Ch5. When She Began to Want Something

Night had pressed the outline of the royal palace into a silhouette of deep black ink. A few scattered stars hung above it, as though someone had tossed handfuls of them into the sky without bothering to arrange them properly.

On Jeffery’s first night in the city, he took a room at an inconspicuous little inn in the eastern district.

It was neither the cheapest place nor the most expensive. He had his own habits when choosing a room. It had to face the rear courtyard.

It had to have a window. And that window had to overlook at least two different alleys. It was instinct built over seven years on the road, grown into him like skin. There was no need to think about it. Only to do it.

He leaned his sword against the head of the bed, draped his outer coat over the back of a chair, then sat on the windowsill and took out the hidden pouch, placing it across his knees.

He looked at it for a long time.

The knife was hers.

The pebble was one he had picked up. Both were light. And yet they pressed against some place inside him with enough weight that he had not even considered sleeping.

With the side of his thumb, he rubbed the worn place on the knife’s handle.

The texture felt like a question.

There was no answer. But the question had no intention of disappearing. Three months.

He unfolded that number inside his mind once more.

What did she intend to do with those three months? He did not know. Perhaps she did not know either.

But she had still asked for them. That alone already said something.

A person who wanted nothing would not go to the trouble of fighting for time.

Time was for people who still had something left to do.

The faintest curve appeared at the corner of his mouth, then quickly disappeared again. Outside the window, a night watchman passed with a lantern. A gong sounded twice, the notes sinking into the darkness. Jeffery tucked the hidden pouch back against his chest, rose, and crossed to the table.

He lit the stub of a candle.

In its dim yellow glow, he went over everything he had learned that day.

The palace side gate.

The hours when supply workers and servants came and went.

How many hours passed between each change of guard. Which part of the palace grounds held the abandoned tower. Approximately how high it stood when viewed from beyond the outer walls. He was a wandering knight. Not a spy. Not an assassin. But seven years of wandering had taught him far more than swordsmanship. He had learned how to read a city. How to understand unfamiliar terrain as quickly as possible.

How to remain in one place like a grain of sand— present, watching,

and yet unnoticed.

The look Geelong had given her surfaced in his mind again. Jeffery blew out the candle. Darkness fell over the room once more. He leaned back in the chair and stared into the blackness where the ceiling should have been. His breathing was steady. His heartbeat was steady.

Everything was steady except for the piece of smouldering coal buried somewhere inside his chest, still burning with nowhere to go.

She did not know what she wanted yet.

That was all right.

He had time. He could wait until she understood. And until she did, he only needed to do one thing.

His eyes narrowed faintly in the darkness, like a beast lying low—

silent, but fully awake. He only needed to stay here. ________________________________________________________________

A few days passed, and Anna’s life returned to normal. A life filled with etiquette and ceremony, and just as much boredom.

But now, at least, she had a little room to breathe. Using a new letter opener, she carved another mark into the bedpost, as though counting down the days.

Eighty-five days left.

Her hand tightened around the handle. Then she paused. Right. This one was new. It was not the same blade she had picked up again and again whenever she wanted to end her life, only to quietly put it down in the end.

“I almost forgot… I gave that knife to that man…” She set down the unfamiliar letter opener and thought of Jeffery. The man she had only met twice. The man with whom she had exchanged barely more than a few words, and yet somehow felt strangely understood by. But she could not remember whether he had ever actually told her his name.

She sighed. “Never mind… It’s not as though I’ll ever see him again…”

After composing herself, she called for Addie. “Addie, could you go outside the city and buy those pastries you used to bring me?” “You know… the ones you would bring back whenever you returned from a long holiday in your hometown.” For the first time in a while, a little light returned to her eyes. “You said the shop wasn’t very far from the palace, didn’t you?”

________________________________________________________________ Morning in the eastern district had a lazy, lived-in warmth to it.

White steam from the tofu stall mingled with the toasted fragrance of flatbread from the neighbouring stand, drifting inward from both ends of the narrow street until the entire lane seemed soaked in a drowsy kind of heat. Jeffery sat on a bench outside the inn.

A bowl of hot soup sat untouched before him. In one hand, he held a short piece of wood. With his small travelling knife, he slowly shaved at it. He was not making anything useful. He merely wanted something for his hands to do. Something that would make anyone passing by think he was simply a bored man with nothing better to occupy himself with.

Someone not worth looking at twice. He had been in the city for several days now. In that time, he had learned most of the alleys between the eastern and western districts. Which street led to the palace’s rear supply entrance. Which stall owner talked too much and always knew the latest news. What hour the guards changing shifts at the city gates tended to doze off inside the gatehouse. He remembered all of it.

Not one word had been written down. Everything remained inside his head.

For the past few days, he had made no further inquiries about Anna.

Not because he did not want to. Because asking too often attracted attention. So instead, every day, he sat on this street— not too near the palace side gate, not too far from it— and watched people come and go. Like a dust-covered stone. No one remembered that he had been there.

But he remembered every face that entered or left that gate.

He had just shaved the end of the wood into a rounded point when the side gate opened. A young woman in her early twenties came out. Her hair was arranged in the style commonly worn by palace maids. An empty basket hung from her arm. Her steps were light.

She did not have the burdened expression of the servants sent out on tedious errands.

If anything, she looked faintly relieved to be outside, as though enjoying a rare chance to breathe. Jeffery’s hand paused. Then he resumed carving. He did not rise immediately. From beneath lowered lashes, he simply marked the direction she took. Not towards the market. Towards the pastry shop in the eastern district. In his mind, he went over the routes he had walked during the past several days.

There was only one practical way to reach that shop. Along the way was a narrow alley she would have to pass through. High walls on either side. Little foot traffic.

He set the half-carved piece of wood down. Flexed his fingers. Then stood. He pushed the bowl of soup aside with an unhurried motion, looking no different from a man simply getting up to stretch his legs.

He waited at the entrance of the narrow alley, leaning against the wall. Only after the maid carrying the empty basket turned into it did he speak.

His voice was quiet. Just loud enough for one person to hear. “Miss.” The maid startled and stepped back half a pace, watching him warily. Jeffery did not approach. He remained where he was.

His hands hung at his sides. His posture was open, without the slightest attempt to pressure her.

Like a man accustomed to letting strangers decide for themselves whether he was dangerous. He studied her face while quietly sorting through the impressions he had gathered over the past few days.

There were several kinds of palace maids. Those who lived in constant fear. Those who were smooth, clever, and knew exactly how to survive. And then there was another kind—

the kind who had served a trusted master for so long that they had begun to carry a little of that master’s temperament themselves.

This woman had come through the side gate carrying a basket.

Not the servants’ entrance. That suggested she had some standing. Her steps had been light. That suggested this was an errand she did not mind. A task, yes. But not an unpleasant one. The faintest curve touched the corner of his mouth. From inside his sleeve, he brought out a silver coin and turned it once between his fingers in the sunlight. “A few days ago, when I was passing through this area, outside the city gate…”

He paused, appearing to consider his wording. In truth, he was watching her expression.

“I met a young woman who was kind enough to tell me where I could find lodging in the city. I forgot to thank her at the time, and it has bothered me ever since.” “The only thing I remember is that she seemed to have some connection to the palace.”

Every word was a lie. But Jeffery lied calmly. So calmly that he sounded exactly like what he claimed to be—

a traveller troubled by having failed to thank someone. His amber eyes rested on the maid’s face for a second. Gentle.

Yet somewhere behind them was a fine, invisible needle, quietly waiting for her to speak.

Addie raised the empty basket in front of her chest defensively.

She stepped back half a pace and looked properly at the man who had spoken to her.

It was him. The man who had exchanged a panicked glance with her in the long corridor. The man who had climbed to the top of the tower and stopped her mistress from doing something terrible. Addie stared in surprise. “It’s you! The man from that day!”

Jeffery froze.

Only for a fraction of a second. But he did freeze. His amber eyes moved quickly over the maid’s face as memory turned pages inside his mind. That morning. The abandoned tower. The corridor.

The confusion before the guards arrived. There had been a maid. She had met his eyes. Frightened. But she had not cried out. Her. He pushed the brief surprise back down and his expression returned to calm. But the light in his eyes changed temperature ever so slightly.

Like a narrow beam slipping through a crack in a window. Thin. But bright. At the same time, he withdrew the lie he had been preparing.

Without drawing attention to it, he closed his fingers around the silver coin again and changed his approach. His voice dropped slightly. More direct now. “It was me.” He did not explain why he was there. Nor did he continue with the story he had invented.

Lying to someone who had already recognised him was both wasteful and dangerous. His gaze stayed on Addie’s face. Quiet. Not threatening. But not evasive either.

As though telling her: I have nothing to hide. And you do not need to run. He shifted half a step towards the wall, leaving the way behind her completely open. His posture loosened further. Like a tree standing beside the road rather than blocking it. “I mean no harm.” He paused. He seemed to turn the next words over once on his tongue before slowly releasing them.

“She…” The moment that word left him, something in his voice changed. Only slightly. Like a string touched by accident. Subtle. But real. “Is she all right?” That was all he asked. He did not ask about the wounds on her back. Did not ask about the banquet. Did not ask about Geelong. Did not ask what had happened in that study.

Everything he wanted to know remained pressed beneath that single question. Only that one was allowed to surface. His right hand hung beside him. His thumb rubbed lightly against the knuckle of his forefinger.

A small betrayal of the restlessness he had buried deeply while waiting for an answer. When Addie heard the concern in Jeffery’s voice, her guard lowered. If it was this man, she did not feel the need to defend herself. It did not matter that she barely knew him. The panic she had seen in him that day—

the urgency with which he had climbed the tower looking for Anna, for reasons she had not understood— was enough. “She’s much better today.” Addie’s voice carried a trace of heartache. “She barely spoke at all for several days.” Then a little brightness appeared in her eyes.

“But today, for once, she asked me to come out and buy her some pastries.”

“She really is doing much better. She’s even smiled a little.”

Jeffery did not answer immediately. He simply stood there and let the words settle inside his chest. She barely spoke for several days. He repeated the sentence silently. Once. Then again. And then pressed it down into the place he had no intention of showing anyone else. His expression barely changed. But the line at the corner of his eye tightened faintly, like the edge of a sheet of paper being pinched between two fingers—

drawn tight,

then gently released. Several days. She had been alone inside that palace of stone.

Silent for several days. He lowered his eyes to the silver coin between his fingers. Two seconds passed. Then he put the coin away and took out another. He did not hand it over. He only held it, as though making a decision. “Pastries.” He repeated the word.

His voice remained even, though the faintest suggestion of a curve appeared at the corner of his mouth. “She asked you to buy her pastries.” He looked up at Addie. Something heavy rested in those amber eyes.

And yet something else settled lightly and warmly over the words she’s even smiled a little. Like someone who had travelled through darkness for a long time and suddenly glimpsed a small flame in the distance. He had not even reached it yet. But he could already breathe a little easier. He rolled the coin once between his fingers.

Then asked directly, “Which shop are you going to?” Before Addie could answer, he added something else.

There was something in his tone now that was more direct than before, something difficult to name. “I’ll go with you.” As he spoke, his profile was turned towards the light spilling into the alley.

A few strands of his dark brown hair had been loosened by the morning breeze. The small scar on the left side of his forehead appeared and disappeared beneath the light. He did not look to see what expression Addie made.

He simply stepped forward half a pace and left the direction open for her. You lead. I’ll follow. That was all the gesture meant. She wanted pastries.

She had sent someone out to buy them. That meant she finally wanted to eat something. It meant that today, she wanted something. A person who had stood at the edge of a tower only days ago now wanted pastries. That fact mattered more than anything anyone could have said. He had no intention of startling her.

He only thought— if the pastries could be a little better, then better still. If they could make her smile even a little more,

it would be worth it.