They got back to the palace late the next night, and Regis was exhausted, but first he went to the library. At night it was lit with wall-mounted candles and the fireplace, casting plenty of shadows, but ones he’d always found friendly. Tonight was no different. He walked around, running his fingers over book bindings, thinking about which ones he might want to read if he was here all snows.
When the door opened and Charlotte slipped in, he was unsurprised.
“Are you here to research irrigation systems?” she asked, walking over to him with a smile.
“Just to look,” he said. “I missed it.”
“Me, too,” she said. “I like to see it after traveling. I don’t feel like I’m home until I’ve been by.”
“Besides,” he said, “Nem’s forbidden me from researching for her unless I’m very bored.”
“Then what will you read?” she asked.
“The history of Irene’s war made me wonder how much I’m missing.”
“It’s a pity she’s not done with her abridged history, isn’t it?” Charlotte asked, gesturing to the bookcase-door that led to the writing room. “Actually, last time I talked to her she was fairly close—now I want to peek in on her, if she’s there. If she’s not she might have left her notes.”
They walked over to the bookcase, and Regis started pulling on the indent—and stopped, because he knew the library relatively well by now. He’d been in and out of these small rooms plenty. He knew how heavy those doors were supposed to be—and without actually moving the door a hair he knew there was too much weight. Something was pressing on the door from the other side.
There were plenty of options. Plenty. Maybe it was the historian trying to keep Charlotte from getting close enough to steal a look at her work. Maybe someone had left a stack of books leaning against the bookcase for some reason. Maybe lots of things. The prickling on his skin was probably just the constant background of Geo’s paranoia getting to him. And yet he could not help the suspicion—sending his heartbeat fast and his bones cold—that there was someone who didn’t want their presence known on the other side of the door, pressing their ear against the crack, listening in.
“What?” Charlotte asked, and her voice had gone quiet and sharp.
Regis sensed it coming, but Charlotte was the one who whipped around and caught the arrow mid-flight. Then she dropped it a second before it caught fire.
“Geo!” she cried, grabbing Regis and running for the small table, which she grabbed, knocking a pile of books to the floor, and backed them against the nearest wall, using the table as a shield. They needed it. Arrows were coming from every which way, and exploding into flames barely after contact. Charlotte swung the table around as if it were a normal shield, moving so fast the wood was a blur to Regis. Only one arrow got through her defense, and it whizzed past them harmlessly. Regis wasn’t sure the table would hold, but it was well made, and there were a few arrows that bounced off, if he heard right.
Then the assault stopped, and in the dark and silence Regis finally reached for his sword—it wasn’t there. Charlotte handed him a knife.
“Where is he?” Regis whispered.
“Geo? That’s what’s worrying me most. By now he’s usually swarming the room with guards. We’re also missing every one of my magical guards.”
“How often does this happen?” Regis asked.
“Attacks, or attacks that get through this far?”
They were cut off by most of the candles flickering out, except for two right above them.
“Come on, Geo,” she muttered, ducking further down behind the table, but Regis didn’t. He got up and snuffed the two candles, managing not to look at the flames straight so it didn’t ruin what night-vision he had.
“Get down,” she hissed.
“That isn’t going to help,” Regis said, trying to keep his voice calm. Every one of the bookcase doors was opening, and dozens of people—all in dark clothes, masked, and armed to the teeth—were filing out as fast as they could, gathering in front of them. Regis and Charlotte were nearly on the opposite side of the room from the door, so the group had them pinned.
“Blast security,” Charlotte muttered, carefully looking out from behind the table. “The archers won’t be gone.”
“Archers are the least of your worries,” one of the men at the front of the group said.
“Fine,” Charlotte said, getting up and looking them over. “How brave of you—you number almost forty. Actually, I’m flattered you think it will take that many. Is it all for me, or were you taking Regis into account?”
The six in front charged—the only ones that would be able to get at them, backed against the wall as they were—and Regis gripped the knife. He’d never been in a real fight before.
Charlotte kicked the table into them and two stumbled, but the other four didn’t pause. Charlotte took initiative on one, and Regis ducked their swings and managed to slip one of their swords from their grasp. Then he disarmed the other and sent them sprawling. The two Charlotte had kicked with the table were on them, and Charlotte, without hesitation, drove her knife into one’s neck. Regis, with no choice, stabbed through the other’s chest. He knew his mark, even if he’d never dreamed of using the knowledge. The two he’d tossed back were on them again, and more were only a second away.
Had Charlotte said almost forty in total?
Where was Geo?
He and Charlotte working together managed to keep the attackers to few enough the two of them, and Irene’s gift, could barely manage. Charlotte hissed as a knife grazed her cheek, but the man was down a second later. There were two against Regis at a time, with Charlotte focusing on two others, and they were too close for Regis to properly swing at. Their knives glittered in what little light came through the glass ceiling, staining the attackers in muted reds and greys. One fell. The other Regis could get rid of before he glanced back at Charlotte, who was grappling with a man who fell dead a second later. Charlotte almost lost her balance when the assassin’s grip suddenly slackened, but she didn’t and swung around to meet the next ones.
By then there was light toward the door of the library, and Geo’s voice was shouting something. The good thing was that the assassins were all masked, and the palace soldiers weren’t. As soldiers poured into the library it was easy to tell the difference.
Charlotte had the last assassin, and when for a moment one knife-holding hand was free and raised Regis panicked. She pushed the attacker over, again almost losing her balance at the sudden lack of response. She looked around, but there were only friendly faces dragging masked bodies back, and Geo bounding over.
“Are you wounded?” he asked.
“One graze,” she said, pointing to her cheek, “and it feels normal. It shouldn’t be poisoned.” She smiled tiredly at Regis before looking back at Geo. “Without him here I’d be dead.”
“Of course,” Geo said, sounding mechanical and unconvinced. Charlotte took Regis’ hand and pried the bloodied sword from it.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“How is it possibly your fault?” he asked.
“You were with me,” she said. “I should have left you with Nem.”
“Didn’t you just say you’d be dead?” he asked.
Charlotte looked undecided. “I’m still sorry you were in danger. If you’re hurt I’ll never forgive myself.”
Regis looked down at his left hand. He couldn’t tell if it was hurt, or if he had strained it somehow and it was someone else’s blood. After a second of testing it, he shook his head. “I’m fine.” He was vaguely surprised that Charlotte had gotten wounded and he hadn’t—though in retrospect they’d been focusing her, and even Irene’s gift had trouble with numbers.
Stolen novel; please report.
She breathed a sigh of relief. “Still, I’m sorry. That was the first, wasn’t it?”
Regis looked down at the blood on the carpet—strangely refusing to soak in—and nodded.
A man with no weapons came up to Geo and whispered to him for a moment. Geo’s forehead clouded, and he looked at Regis.
“What now?” Charlotte asked. “Can we at least move somewhere else? With water for washing up? I hate having blood on my hands.”
“First,” Geo said, looking at Regis, “he’s telling me there was an odd magic—”
“We move first,” Charlotte said. “I don’t want to spend another second in a bloodied library, because I don’t want to think about it being bloodied. We’re going.”
She grabbed Regis’ hand and pulled him through the crowd of soldiers, through the door, and down the soldier-lined hall where an obviously tired servant showed them to a sitting room. The carpet and chairs had been hurriedly pushed out of the way. The fire was lit. Charlotte immediately sat down in front of it and pulled off her reddened shoes.
“Really,” he said, sitting down facing her, “how often does this happen?”
“Too often,” she said. “You probably noticed I’ve had to kill someone before. The first time assassins broke through and I didn’t have a choice I was fourteen. Since then there have been dozens of similar incidents—and Geo catches most of the attempts. There we are—over here, please. I’m not moving.” Two servants brought over a large bowl of clean water and set it between them before they retreated. Charlotte immediately put in her hands. After a moment Regis did, too, and watched the blood swirl off with the tiny whirlpools his hands made by pushing through the water. At least, some of it came off.
Charlotte glanced up at the empty door. “Good, for the moment no one’s here. So, thank you. Geo will accuse you of all kinds of things if he can, but I don’t believe it.”
“You might,” he said, still watching the blood. “Irene’s gift and whatever other fighting magic I might have aren’t . . . . There’s another one. I don’t like to think about it.”
“It’s dangerous enough to use in a fight?” she asked. Regis nodded. After a moment he accidentally looked up at her, and realized that she was watching him with an odd mix of gentleness and curiosity.
He looked back at the water as it slowly turned opaque. “It’s impossible to do accidentally, and the triggers aren’t anger or anything else known to be uncontrollable, but . . .” he tried to form the words, but he’d only ever said them to Nem, and only in a whisper. “I can kill with a look.”
“That explains the two who suddenly fell dead,” she said. “I’m glad you can’t do it accidentally.”
“There are five times the magic asks if that’s really what I want to do,” he said. “I can get through them all fast if necessary, but I have to be absolutely sure.”
“How did you find five?” she asked. “I suppose it works on animals.”
“It could,” he said. “I never had to go as far as . . . the end. I could tell—I could always tell. The only reason I studied it at all instead of putting it away and carefully never thinking about it again was because at first I didn’t know how nice it was—that is, how sure I have to be, how many layers there are. That and morbid curiosity, but it’s too dangerous for much of that.”
Geo’s voice came from the door behind him. “Interesting that you didn’t mention this before.”
Charlotte looked up at him with an ‘are you serious?’ look on her face. “He’d never be able to get close enough to break the illusion—even before he knew your security he’d know that.”
“And that’s suspicious,” Geo said.
“No,” she said. “It’s natural.”
“Charlotte,” he said, but a hard look came into her eyes, and after a moment of what was probably her staring him down, Geo sighed. “You’re determined to trust him, despite all of the less practical reasons that might be going into that decision?”
“Yes,” she said cooly. “Unless you have some proof against him—”
“Aside from keeping a killing secret—”
“—aside from this, he is innocent, my friend, and someone without whom I would be dead. I thank you for constantly believing everyone is guilty until proven innocent, since that’s why I’m still alive, but with Regis Setan I ask you to trust my judgment.”
There was a surprisingly short moment of silence before Geo’s footsteps moved back, and after an imperious gesture, the door closed.
“He does trust you,” Regis said.
“You sound surprised.”
“I didn’t realize he could trust.”
Charlotte laughed, but it was quiet, small, and short. “He trusts me. He has to, anyway, since I’m the princess. Now, is there a reason you’re not looking at me?”
“Do you want me to?”
“You think I’m scared that you’d kill me?”
The amusement in her voice did make him look up.
“I did just tell the captain of my guard I trust you—I wouldn’t lie about that. Or is it odd to meet anyone’s eyes?”
“I . . . don’t know,” he said. He’d have said yes, but he found too much comfort in hers.
Charlotte seemed to hesitate, but then a quiet knock sounded and the door opened to two servants carrying towels and a basin of clean water, along with soap, and blankets.
“Thank you,” she said as they set them down, and took the bloodied bowl away. Once the door was closed she grabbed the soap and started furiously scrubbing at her hands. “Once, last year, they attacked right before an important dinner—I was going to be sitting between two Madanian chieftains and across the table from Norln’s crown prince. All three happened to love punctuality, too. I washed as fast as I could, but the entire night I was worried about the little crevices around the fingernails, and if I smelled like blood—the Madanian chieftains would know it immediately. Instead, poor men, I think they got too much lilac perfume. I used to love that, until I used it to cover blood.” She dropped the bar of soap in the water and held up her dripping hands for inspection. “I think beneath my fingernails can wait.” She washed her face quickly and then smiled at him around the towel as she dried off. “You see I’m an expert at cleaning up. My ladies are experts at taking blood out of clothing, too. It happens, I don’t die, and then—poof—every sign of it is gone.” Her smile faded. “I hate it.”
Regis watched her for a moment more, trying not to think much.
“Come on,” she said, taking his hands and pulling them under the water. “I know, but it doesn’t get any easier to clean up.” After another moment he tried to pick up the soap, but his hands were shaking too badly. Charlotte took them and held them tightly. “It’s alright,” she said.
“What is?” he asked. “That they’re gone?”
“Well, that, too, but I meant that it’s alright to be shocked.” She squeezed his hands and then took her hands out of the water to wipe them on her towel and got up to get one of the blankets.
“I’m alright,” he said, but she acted as if she didn’t hear him, and tucked it around his shoulders.
“You’re not,” she said, sitting back down and pushing his hands underwater again. He didn’t say anything as she washed his hands for him, even taking time for the fingernails. By the time she was finished he’d calmed down enough to wash his face himself. He still kept his face buried in the towel for a moment longer than he might otherwise need to. He heard Charlotte move the bowl and scoot closer.
“I’m sorry,” he said, putting the towel down. “I—”
She kissed him.
For a moment Regis couldn’t think of a thing except maybe she was still trying to say sorry for being the object of assassination attempts, then he didn’t care, and for a minute he blissfully thought almost nothing.
It was only when there was a knock on the door that he was jarred back to reality, and for a moment he doubted it was even real, because when he opened his eyes Charlotte had already pulled back and was looking, completely normally, up at whoever had opened the door.
“Anything new?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Geo said. “A few were alive, but they were the type to put poison in capsules on their back teeth.”
Charlotte sighed. “Anything to trace back?”
“Maybe,” Geo said, “but I don’t have any real hope for it.”
“Keep in mind that they in all likelihood knew that I always go see the library before I sleep after time away.”
“I’ve been doing so,” he said. “Speaking of sleep, you have things to do tomorrow.”
“I know,” Charlotte said. Geo paused, but then left again—and closed the door after Charlotte raised an eyebrow at him.
“How do you sleep?” Regis asked.
“I have to trust,” she said. “For a while I gave up on it, but it only made me more tired when I was awake. It wasn’t worth it.”
“And . . .” he hesitated, trying not to blush. “Did that actually happen?”
Charlotte blushed prettily in the firelight. “Well, yes—I hope you don’t mind, I know it’s an odd time to pick, but—”
Regis only held up his hands to show her that they weren’t shaking anymore.
“Good,” she said. “That’s why I thought . . . . anyway, I haven’t even asked if seeing me kill so easily broke any illusions—”
Regis leaned in and kissed her, mostly because he could, but also because the idea of any illusion shattering, after everything else, was ridiculous. When he drew back she slowly opened her eyes, and smiled at him.