Gabriel had a headache as he made his way towards the city. He had just finished putting Alice to bed and cancelled tonights training with Lawrence. He didn’t have a choice but to call off the training, today wasn’t Thursday so it wasn’t his one day off. But he had to get to the city today because of the bombshell Alice decided to drop on him just a while ago.
He’d have to join her to the Spirit Awakening ceremony and take it himself while there? Alice’s awakening ceremony was the perfect opportunity, and perhaps even the last one, for Leonardo to get out and meet up with his collaborators before he was dragged in front of the emperor. He wouldn’t miss that chance, and Gabriel had intended to take advantage of it.
But now… Now the window of time he had to act was reduced drastically. Gabriel knew what would go down when Leonardo met with his collaborators, if he allowed it to go through then they would be able to shift most of the blame onto a scapegoat. At that time, dealing with Leonardo would become a lot more annoying.
He quickly reached the tree where he made the Night Pack leave the things he requested, fishing out two oval pills and a single rolled up sheet of paper. He stuffed the drugs into his pocket and gave the rolled up report a quick read as he hurried back to the estate.
The report was about the orphanage where he first woke up in this body, it was just too shady for him to leave it alone. But seeing that it was just one page in total, he couldn’t get his hopes up. If the Night Pack failed to produce a larger report then it generally meant one of three things, the backer was too great, the price paid was too low, or the information was just too hidden. And sadly, in this case, it seemed to belong to the first category.
Owned by the Crown, investigation cancelled. Renumeration will be kept to pay for future requests.
The crown. The unmarked orphanage was owned by the imperial family itself. That made it… troublesome to deal with. It would make sense if the imperial family ran an orphanage to look for talented children for the future, but if that was the case then it wouldn’t be so hidden away. They were planning something else, but it never came up in the story so he had no clue what.
"Tch."
He folded the paper with a slightly annoyed expression, stuffing it into his coat pocket. What a hassle, now he would have to drag out dealing with the orphanage for an unknown length of time. Rushing the thing with Leonardo, postponing the orphanage, things really weren’t going his way today.
He took a few deep breaths to restore his mind to its usual condition, quickly making his way back to the estate while he contacted the Night Pack through his earring.
"Change of plans. You can start selling the information straight away. Send an express copy of it to the Pellak Company in Kashmira city. With the copy you can also send a note that Leonardo De Vritara will be moving through Brightbloom forest tomorrow, probably around the afternoon. He’ll move past Rockmoss canyon, it should be the perfect place. Tell them that the message comes from the One-Eyed Golden Leopard."
His expression contorted a little as he talked. This… wasn’t the way he wanted to go about it. It was definitely the fastest way, it would get all the actors to the place they needed to be. But it cast too much focus on him. Giving the Night Pack all that information that should be hard to get for an outsider, giving the Pellak company that nickname, it was all too suspicious. And now that he had used it, it would never work again in the future.
Pellak company was located in Kashmira city, which was the capital of the western duchy, but the truth was that they belonged to the northern duchy. They were a core piece of their information network, sending the information to them guaranteed that the northern duchy would get it and start moving to take down Leonardo. And because of the nickname he gave them, the secret codename of their duchy’s Young Master, they would move immediately. But afterwards it would become apparent that the one who gave the order wasn’t their young master. They’d investigate, and it would make the Night Pack question him.
It was uncertain. It was rushed. It was risky. It was not a way that Gabriel liked to work. If his position was even a bit more high-key then he would have to seriously ponder if it was worth it, but since he was currently someone inconsequential and worthless he decided to take the risk. Few people would think that a young slave that was recently brought in could know and provide all that information after all. At least, that was his hope.
He received an affirmative reply from the Night Pack a bit before he returned to the estate, judging by their tone they would probably spring into action right away. It was good information, and the Pellak company was a good customer, a lot of money could be earned here.
Gabriel didn’t return directly to his room, first choosing to make his way to the stables. The horses were already sleeping, each carriage neatly parked aside so that they would be ready for tomorrow. The duke really hadn’t given Alice a lot of time to prepare, and as such Gabriel had equally little time to prepare.
He skulked along the carriages, moving past the luxurious ones marked with the family insignia and carefully inspecting the unmarked ones that could pass for normal carriages. Eventually, he found the specific one that was generally reserved for servants when they went out on business. Incidentally, this was also the one that Leonardo used when he had to sneak out for shady business. The others would just think that a servant went out on business so it was a good cover for him.
"Karas Taki. Karas Tava Ka."
He crouched down and traced his fingers along the underside of the carriage, there was a small plank suspended from the bottom to hold your luggage. A bit of the darkness moved as his fingers traced the air, his magic activating the spells as the darkness marked that particular spot.
The first spell was relatively simple, it had the darkness leave a Taki, a Mark in that particular spot. On its own, it did nothing. Then the second spell came in, Darkness Notify Me. With this, once this mark was disturbed, he would be notified. That would be his que to make his move.
"Now… Now we can just wait."
He stood up and muttered to himself as he left the stables, tomorrow would be the moment of truth. If Leonardo chose to not move, if he had to ride with someone else, if Leonardo took a different carriage, there were plenty of ways for his plans to go down the drain. That was the main reason he disliked working like this, too many ways for things to go wrong and not enough ways for him to make back-up plans.
By the time he got back to his room, it had already become rather late so he simply washed his face and went to bed to prepare for the day that was to come. Luckily, when the time to leave came, the apologetic expression on Alice’s face gave him a bit of good news.
"I’m sorry, Gabriel. I wanted us to ride in the same carriage so that you didn’t end up alone, but the duke and Marion insisted that I ride with them. But I snuck a few books into your carriage so you won’t have to sit there and squeeze up against the window just to look out while you pass the time."
The duke and Marion would obviously ride the finest carriage the estate had, and since Alice was supposed to be the ‘main character’ of today’s ceremony she would have to ride with them. Gabriel on the other hand was only tacked on to appease Alice so he would have to ride the uncomfortable and small carriage that Alice had to use when she first came to the orphanage.
Normally they would just use a gate to reach the capital, but they were trying to make this ceremony a big deal so the plan was to ride the carriage the entire way. This way, as many people as possible would see them as the news, which they were intentionally scattering as much as possible, spread to the citizens.
"Don’t worry, we’ll see each other by the Spirit Pond anyway. You should take this moment to get to know the duke and your elder sister a bit more."
Alice knew her older brothers quite well, they had abused her a fair bit over the years after all. But her older sister and the duke were almost wholly indifferent to her so they rarely interacted. She would have to spend some time with them if she wanted to figure out how she wanted to act towards them in the future.
"Okay, I will! And I look forward to seeing what sort of spirit answers your call, you’re not allowed to hide it from me!"
Alice was full of energy, she looked ready to bounce around as she skipped over to the carriage that her sister directed her towards. Marion looked at Gabriel for a moment, the latter smiling at her calmly as he gave a polite bow. She gave him a small nod and then retracted her gaze, taking a seat in the carriage before she closed the door.
Gabriel was left to enter his own carriage, ending up all alone once he closed the door. Well, there was a driver to control the horses, but he hadn’t even looked at Gabriel once so he didn’t seem to be the sociable type.
The carriages started moving a handful of minutes after Gabriel sat down, somewhat slowly making their way out of the estate and into the city. Gabriel looked out the small window for a bit as they moved, but before long, the corners of his lips turned up.
"Yes, that’s good, Leonardo."
The spell he cast had activated, something had disturbed the darkness. Judging by the sensations that flowed in through the spell, it seemed as if the carriage was moving rather quickly. Leonardo was in a hurry, of course he would be. But unlike Marion and the others, he could, or rather would, be using gates so he had a bit more leeway.
Gabriel sat down in the seat and leaned back, fishing out the three items he had bought from the Night Pack. They had all been bought specifically for this day, this moment. It was a bit unfortunate that he would have to use the drugs, but that couldn’t be helped with how weak he was right now.