes. Everything was so exciting when we were a team. Now it’s just me and Beni, trying to figure out how we can help when nobody important will communicate what exactly we’re supposed to be helping.”

“What do you mean?” I ask. “What have you been doing?”

“Mainly just trying to keep the King’s ire and suspicions away from Yaluda. We manipulate the gossip among the nobles to keep everyone’s attention elsewhere and attempt to alert Blix if we catch wind of anything serious, but he’s as mum as Yaluda’s been.”

“Well… he’s always been the Prince’s hound.” Beni smirks. “And I don’t think he really likes us that much. We’re too chaotic for him.”

Lutti grins. “True that.”

I try to take back control of the topic again before they go on another tangent. “So what have you overheard exactly? Anything recently on the Joar, Letland or Yamat families?”

“Oh, is that who Smedigan asked you to keep track of?” Beni asks, I nod, but he isn’t even looking at me anymore as we turn left. “Hmm… Nothing much that I can think of in particular. At least nothing useful, unless he wants to know about ballroom gossip.”

“Well, there was that one time–” Lutti begins,

“Oh yes then!” Beni cuts in, an excited gleam in his eyes. “We’ve spotted Muttak Letland, a well known cousin of Maddox, the house leader of Letland, meeting privately with High Priest Frokard five times in the past month!”

“He’s also related to the Yamat’s through marriage,” Lutti adds on. “His wife is one of Valdkin Yamat’s– the head of House Yamat– nieces.”

“Oh yeah, I’d completely forgotten about that.” Beni says, and grins. “Nice catch Lutti. What about you–?” He pauses, waiting for a name.

I hesitate. They don’t seem to have realized that I’m an escaped prisoner yet. If I give them my real name, it's almost certain they’ll make the connection, since they’ve obviously been paying close attention to the castle going-ons. If Yaluda doesn’t trust them, I don’t want them to know that he broke Faladel, Briareth, and I out.

“Ahhh… don’t quite trust us that much, eh?” Beni says, still grinning, but his eyes look completely let down.

“Don’t pressure him.” Lutti admonishes him, whacking him gently with her fan. “Put away those betrayed puppy eyes of yours, he could have a family that he needs to provide for. Giving old gossip-mongers like us that info could put them in danger.”

“‘Remember to see things from other perspectives’ Lutti I know, I know.” Beni replies, rubbing the back of his head. “It's so much easier just to manipulate them without empathizing though.”

“That’s why you’re still single.” Lutti claims, taking a sharp right. I follow her, glancing back at Beni as he mutters something I can’t quite catch under his breath.

I stumble into Lutti’s back as she suddenly halts. I nearly fall over, catching myself on the edge of an oil lantern. When I let go, it swings gently, casting strange shadows on the stone walls.

“We’re here.” Lutti announces. Glancing ahead over her shoulder, I realize the tunnel ends in a door with a tiny glimmer of light shining through.

“This is where we’ll leave you then.” Beni adds on. “Right across from this peephole is where Yaluda, his father, and the various ministers exit. They’ll leave in order of prominence, with the King first and Yaluda last.”

“Wait a second,” I break in. “If it’s order of prominence–”

“Shouldn’t Yaluda come second?” Beni interrupts. “Technically, yes, but he hasn’t for years. The king put that change in place way before he tried to assassinate Yaluda–”

“Probably intended to be a punishment and a deterrent.” Lutti cuts in.

“Yes, thank you Lutti.” Beni steals back control of the conversation “But since the relationship between the two has never gotten any better, what was intended as a temporary punishment has become semi-permanent.”

“Basically, all you have to do is wait for all the ministers to leave and Yaluda to come out, and then leave the servant's passage and make contact with him.” Lutti explains. “They should be done in what, five minutes?” She asks Beni.

“More like ten.” Beni says, and then adds. “We can’t pretend to know everything that goes on in that princes’ head. He’s changed a lot since his sister died, become more closed off, doesn’t chat freely with us anymore. But let him know when you see him, we’re always on his side.”

“Will do.” I reply. Although Yaluda doesn’t trust them, they seem quite friendly. I want him to trust them, so that next time we meet, I’ll be able to tell them my name without hesitating.