Nothing much happened after that little interlude. Voscov went back to eating, Ellen went back to talking and Gabriel went back to tearing out his hair over Valerina's presence and the fact that Voscov seemed to have recognized her.

It said much of his concentration at the time that he didn't realize when exactly Valerina managed to slip out of the room and was replaced by another servant. When he did notice, Valerina was long gone and his appetite was completely ruined.

He glared balefully at the steak sitting on his plate, surrounded by greens and peas.

Look at it, he thought. Sitting primly and properly on a plate like it ought to. The little bastard has no problems. None at all. Nothing to ruin its appetite, no one sneaking around where they shouldn't to think about. Fucking bastard. Lucky bastard.

You can't kill the steak again, you stupid Maeser, Vit's voice resounded in Gabriel's head and he started.

"Vit," he murmured under his breath upon mastering himself. "You're back. Any find?"

None, Vit answered. Out of the five clans in Sealarios, I could only get into two. As for the rest, either their patriarchs are scholars or their wives kicked them away from their beds. They were sitting tightly within their little private libraries. I think their wives kicked them out.

"Vit be serious."

But I am, Vit protested. Has your wife ever kicked you out of the room? That is serious you know. It has all sorts of implications.

Gabriel sighed exasperatedly. Steaks were damn lucky bastards indeed.

"Listen Vit," he muttered. "Valerina is somewhere in the manor-"

Why in the realms is she here? Vit exclaimed.

"I have no idea," Gabriel replied impatiently. "Can you keep your eyes on her and find what she's up to?"

That should not be a problem. Does that mean we're no longer going to bother with finding a text?

"I don't know, really. Can you do both? The city lord should have a collection somewhere. His study probably."

This is terribly inefficient.

"It's all we have. I don't expect anything to come of it either."

Vit sighed and slipped away.

Gabriel breathed out. He could allow himself more chance for mistakes now that Valerina was gone and, he hoped, no longer within the premises.

It does not need saying that he hoped wrong. At that moment, a floor above, Valerina was walking quickly toward lord Kimmel's study, eager to get what she came for and scram. The night had been too exciting for her and she was itching to bid this compound adieu.

With a satisfied grin, she stopped before a door just as ornate as the rest of the doors she had come across within the house. She scanned the door and, for the umpteenth time within the past few minutes, thought back to the close shave she'd had in the dining hall. Granted, it had not been that close and could have gotten worse but Valerina thought that if it had, she would have probably fainted from fright so it was close enough.

She certainly hadn't expected the brush with the lord of the house - and imminent personal and international peril - to have been almost as useful as it was heart-stopping.

In the end, escaping from there had been easy. Valerina had simply walked right back into the kitchen, claimed the city lord had ordered her to retrieve an item from his study and wrangled an older maid into directing her to the study, spouting the sheer size of the building as an excuse.

Had it not been for that, she probably would have walked right past the door without knowing it was the study. And she certainly wouldn't have known the mansion had no separate library but that the master study doubled as the library too; or, come to think of it, would the fact that the study was on the second floor and not the first been apparent to her without trudging through the whole of the first floor.

Creeping over to the door, she looked it over with a critical eye. She expected for there to be wards but it never hurt to check first.

After almost a minute spent teasing out minute details from the door's frame, Valerina pulled back with a frown. No matter where or how she looked, she couldn't find any signs of a ward enchantment anywhere on the door and that was all manners of strange. Important rooms were warded when it could be afforded and Sealarios should not be an exception.

Reaching out gingerly, Valerina pressed her hand against the door and was amazed when she wasn't immediately rebuffed and smashed into a fine paste against the opposite wall.

"There really isn't a ward in place," she muttered in surprise. "Oh well, good enough for me."

Shrugging, she bent down and slipped her feet out of her shoes. Her feet were wrapped in soft fur, making the shoes more comfortable to wear given the nature of the objects she carried within said shoes. Reaching into her footwear, she pulled out a pair of custom-made, inch-long metal tongs and a lock pick.

Firstly, she pushed at the door to check if it was locked, before trying to pick the lock. It took her about two minutes to get the door open and slip in as quickly as she could, only to lock it up once more from the other side.

She breathed out in relief once it was done and scanned the room she was in. A row of relatively short shelves lined the wall, starting from beside the door on the right and ending at the same place to the left, with only two windows on the right to break the monotony, and an ornate desk facing the door directly from the other end of the room.

It was a study alright. With books and shelves and books and shelves and books and... gods, she had no idea where to start.

Might as well start from the shelf directly beside her.

She began to go through the scrolls and books hurriedly, scanning over them to glimpse what she could before tossing them back where she got them as carefully as she could manage in her rush.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

I have maybe an hour? Less? Less than an hour; less than a blasted hour. Dang it, she complained internally. What would I find in an hour? I need to be faster... faster...

She skimmed through fifteen books in a minute and was rapidly approaching the general center of the row of shelves when she had a sudden thought. Just why in the myriad realms was she so focused on the shelf? Precious text would be hidden within the desk would they not?

Valerina scrambled over to the desk, running her hands all over it and pulling on the drawers in her bid to get to the content within. The drawers did not budge, being unsurprisingly locked. Hastily, she ran her fingers over the locks, trying to determine their make.

Old Hustian maybe? And very old too. Maybe even rusted within.

Valerina took a deep breath and then exhaled. Only one thing to do then.

Her manipulation surged, and she pulled moisture from her mouth as fast as she could. The water within her mouth flowed out continuously for a few seconds before stopping by the time her mouth had run dry and she had grown suddenly thirsty. A blob of water the size of her fist floated before her, obedient to her commands.

She directed it into the keyhole of the first drawer, squeezing and condensing it so it would fit. One impressive thing Valerina had figured out about water was just how dense it could get, and by everything good and useful was she going to use it.

She shoved against it forcefully, pushing out against the walls of the liquid and sending it crashing over the components of the lock. There was a small, localized snap and Valerina immediately tried opening the drawer, hoping that the little stunt she had pulled had been enough to either dislodge the spring from its proper position or break something important.

To her joy, the drawer pulled open and she quickly peered in. A couple of books that looked suspiciously like ledgers greeted her sight along with a rather useless map of the island. A quick check of the books confirmed that, yes, they were account ledgers and nothing she wanted anything to do with.

Valerina withheld a curse. Of course only documents of that type stayed around the desk. Official stuff - like her father had done with his study. What had she been thinking?

She shut the drawer and took a precious moment to run her eyes over the shelves at the leftmost corner.

"What would ancient medical tomes look like?" She murmured to herself as she scanned the books there from a distance.

Now that I take my time, the scrolls and tomes around that side seem older, she thought. She turned to the other end of the row of shelves. The books there seemed to be relatively new.

Damn. How couldn't I have seen this before? She strode over to the shelves and quickly began to skim over their content.

She moved fast and carefully until she saw a book that made her pause.

Witnessed - Poisons, Maladies and Remedies by Nino don Lazifez, she read to herself mentally.

Do I take it?

Her hand hovered over the book.

I guess it would contain old tales or would, at the very least, point me in a direction.

Argh! Why do I hesitate? I can always take another too.

She grabbed the book from the shelf and tossed it atop the desk so she would not forget it. Then she turned about and snatched up the next book she wanted to check out. That is, she tried to snatch it up. Her fingers closed around the spine of the tome and she pulled but the book didn't budge an inch.

Frowning, she braced and applied more force. There was a second where nothing moved, right before the book gave, creaking slightly as it slid out of the shelf.

Now, Valerina certainly didn't know what she'd expected to happen, - you could even say she hadn't expected something to happen - hence, the shelf that pushed off from the wall around the center of the room and slid to the side in one smooth movement took her by surprise.

She rushed to the place and peered into it. There was a hole - deep, dark, and foreboding, with a metal ladder affixed to its wall - that went down for as far as she could see. Considering that she was currently on the second floor, it certainly went quite a ways.

Valerina whistled into the hole. The sound travelled deep, bouncing from wall to wall, its echo getting farther and farther until she could hear it no more.

Valerina stepped away from the hole. That thing was deep. Way too deep to end on the first floor.

She strode back to the trigger, put the book back in place, and watched the shelf slide back in place with nary a sound. Placing her hands on her waist, she breathed out and took another look about the room. That was when she saw the door's gilded handle turn.

Someone's coming! How didn't I hear the key turning the lock?! Shit!

Frantic, she took another look around the room. There was no escape.

Unless...

She broke out into a flat-out sprint as the handle turned the last few degrees, snatching the book she'd singled out from atop the desk, and clearing the window in a single leap, a hand on the frame.

As her momentum took her forward, her grip on the window frame pulled her back, stretching the joints of her shoulder and slamming her into the outside wall. She took a moment to breathe, disregarding the pain coming from her bones, and put her second hand upon the window. Her hold on the book made the grip awkward but hopefully it wouldn't be so for long. She looked down.

It's not that far. Not far at all in fact. Just a single story.

She let go.

The wind whipped about her, making her hair flutter and get into her eyes. She met the floor feet first, landing on the balls of her feet and flowing smoothly into a squat. In no time at all she was on her feet and moving briskly away from the house.

One thing she was thankful for was that the third part of her plan was easy. So long as she wasn't caught, part three was to simply walk out of the gates like she belonged there.

As Valerina vacated the premises as quickly as she could, Vit gained entrance into the city lord's study by slipping in through the keyhole after having tried the door and finding it locked. Immediately upon entering though, he turned right around and skedaddled. Something truly powerful was there somewhere.

......

Rowe was prepared for bed and was just about to get underneath the warm sheets when Valerina came waltzing into his room in the Gildspur Inn looking tired, relieved, and equal parts unsatisfied.

"Evening Val," Rowe called out to her. "How'd it go? Got what you wanted?"

"Oh, you know. Almost as expected," she replied. "Evening by the way."

"That wasn't an answer," Rowe pointed out.

"Oh, Rowe. The ward almost clipped my shin when I was going in. Things went down and up from there."

"So you didn't get it?"

"Sorta," Valerina grimaced.

"Still not telling me what it is you came all the way here for?"

Valerina hesitated for a moment. There really was no reason to keep her objective a secret from her cousin.

"I was looking for a cure for my illness," she confessed.

Rowe frowned.

"Cure for..." His eyes widened in surprise. "Fuck-" Valerina flinched. "-it's true? You have enix?!"

She nodded.

"The fuck-" Valerina flinched. "-ah, um, I mean what are you doing here then?!"

He closed the distance between them in three quick steps and placed his hands on her shoulders, looking her over with his eyes.

"I'm alright Rowe," Valerina assured him and shook off his hand, her inching toward the door beginning in earnest. "And I thought you guys should know by now. Shaya had said as much last time I visited."

"Damn, it was only a rumour within the clan. No one knew for sure; we all thought it was some cooked-up buttertalk. Also, you didn't strike us as particularly sick the few times you visited. You were always running and jumping and climbing trees when you were younger. It was..." Rowe trailed off, a thoughtful look on his face. A second later his eyes widened. "You knew I didn't know, didn't you?! That's why you didn't tell me what you were after at the start!"

"Goodnight Rowe, sleep tight," Valerina said and shut the door, slipping out of the room and rushing into her own.

She locked the door and made her way to the bed, sinking into it and staring at the ceiling. She had been in Sealarios for three days now and had finally done what she'd come to do. The tournament would begin properly tomorrow but she planned to lose during the first round.

One day to get here by portal and then sailing, four days here, one more for the return trip, she calculated in her head. Six days in total. Better check out those letters.

She pulled herself to her feet, peeled off the servant's garb, and put on her nightgown.

Lighting the candles sitting on a candlestand atop the bedside table, she brought out the package of letters from her father's study and her most recent acquisition. She sidled up next to the bedside table, rested her back against the wooden headboard of the bed and cracked open the letters.

My shoulder still hurts, she noted absentmindedly as she straightened the papers.