It wasn't until well into the night, when the innkeeper turned out the lanterns in the front lobby and retreated into a back room that Mira didn’t notice when she and Magic first arrived, that Mira decided to snuff the fire in the hearth and make her way back upstairs to the room. She’d made sure to keep her footsteps quiet as she walked through; her brother was a heavy sleeper—probably more now considering there was an actual bed beneath him and there was no need for a lookout, no need for a watch shift.
Mira relished the idea. A night where the two of them were able to forget about being travelers, about the myths and the supposed power Mira herself may or may not have had. The power that marked her as dangerous. Unnatural. She laughed a little at that as she fell onto the second bed, the one that was supposed to have been her brother’s before he decided to fall asleep on her bed. They’d settle that matter in the morning. So long as they each had something to call their own, which was a rarity when every supply they’d had—food, water, even the money they’d managed to scrounge up in the alleyways of Elnoire—had been shared between them.
Pulling the covers over her now, head sinking into the plush down of the pillows, it was so, so easy to just submit to the dark—and it was dark now. Mira had taken a small measure of comfort knowing that the neon lights had a slow, gradual dim rather than surprising her by flashing off whenever the Subsidians retreated into their homes for the night hours. When she was on the first floor, Mira made it into a small little game. How long would it take for it to be pitch black in the mountains? How long would it take—in hours on the clock—for the Subsidians to consider it “night”.
She’d zoned out for most of it, but by the time it was ten at night, the irritating glare of the neon, even in its softened state, vanished.
Now, as she tossed and turned and tuned out the soft sound of her brother’s snores from the other side of the wall, a few seconds away from being dragged into sleep, she thought she heard creaking, the sound of footsteps up a staircase. Mira propped herself on her elbow, willing her breathing to slow, to quiet. She waited until the noise vanished, until, faintly, she heard the noise of another door open, close, and a lock click, before cautiously lowering herself back onto the bed.
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Maybe she should stay up for a night watch.
It wouldn’t negate the thousands of times she’d offered and was never given the chance; Magic was always hellbent on refusing her that opportunity in a manner that worried her. Had always worried her, so on the rare occasions that she got him to back down and rest for once like a normal human being, Mira relished in it. And, considering the fact that he was out like a light, she imagined it would certainly impress and confuse her little brother when morning—the Subsidian equivalent of morning, anyway—shone angrily through the windows of the building.
Still she was comfortable. Far more comfortable than she had been in the last few weeks.
Eventually she settled for only closing her eyes. A small bit of rest.
She would open them again in a few minutes.
Mira didn’t know when sleep had happened, only that it dragged her down somewhere between considering sitting up and pouring through the journals in the faint light of flames from the lanterns and the candlesticks as a way to keep herself busy during her night watch, and thinking that it was a task she could pick up the next day, when the light (aggravating on the eyes and irritating to the senses as it was) was better and she wouldn’t have to squint at every word on a page.
But had she stayed awake a few more moments, she might have heard the return of the footsteps, light and feathery; thieves’ feet creeping up the stairs, a trained proficiency of not being caught.
Might have heard a rattle in the lock. The moan of the hinges as the door gave way.
Might have heard the muffled protests from her sibling on the other side of the wall.
Instead, she was only startlingly aware of these things when a set of rough hands sank into her shoulders and pulled her from the bed.