I spent the rest of the afternoon with them, showing them around the public areas of the palace, warning them of who to avoid angering. Sergeant Ferris and another guard trailed after us, not quite invisible as I familiarized my friends with the library, ballrooms, and training rooms.
A copy of the Wraith Alliance had already been delivered by the time we returned to their suite, so I bade them good evening and happy studying. Only Kevin looked truly chipper at that.
At the door, I turned back to the small group and forced cheer into my voice. “Remember, we’re here as ourselves—not to steal valuables—but be guarded, too. Secrets remain secrets.”
They all nodded.
“Remember your lessons.”
“Our lessons on eating the fastest?” Kevin asked.
“Or picking pockets without being detected?” Theresa offered a sly smile.
“Or,” Carl mused, “do you mean the lesson we all learned when you and Mel threw knives at us and we had to be faster?”
“They were wooden knives. They wouldn’t have hurt you. Much.” But I smiled, just a little, even though Melanie’s name hurt. “Your lessons on manners.” With an utterly false grin, I left the suite and hurried back to my own quarters, Sergeant Ferris close on my heels.
Maybe Tobiah and his mother had been right: I should have gone after Patrick when I had the chance.
In my bedroom, I tore open the bag of Black Knife supplies. The clothes and boots were my size, the latter with black ospreys embroidered around the top, invisible except to those looking closely. The belt—black, obviously—accommodated several weapons and tools, including my daggers that had been taken, my grappling hook and line, and a pouch with coiled silk cords. There was also a tiny handheld crossbow and a black-handled sword, meant to fit in a baldric strapped across my back.
Though several of my own tools were included—I recognized the worn parts on my lock picks—everything else was just like Black Knife’s, the size adjusted to fit me.
“And to think,” I muttered at the array of darkness on my bed, “I really just wanted pants.”
There wasn’t a note, but I knew where everything had come from. Tobiah must have worked for weeks to put together this bag.
By the time the Hawksbill clock tower chimed twenty, four hours before midnight, I was ready. All in black, my braid shoved down the back of my shirt, I armed myself and stepped onto the balcony.
I pushed up to my toes; the boots were stiff with newness, and felt strange around my calves, but the treads were deep and strong. I could climb.
Scanning the darkness for guards, I hooked my grapple to the rail, near where it met the palace wall, and rappelled to the ground. My toes touched with barely a sound, and I coiled the line to stow it on my belt. There was a place for everything. Beautiful.
Soft voices carried on the breeze, coming from the far end of the palace. There’d be more nearby. In the forest. In the ruins of the outbuildings. I avoided them all as I moved toward Greenstone.
Usually this area was quiet after dark, when most of the workers returned to their homes, but now, a soft rumble of life swirled up to my perch on the Hawksbill wall. Voices skittered from inside doorways and alleyways where people huddled under threadbare blankets and in patched caps and jackets.
Heart sinking, I sidled along the wall to plan my path through the district. I shouldn’t have been surprised to find dozens—maybe hundreds—of displaced people hiding here, and I couldn’t begrudge them the meager warmth they found in the lee of wide buildings. But their presence was going to make my investigation more difficult. Greenstone roofs were harder to navigate than those in Thornton and the Flags. Here, the buildings were spaced to allow for large carts. Railroad tracks sliced through a few streets, though in the century since trains had been decommissioned, much of the iron had been stripped to put to better use.
“Hush,” someone hissed.
The hum of voices was silenced immediately, replaced by the thud thud of boots on pavement. I pressed myself flat on top of the wall and watched over the slight lip in the stone.
Lanterns held aloft, police poured through the streets. “This is a restricted area!” one called. “No one is permitted to be here after dark. If you leave now, you’ll receive no punishment. But if we have to remove you by force, you’ll be taken out of the city and not permitted inside again.”
No one moved. The police formed lines down the center of the streets, peering into the shadows, though with those lanterns their night vision must have been shot. “We know you’re here. You have two minutes.”
I held my breath, waiting to see if anyone would follow orders, but the homeless pressed tighter into hiding places, and shadows shifted in the grime-smeared windows of abandoned buildings.
The first minute slipped by.
“Just step into the light,” one of the officers shouted. “This area is dangerous. You can’t stay here. But there are shelters in the Flags.”