“Evelyn, do you know why we’re having this conversation?” Her father asked as she settled into the chair across from her father.

“No” She knew exactly why she had been called to her dad’s office.

“So, you know nothing at all about the hole in your window?”

“I was rather cold when I woke up, but I didn’t notice the hole until Tyrene saw it and freaked out.” She had been cold, but she had also been actively ignoring the hole due to the conversation she was now having with her dad.

“Evelyn, you do remember being told not to lie to your parents, don’t you?”

Her dad seemed a bit angry, but mostly worried, she wasn’t really sure what to say though.

“And the various times you’ve tried, where we caught you?”

“Maybe…” She did, but she also really didn’t want to. Her failed attempts at lying were constant reminders that she had no way of accomplishing anything fun without Tyrene’s help. And the maid was a bit more concerned with her safety than her enjoyment of life, having been the one to comfort her in the days after her parents’ assassination.

“You know something about the hole, and I want you to tell me. If you were practicing magic and made a mistake, that’s fine. We’ll increase your tutoring, just don’t do it again.”

Oh, well that was completely wrong, but he was probably right that the hole was made with magic. Lilly didn’t seem like she could hide any big tools in her mostly skintight clothes. But giving her a great excuse was nice of him.

“Alright, I won’t do it again.”

“You’re right, you won’t continue lying to me. Tell me why there’s a hole in your window or I’m moving your bedroom to the dungeons.”

“The dungeons? But they’re almost freezing!” They really would not be comfortable no matter how many rugs and quilts she brought.

“Then maybe you should start talking.”

Her dad was really pushing it, but it didn’t seem like she could get out of telling him. She could always get a little petty revenge though.

“Fine… there was an assassin in my room.”

“WHAT!!! Are you hurt? Why didn’t you call for help? I’m going to have those guards strangled!” Her dad continued to yell all sort of things, and quite a few she’d be punished for repeating, but mostly nothing of importance. Not to her anyway. She was content to just ignore her dad until he started making a bit more sense, and stopped shouting, but he was interrupted by the door opening.

Her mother entered and Evelyn could see some concern on her face, she had probably heard about the mysterious hole from one of the maids.

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“Xander, darling, what’s all this ruckus about?”

“Huh, oh, Zoey, weren’t you supposed to be on your way to some dinner or whatnot?”

Her dad being shocked out of his rant managed to display one of the reasons her mother handled the politics of ruling the kingdom, He simply loathed the constant socializing and word games. Her mother really wasn’t the best at it either but at least she tried.

“When I heard there was a hole in our daughter’s window, I decided there were more important things to attend to than some day long dinner. Like repeating, once again, that you can’t practice magic unsupervised, Evelyn.”

Ouch, why did everyone think she messed up her magic again, she’d only done so once or twice. And It’s not like she knew any advanced, dangerous spells anyway. She had tried to find instructions for [Spiders Thread], but either Lilly had invented it herself or it was somehow obscure enough that even the royal library didn’t have even a mention of it, at least not in the sections she had access to. But really, how dangerous could a spell for making rope be? Aaaand her mother was in her face fussing over her and asking if she was hurt.

She must have distracted herself and missed her dad telling her mom about the assassin. “I’m fine mom, really I’m not hurt.”

“Ahem, our daughter is fine Zoey, but perhaps she could explain why? After all, if she knows there was an assassin in her room then she must have seen him, and I can’t imagine any reason why an assassin was here. Other than to kill someone.”

Well, she’d tried lying, so she should probably just tell the truth. Her parents were going to be pissed though.

“I asked her to come visit me.”

“You what?” Huh, she’d never seen such a weird mix of horror and disappointment on her mother’s face before.

“I asked her to come visit me.”

“Who is she, and how did she get into your room without the guards noticing?” Well, her dad seemed rational enough, maybe his explosive rant earlier had calmed him down more than she thought. She’d remember it for another fuckup.

“Shadow, and she used a spell to climb the walls” Hopefully namedropping Shadow and mentioning the walls would distract her parents from the spell, she really didn’t want to stop Lilly from visiting her again.

“Shadow!” “Shadow is a man.” Leave it to her dad to get hung up on the details. And damn, she probably wasn’t supposed to reveal Lilly’s gender.

“Oh, I must have been mistaken” Please, please, please just let it slide.

“Evelyn, stop lying. And how do you know Shadow is a woman, our army has been investigating him, or her, and the other assassins for years and thought Shadow was male.”

Damn, her dad wasn’t going to let her get out of this easily.

“I know she’s a woman because she carries herself like one. Her voice might be a man’s but the way she walks and sits is that of a woman.”

“Alright, enough the both of you! Stop playing games Evelyn, and just tell us everything from the start.”

“Do I have to? Shadow isn’t going to hurt me.” Probably. And damn her mother for being smart.

“Yes.” “Yes!” Well, if they were going to gang up on her like that, she didn’t really have a choice, did she.

“Alright, fine. I’ve been cooped up here in the castle for years, never being allowed out to play or even just meet other kids. So, four days ago I decided to sneak out and have fun on my own…”

----------------------------------------

After telling her parents everything about her two encounters with Lilly, she hadn’t told them her name, no matter how much they pressed, they had broken for dinner.

But now it was back into the office to decide what to do about the whole situation. So far however, she had mostly just sat in her chair and listened to her parents argue. They had started the argument on opposite sides, then started to agree on a third side, before har father had decide he liked the fourth side better.

Evelyn herself was on the fifth side, which was to invite Lilly to dinner and talk about it. She realized that was never going to happen however, as Shadow had a huge bounty on her head and was wanted. Dead, preferably.

“How about we hire Shadow to guard Evelyn instead?”

“What?” “What?” This time Evelyn was one of the people being shocked, because somehow her mother had decided to pitch a sixth side to the hole argument, that somehow managed to be even more outlandish than her own.