I’m honestly rather proud, Cuth admitted as Rowena selected Compel Honesty and Throw Consciousness as her two new Abilities. Those are pretty decent selections.

I don’t actually need your approval, Rowena thought at him.

Unfortunately for you, I can sense your real feelings, he replied smugly.

That was… incredibly frustrating. Cuth wasn’t wrong, though. Rowena had felt so adrift since that horrible night a few weeks ago: she missed her family, mourned her brother, and felt overwhelmed by what she felt was a rash choice of Class and Subclass, selected in grief and confusion.

Discovering Cuth’s existence– a parasite that hopped from some mysterious magical ether connected to the Heartstone– had felt invasive, at first, but now she felt like she had someone truly on her side, and a someone who clearly knew something about Classes and Subclasses, even if he couldn’t actively remember many details.

Her throat tightened up as she thought about Kieran, so distracted by his own immense and growing power, so easily flattered and won over by these strangers from Arcania. Didn’t he even care about Tommie at all?

She knew that was a little unfair, but Rowena felt entitled to being a little unfair just at that moment. She was usually so measured, calm, and reasonable… Surely every once in a while it was okay for her to be petty?

She knew, in her heart of hearts, that Kieran– dazzled though he might be by the power and newness of his Subclass– had their best interests at heart. But it didn’t make her feel any better about his failure to emphasize the real purpose of their mission to Lorimer: to bring Tommie’s murderer to justice.

We don’t have time to worry about your feelings, Cuth said impatiently. We should go check out that study now that everyone is in bed.

Rowena didn’t like Cuth telling her what to do, but she had to admit that he was right– the rest of them were clearly asleep, if the deep breathing and occasional snorts were anything to go by, and she herself wasn’t feeling particularly able to drift off at that moment.

She sat up in bed and looked around, waiting for a few moments to confirm that her friends were, in fact, sleeping soundly. Rowena smiled at the sound of Mattie’s gentle snoring, the discovery of which had been one of the few delightfully amusing parts of their journey together. The night of the wyvern attack, she hadn’t noticed Mattie snoring at all, and she presumed that was because the girl had been so deeply entrenched in and absorbed by her Subclass and healing. It was good to have that back: she hoped it was a sign that her Healer friend was getting better.

Rowena felt around in her pack for the little pinkish orb that Kieran had made for her on the night of the wyvern attack. Incredibly, it was still intact and would move as she waved her hand around it, guiding it, and still let off a soft glow. It was arguably more useful than anything else Kieran had made, with all his supposed power.

Other than the fireball that torched the wyvern? Cuth said pointedly.

She decided to ignore that, for the moment.

Satisfied that they probably wouldn’t wake if she stood, Rowena stood up and made her way carefully to the door, closing it slowly behind her before taking a breath and activating one of her tried and true Abilities.

Detect Secret, Activated!

Good thinking, Cuthbert said.

Unlike the Wandering Vine, which had been enchanted so as not to be found by those who didn’t already know where it was or have immense need of it, this inn didn’t immediately light up upon the activation of her Ability. That was a relief– Rowena had had a strange feeling about this inn, and while she was still convinced that there was more to it than met the eye, she was glad that it wasn’t entirely magical in nature.

She crept down the stairs with as much care as she could muster, thinking to herself that, whenever she reached Level 10, some kind of Stealth might be warranted as another Proficiency. That, or Luck– she thought of how subtly but, in retrospect, clearly Kieran’s Luck had worked out for him, bringing them all to Arcania quickly and him to the inn of a man who clearly had an interest in and ability to help him with his rare Subclass. Once a step creaked and she paused, but nothing came of it. She determined to be more careful moving forward.

Rowena paused at the bottom of the stairs, listening as best she could for any sounds of Lorimer. She wasn’t sure exactly where his room was, but presumed it had to be somewhere upstairs as the ground floor seemed to only have the entryway, a very small dining area, and two guest rooms along the short hallway leading to the library. She heard nothing, so continued down the hall, testing each step before she took it in case there were any more squeaky floorboards.

She was somewhat surprised to see that the door that Mal had flattened upon her dramatic entry to the library had been simply propped up against the wall of the hallway and the library left open– Lorimer seemed too particular to leave his reading room so exposed, yet she supposed that they hadn’t seen any other guests and he probably presumed they were all still too exhausted to do much spying. Plus, why would he suspect anything, anyway? He had Kieran in his back pocket, Rowena thought bitterly, and they were all sleeping in the same room. Surely he presumed Kieran would wake if she got up, and wouldn’t let her break their host’s trust in this way– it was a major violation of the agreements between innkeeper and guest.

Guess I really am a ROGUE, she thought, and made her way towards the room.

Wait– Cuth started to say urgently, but she already had a foot through the doorway. She felt him sigh with relief. I was worried it might be magically locked or have a trap. Very irresponsible of you to just walk in, he added reproachfully.

I’m still learning how to ROGUE! she thought grumpily. Well, we’re here now, anyway.

That we are, he thought greedily. Go look at that bookcase over there. The one with the glass covering!

I want to see the documents he was looking at on his desk, she said. I’ll look at the books after.

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Fine, he grumbled, but she thought he only acquiesced because, well, he couldn’t really do anything about it.

The room was much creepier in the darkness, particularly with the soft, pinkish light of the orb gently illuminating it and casting blurry shadows. A few other things in the room glowed with the clearer light of her Detect Secret Ability— the rug on the floor between the doorway and the seating area, several random books dotted across the room, a (now that the glow illuminated it) door-shaped panel on the wall nearest to her, and part of the desk. Unlike earlier, when it had been covered with all manner of parchment and books, it had now been completely cleared off. Of course Lorimer would be the type to put things away when he was done with them.

She skirted the rug carefully, presuming it had some sort of alarm system enchanted into it as it was immediately in front of the doorway, and made her way back to the desk, a large, wooden piece of furniture with several drawers carved into the back section and stacked halfway to the ceiling. The drawers themselves were not glowing, only the seemingly bland panel underneath them– a solid piece of wood that looked like it merely formed the base that held up the rest of the drawers.

Rowena grinned excitedly, and reached out to push the panel, but her grin quickly turned to a frown as she realized that Ability told her where secrets were, not necessarily how to access them. She spent a few minutes trying to poke, prod, and pull at it, hoping that it was merely a false front.

No such luck. It was stuck fast.

As she fidgeted with the panel, she noticed something else– the more she looked at it, the more the light seemed to coalesce into something more distinct than the simple outline of the panel that held the secret– it looked like the simple, ghostly outline of a piece of parchment: a letter, or a page from a book.

All of your Abilities improve somewhat when you level up, Cuth said, sensing her confusion. You’ll need to practice to get even better with them, but looks like you can see more about the secrets you’re detecting, now.

Well, that was a welcome surprise. But did didn’t really help her to get into the panel itself.

She bit her lip, thinking hard. What did she know? What could she figure out without relying only on her Abilities?

She presumed that it was simply a false drawer, because that was the simplest explanation: a secret place to put more sensitive documents.

Until she failed to open it by other means, she had to operate under the assumption that it was not held shut by a spell– for if it was locked magically, she was completely out of luck, not having any magical unlocking or spell dissolving Abilities.

She looked closer at the panel and ran a hand along its smooth surface. There was no space for a keyhole, which suggested that there was no key. That meant it had a mechanical component– perhaps a catch somewhere else on the desk?

If so, perhaps it would show up with Detect Secret? She opened one of the lower cabinets on the bottom right– almost nothing inside, only a large tome that looked like a ledger with the current year written on the cover. The left cabinet revealed a stack of slim tomes with previous years on them, but no Secrets.

Other drawers held quills, inkpots, blotting papers, and various letters (dull, mostly) and pieces of parchment with various sketches and snippets copied from other books. Rowena admired a particularly detailed map of Kalket, the nation across the sea that Kieran had pointed out to her on their own map. Now that she could look closer, she realized it was an archipelago. Several other accompanying pieces of parchment held illustrations of flora and fauna there, as well as the capital city.

Nothing interesting for her, though, and still no secrets. She’d finished rummaging through the drawers, and felt frustration well up inside of her.

Pointless! she thought.

I don’t know about that, Cuth said with a shrug. Your deduction was quite interesting to watch. For what it’s worth, I think you were right about a catch somewhere.

Well, do you have any ideas?

No. I don’t really care about this stuff. I’m trying to focus in one of your memories on some of the books whose spines you happened to see earlier today when you first came into the library.

You can do that? Rowena asked in wonder. Study my memory like it’s a drawing?

In a way, Cuth said grumpily. It’s not very clear. We need to make you more perceptive.

She shrugged. You’re welcome to suggest it again later when I get to pick more Proficiencies.

Oh, I will.

Rowena turned her attention back to the problem at hand. There had to be a secret catch, she felt it in her bones! But the drawers had revealed nothing, and she was looking at the rest of the desk– no additional secrets. And the whole thing was backed up against the wall– no way to fit even a finger behind it to pull a catch—

Unless it was a push catch, maybe on the back side of the desk?

No, that was stupid, she chastised herself. If it was a push catch on the back near the wall, anyone could bump into the desk and accidentally activate it.

So where on the desk might there be a place for a catch that she couldn’t have clearly seen when she was rummaging through the drawers?

Suddenly, an idea caught her attention, and she pulled out each of the desk drawers once more, leaving them pulled fully out.

Sure enough, the bottom right hand drawer was just a fraction shorter than all the rest.

Ah ha! she thought triumphantly.

It’s probably just a bad carpenter, Cuth protested.

Lorimer wouldn’t own a piece of furniture with different sized drawers, Rowena said, thinking about how exacting and particular the man had seemed.

Who would care about that kind of thing? Cuth snorted.

I certainly would, Rowena thought grumpily.

Now that she was focusing on the drawer, she realized it had a strangely wadded up chunk of parchment paper inside of it. It had been folded over itself multiple times and was curved, like someone had twisted it in stress. Before she’d figured it was just garbage, but now that she looked at it, it seemed as though it might fit over something.

She picked it up with one hand and felt toward the back of the drawer with the other— there! There was a slight dip curved into the back side of the drawer. The rest of them, a quick check revealed, were all perfectly straight. Squinting, she leaned over and put her face as close to the drawer as possible, and peered as best she could toward the back. That was what she had been unable to see before– a faint, glowing light at the very back of the desk, behind that one drawer.

Rowena grinned, and fit the chunk of parchment paper over the dip in the back of the drawer so that half of it was hanging over the back. Holding her breath, she slowly pushed the drawer shut, and was rewarded with a gentle click! as the thick parchment paper pressed against a hidden button behind the shortened drawer.

The wooden panel at the front of the desk had popped open ever so slightly.