Chapter 442 - The Festival and the Skyward City II

Claire toyed with her tail as her carriage rolled its way up to the manor’s front door. She couldn’t decide if she wanted to show it. Its presence was sure to stir up a commotion and introduce all sorts of inconsistency. It wasn’t uncommon for the nobles that inhabited the northernmost lands to make their way to the capital; she had met many of them in person, and even those she hadn’t knew that the only traits she had taken from her mother were her scales and eyes.

To don the fifth limb would be to declare that she was an imposter. It would create plausible deniability for her northerly appearance—anyone who claimed that they had seen could be easily refuted with the argument that she didn’t match her description. If anything, she was tempted to stir the pot and leave her father with a headache and a half. But at the same time, it was just as likely to cause trouble for Rubia. If the argument and accompanying investigation was spun the wrong way, she could easily be outed as a homunculus.

The solution was really quite simple. If she behaved in such a manner unbecoming of the princess, it would be impossible for anyone to think that Rubia was false, but that would involve doing away with her pride and presenting as a country bumpkin. Of course, she could have always intentionally left a trail of breadcrumbs that would allow anyone with a brain to pinpoint her as the fake instead, but she didn’t trust the northern nobility to have such functional heads on their shoulders.

With the unfortunate series of circumstances at hand, Claire was almost tempted to do away with the extra limb and simply pretend to be her old self. Or at least that was the case until she happened upon a much better idea.

She took a few seconds to observe the two guards who were assigned to escort her carriage. Neither was particularly outstanding. One stood as the very epitome of an ordinary plainsrunner while the other was an average thunderhoof. If she had to guess, he was probably in his mid three hundreds at best, despite being the stronger of the two.

Violence would perfectly serve her purpose.

Grinning, she summoned a pair of Borises in the air behind them and clubbed them in the back of their heads. Knowing to mask their unconsciousness, she puppeteered their bodies with her vectors and guided herself to the manor’s front door. She cleaned up the evidence in the meantime by magically retrieving the faked letter from the commander’s pocket. It wasn’t the easiest of tasks. Portals could only be constructed relative to her position; his constant movements put him at risk of having his heart removed, but by his lucky stars, he stopped briefly to yawn and allowed her the perfect chance to spirit the document away.

For a moment, she considered waking Sylvia and asking her to help with her disguise, but as effective as it would have been to leverage the bard’s illusions, she decided against disturbing the tiny critter’s slumber.

She used her runecloak instead, and with some difficulty, fashioned a wig that replaced her silky smooth locks with a series of reddish-brown curls. The sheer volume helped with hiding her ears as well. By tucking them in and pulling them back, she was able to obscure them and appear as would an elf. There wasn’t much she could do about her eyes, but she placed a veil over her nose and hid the scales that covered her cheeks.

With that, the disguise was mostly complete. The only remaining point of contention was the shard in her chest. It wasn’t exactly identifiable for any of Cadrian origin, but there was a chance that it would out her going forward. A small frown appearing on her lips, she reluctantly sucked it back into her body just as the carriage reached its destination.

Checking her outfit one last time, and nodding in satisfaction, she descended from the icy carriage and turned to her unconscious escorts.

“Thank you, gentlemen. Could you please take my coach to the stable? I’ll be returning to retrieve it by the end of the night.”

One salute later, and it was done. The two who served as her valets would fall asleep in the stables and find themselves scolded awake the next morning. So long as she remembered to douse their bodies in liquor and throw a few empty bottles their way, any evidence of her arrival would be dismissed as a fever dream—a delusion shared by a group of untrustworthy guards who had drunken themselves to sleep on the job.

Noting that Cadria’s creed had proven itself true as usual, Claire greeted the guards by the front door with a nod and continued into the manor. She knew its halls well enough from her prior infiltration, but it wasn’t as if she could simply march through. Fortunately, the centaurian manservant standing by the door was there precisely for that reason.

“Good evening, madame,” he said, with a bow. “I am Sabinus, one of the butlers that serves House Postumus, and I will be your guide today. May I ask your name?”

“I’m Noddanelf Redleaf,” said Claire, with an over-the-top, animated smile.

The butler paused for a second before lighting up. “Oh, I see! You must be one of the ladies with the Burmingnot company.”

Claire kept her mouth shut and returned a brilliant smile.

“I will show you to the ballroom immediately,” he said. “Unless there are some other destinations you’d like to examine along the way? I would be happy to explain anything you wish, and I’m sure the baths would be of special interest to a veteran craftswoman such as yourself.”

“The ballroom will be fine. Thank you, Lord Postumus,” said Noddanelf. She recognized the man in question. He was the second son of the Postumus family. While Mariabelle’s husband managed most of the military-related affairs, his brother was entrusted with the domestic ones. It was precisely because of his continued efforts that the domain remained so well put together.

“Oh dear. I was not expecting you to see right through me.” Sabinus shook his head and chuckled. “Though we have entertained quite a fair number of guests over the course of the past week and a half, you are only the third to recognize me, and the second to do so with such speed.”

“Recognizing faces is a key to keeping wheels and wallets greased.” The elf flashed a bit of a knowing smile. “And Lord Postumus, yours is quite well known among those who deal and aspire to deal in luxury goods.”

The centaur clutched his bell and laughed, allowing his ears to flop up and down as he kicked back his head. “With executives like yourself, I can see that the Burmingnot company is sure to have a bright future. I will keep a close eye on your business going forward.”

“Thank you, Lord Postumus. Your praise is greatly appreciated. Now, would you mind showing me to this ballroom of yours? I’ve just been dying to meet your sister-in-law.”

“Of course.”

The man extended a hand. And to Claire’s dismay, etiquette dictated that it ought to be taken. Noddanelf’s need for enthusiasm only made the whole thing worse. She not only took his arm with a smile, but glued herself to his body and pressed her chest against the side of his leg while flashing a picture-perfect smile.

Sabinus accepted the development in joyful stride, not for a second suspecting that the woman by his side was contemplating a thousand different ways to violently repay him for the humiliation. As luck would have it, they arrived in front of a pair of grand doors before she could figure out a way to make him disappear without arousing suspicion.

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“Now you must forgive me, my fair lady,” said the so-called gentleman, “but this is as far as I am able to escort you.” He reluctantly released her and took half a step away. “I do pray that you won’t forget the encounter we had on this fair evening.”

“Oh, I could never, Lord Postumus,” said Noddanelf, whose smile was clearly lovely and not-at-all murderous. “I will never forget you.”

“Nor I you.” With one last smile, the nuisance made his way back down the hall and vanished around a corner.

Claire brushed him from her mind just as quickly and focused on fixing up her dress. It had gotten ruffled in the preceding incident, and more importantly, she hated the fact that the man’s putrid cologne seemed to stick, but she was able to free herself from the scent by quickly shifting and unshifting her runecloak.

Only when she was fully sanitised did Claire open the ballroom door and slip inside. Fortunately, most eyes were on the dance floor. Unfortunately, it was because the lady that Claire had set out to speak to had taken centre stage.

The silly horse was dancing with her husband. She was surprisingly graceful for a mare with less than fifty levels, but next to her thrice-ascended lover, she may as well have been a cow. The criticism was commonly whispered by those in the crowd, but none said it loud enough for it to reach the couple's ears. The Postumus house was one of the northland’s most powerful. To make enemies of its head was little if not an act of social suicide.

Though the resulting fallout surely would have proven hilarious, Claire chose not to whisk their voices in the older Postumus’ direction. She remained on the sidelines, lazily awaiting the dance’s completion as she picked at the grand buffet.

She earned a fair number of stares from interested parties looking to name her, in spite of the veil that covered her face. Some of the bolder individuals even tried to approach, explicitly making their way in her direction after spotting her across the room. In both cases, her response was unchanged. She blended into the crowd and slipped away, minimizing attention as best she could.

The younger Postumus had already provided all the bones she needed to throw a disguise together, but Claire had never heard of the company he suggested, and she couldn’t be bothered to gather the information necessary to perfect the lie. She opted to maintain her elusive approach instead, weaving to and fro until Mariabelle finally stepped off the dance floor.

But even then, she was kept waiting. Hiding the sneers that had come with their snarky remarks, the other ladies swarmed the marchioness. They heaped praise and gossip upon her as they each made their bids to become her best friend in name. They spent about twenty minutes pestering her, stopping only as she excused herself for a moment of fresh air.

Rather than walking out onto the balcony, which had more or less become a cesspit for unfaithful couples to arrange their affairs, she slipped out the ballroom’s front door and ventured elsewhere in the manor. It seemed like she planned to use the restroom, so Claire waited outside with her arms crossed and her back against the wall.

At first, she was content to leave it at that, but she soon decided that it was just a little too boring and opened up a portal directly in front of the doorway.

Surely enough, Marie shrieked like a banshee when she stepped out of the bathroom and fell out of the sky. Claire cast a spell between stifled laughs, and stopped Marie after just a few meters of falling. Any more, and the mare would probably have stained her dress.

“Claire!” Marie screamed her name before she could even lay eyes on her silhouette.

“How did you know it was me?” asked the lyrkress.

“You are the only person I know who would even begin to consider a prank this insane,” she said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m sure you don’t.”

Marie awkwardly tried to swim over, stroking with both her arms and legs, but the motion amounted to nothing. All she got was a chortle from Claire, who dragged the poor horse back up to her starting height with a vector.

“So?” asked Marie. “What’s all this?”

“One of my abilities,” said Claire. “Nothing too special.” She floated back into the manor and pulled Marie inside before closing the portal behind them. The centaur’s dress and hair had both been messed up by the freefall, so she immediately stepped back into the restroom.

“Of course not.” Marie rolled her eyes. “How long have you known how to do it?”

“A while.” Claire pulled up one of the chairs and sat her old maid down in front of the mirror. “Let me.”

“Do you even understand the mechanism behind a braided crown with a loose top knot?”

“It can’t be that hard.”

“It is much more more difficult than it appe—” Marie froze, her face turned pale.

“Is there a problem?”

“My hair is moving by itself!”

“I know. Now sit still. Stop shuffling around or I’ll mess it up.”

The retired maid frowned, but she eventually straightened her shoulders and focused her eyes on the mirror. Her old charge slowly, carefully arranged the strands of her hair with both her magic and fingers at once to form precisely the shape that she had previously sported.

“See? It wasn’t that hard.”

“I was not expecting you to be quite so skilled,” said Marie.

“I play with my fox’s hair sometimes.”

“You mean the one that you had back then?”

Claire smiled. “Yes. That one.”

“How is she doing?”

“Fine. She’s napping in my hair right now.”

Marie paused for a moment to eye the lyrkress’ giant, frizzy wig.

“She can shrink,” explained Claire.

“Right.” Marie stood up and reached to straighten out her dress, but she found that the job was already done. When she looked Claire’s way, by staring through the mirror, the halfbreed only flashed a playful grin and backed away from her seat.

“The preparations are complete, my lady. You are my finest work, beautiful enough to steal the spotlight and the prince’s heart alongside it.” Her tone and expression were solemn by the time she opened her mouth. Removing the wig, donning a pair of glasses, and adjusting her own hair into a bun, she bowed precisely as would the perfect maid.

“It still bothers me that you are better at that than I am,” grumbled Mariabelle.

“That, my lady, is because you have yet to perfect the art of elegance. Perhaps this would have been less of a problem had you paid more attention during etiquette class.”

Marie groaned. “Please stop that. You are beginning to remind me of my tutor.”

“At least yours wasn’t as awful as mine,” said Claire.

“Right. Lady Decimus was demonic.” Marie smiled and moved towards the door, but she spun around instead of pushing it open. “How long do you intend to stay?”

“I’ll be in town until the festival ends,” said Claire.

“Have you made any plans?”

“Not yet.”

“Then perhaps we could do something together? I have little to do in the mornings, and there are a fair number of events.”

“Like what?”

“I’ve had my eye on spearfishing, which I think is supposed to be tomorrow.”

“Okay,” said Claire. “Where do you want to meet?”

“Where are you staying?”

“Tower Seventeen.”

“Ah, that place. It is quite the nice inn,” she said. “I will arrange to have you picked up in the morning.”

“Okay.” Nodding, the lyrkress threw on her usual suit of armour and opened a portal back into town. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” And just like that, she was gone.

Mariabelle was left to sigh by her lonesome whilst reflecting on her friend’s behaviour.

It was as she had known all along.

Claire was nothing if not her father’s daughter.