Chương 288: You Were Supposed To Understand

Sixthday dawned, and for once this week I don't need to worry about Meadwhite. Because this time, I've got something more pressing to worry about. There is nothing like an immediate issue to take the pressure off of a delayed issue. And today, I've got not just an immediate issue, but the resolution to a long-delayed issue. Ten months delayed, even. There's nothing quite like revenge that is finally delivered after waiting way too long. This is one of the big ones. I shower carefully, brush my hair thoroughly.

And I put on a simple day dress- too simple, really. Not much more than a shift, and I even left off my usual petticoats. Low profile. And then over it I crafted a look, conjuring clothes over them, a costume. Bleached leather, beige and cream. The skirts were ruched and gathered, arranged in tiers, with the shoulders built up and the bodice reinforced. I wanted something that felt ready for action, ready for a fight. But not conspicuously so.

Not enough that people looking would say 'this girl sure is spoiling for a fight'. Just enough that I know I'm ready. Because today's the day. I avoided Elica because I was not sure I could really act innocent and blithe in front of her. I don't want her to figure out that I'm up to something, and I don't want her to start wondering what I'm up to.

Worst-case scenario is that Elica says "Hmm, Natalie sure is acting suspiciously on the last Sixthday of Winterwane, I'd better log that in my calendar and check back later to see if anything significant happened on that day that she might be involved with." Yes that's improbable to the point of absurdity. But the stakes here are really damn high and I don't like counting anything as fickle as probability when there are real consequences at work.

I haven't checked and rechecked a plan this many times since Lachel Freckentop died. I portaled out of my dorm room while Elica was in the shower, and then I headed straight for the Harigold central residence in Hearstcliff. Technically it's for anyone in the close family, but only two of my cousins live here full-time. I appeared, floating over the house, and lowered myself to the front stoop, and let myself in.

I startled a maid, which I felt guilty about, but nowhere near as startled as if I had just teleported into the house itself.

"Breakfast?" I said, as if that was somehow a complete thought, but the young lady understood me well enough and led me to the dining room where Petty and Bruce were waiting. She was dressed in her housecoat, which is reasonable for seven minutes before second bell. She had probably only been sitting for a minute or two. Bruce was dressed for going out, more or less. Really, he's dressed for having gone out, come back, laid down in bed fully clothed and only just woke up. I don't think he slept well last night.

I'm pretty sure he woke up, decided to get dressed so he'd be ready, and then exhaustion hit him and he 'rested his eyes' for about an hour.

"Nope," I said, shaking my head. I walked to the third place setting at the table and sat down.

"Bruce, when breakfast is over I'm sending you up for a shower and a change of clothes. We have plenty of time. Just because I get here very very early does not mean that you are acceptable going out like that."

"Fine, I'll change," he said, reaching for a coffee. Just coffee this time. For once, he has not adulterated his beverages with alcoholic spirits. I guess he wants to make sure he is very aware of everything today.

"Not just change," I said, shaking a scolding finger.

"You slept in your clothes, that means you need a shower."

"But there won't be anyone I know there!" he snapped. Irritated. His nerves are acting up already. It's understandable and I don't hold it against him. This day is almost as big for him as it is for me. I shook my head again.

"Listen, some day you might learn how to be inconspicuous and blend into an environment. Until then, you listen to people who do know. If you put fresh clothes on, you're the guy that put clean clothes on without showering. That's something that people might notice. We're hoping not, because the intention is that nobody sees you at all. But if anything goes wrong, we will be minimizing consequences. These are my conditions."

"Conditions?" I had been giving him a hard stare, but I broke it off when the serving door opened. I smiled to the kitchen staff that were bringing out the breakfast platters. I thanked them and waited for them to leave before I answered Bruce's glower.

"Yes. Because we are traveling to a distant location for the express purpose of doing something that is very necessary but very illegal. That makes me the subject-matter expert here, because I've done that kind of thing a lot. You're on your first trip, so yes, I have conditions." I waited a beat, watching his stubborn face.

"Or, I just come back and tell you how it went." He grumbled, sighed, and relented. Starting his day without a nip seemed to ruin his mood somewhat. Or maybe I was being a bit of an asshole. My nerves were up too, and there were lots of reasons. The business of the day. The continuing pressure of Meadwhite. And even Lydpel, that was still weighing on my mind like it's not done and dusted. That issue feels incomplete, and I can't even say why. Perhaps because ultimately it was too easy?

It doesn't look good for me if I'm so suspicious by nature that even things that go easy just make me more stressed out. And Petunia seemed too damn tired to play peacemaker between us. Her yawn was huge and mighty, and she hid it behind one wrist as she reached out with a serving fork and speared almost a quarter of a sliced ham, and transferred it to her plate.

"I appreciate you both being circumspect and not ruining my breakfast," she said, rolling her eyes towards Bruce and myself. I am a powerful sorceress. I am extremely dangerous in a confrontation. I'm tough, strong, and fast. I can fly and explode things. I don't need to be afraid when Petunia Harigold glares at me meaningfully. She's a noncombatant, doesn't even have any stats for fighting or damage. None of these facts make her less imposing.

Petunia is intimidating when she's polite, but first thing in the morning with her sleep-scarf and housecoat, I'm inclined to mind all my manners. So while we sat at the breakfast table, we conspicuously did not discuss our business of the day and instead focused on breakfast. The cousins have a good chef that does good work, and I should come around more often. We ate, with only minor small talk or "pass the salt".

After the salad and a couple of boiled eggs, I sent Bruce upstairs to get washed and changed, and Petty lumbered to her chambers with a fresh cup of hot coffee to try to pull herself together for the day. Some people just aren't themselves early in the mornings. That left me to my own so I chatted with the maids, and Gedes, while they cleared up after breakfast. We chatted, and they were amiable, especially after I started helping.

One of the benefits of being a noble with magic is that you can do something productive and helpful in your own home without making it awkward for class-conscious staff members. Maybe the maid doesn't want me to roll up my sleeves at the basin with her, but she doesn't mind me turning the scullery into a fairy-godmother wonderland of flying soap and sloshing water that ends with everything perfectly clean in record time.

Petunia joined me and wished us luck, and then Bruce came down looking like he had not slept in his clothes, and wearing clothes that did not look like he'd slept in them. Then I walked us into a sitting room and portaled us away to Claster City, where our quarry awaited. After that, it's just knocking out the steps of the procedure. Confirm that the message to the hotel had been delivered and received. Confirm the venue reservation and exchange payment vouchers through a dispatch agency cut-out.

Double-check instructions for the venue management. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Bruce did not think it was quite so routine.

"This is some serious cloak-and-dagger," he mused, as I came back out of the dispatch agency's office. I had colored my skin and hair, added sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat, with a bit of padding added inside my cheeks and dress. He was wearing a drop-front hood I had conjured for him. If anyone came around asking later, we didn't need them identifying him either.

"What, it's just a third-party dispatch agency to deliver messages and confirm delivery," I said.

"It's not like I was going to use my watermarked stationery for something like this."

"You're in full disguise. I'm in a full disguise. You're using an assumed name, which you have a credit line for, in a city I did not realize you'd ever been to," he said.

"You already know exactly which dispatch agency does not require counter-signed payment confirmation, all this is just to rent out an inconspicuous building to arrange a secret meeting. A building that you chose specifically because people can enter and leave it without being seen. That is very cloak and dagger!" I sighed as if I could feel all the weight of those procedures.

"First of all, every one of these precautions is necessary. Paper trails will trip you up more than anything else. And it's really not fair to push all that into one big pile. Some of this is self-taught, like the disguises. The assumed names are just something I picked up from reading a few novels. Trying to cope with my brother's interference taught me how to ask the right questions from the agencies and courier companies.

I've already had my accounts and assets distributed widely because I do business in almost every duchy and province of the kingdom. And the last..." How do I explain to him that I know the right way to prepare a murder site? I can't just explain Skeici Gianwen to him.

".. I've had some bad influences," I admitted instead. He laughed a little, and his walking-stick tapped on the pavement as we walked across the street, checking traffic carefully.

"I did not mean anything by it. You sound so defensive! I was just wondering if my famous cousin was also a spy." My teeth started grinding without my permission. I activated the capybara, and took a deep breath. He didn't mean anything by it.

"Being a spy is something specific," I said.

"And I'm not nearly there. I'm just a bit sneaky, and very thorough with my precautions. I try to build things up so that I don't have to lie about them, because I can't." He turned that over in his head.

"Huh. I never would have considered that. One would learn to be very cunning, wouldn't one? If you could never fib to protect yourself, you need to create a situation where nobody would ever even bother to ask you the questions that could endanger you." Either that or spend an extra mana every single day just to have the serpent's essence available at all times, I complained mentally. But really, my way is easier.

At the fourth bell, he and I were at a curtained window under a shaded awning, invisible from outside, watching the street. A hired carriage pulled up, and a familiar man stepped out of the cab, wearing his green-and-brown livery. Bruce stared down, watched the man.

"Now?" The newcomer walked into an alleyway that curved away, branching into a dozen lanes that went to several different businesses. There were few windows overlooking this area, maximum privacy. The normal customers of this place paid well for discretion and prudence. But those customers were not here today, I had rented out the whole building so we'd have the perfect opportunity.

"Yes," I said.

"Come on, let's get into position." The bathhouse was echoing with small drips of water. We had the place to ourselves, and without anyone else to make sound we were stuck in an eerie half-world. You can never stop a bathhouse from having a slow drip of water, and it reverberated off the tile walls and ceiling, the sound carried forever. A drop hits a puddle, and the water ripples in concentric circles, the sound ripples out in similar circles.

The sounds never die, they just reverberate until the air forgets what silence feels like. I chose this one for ambience. The porcelain white was unbroken and unadulterated, just blazing ivory that glowed in the ambient candlelight. Tile throws that light back diffused, water throws it back in rippling ribbons, but even the diffused script-candle light is eye-aching in such a perfect whiteness. It was a perfect match to the terrycloth robes that the management issued.

We took ours from small cubbies at the entrance, to be replaced with your own clothes. Paper-white sandals that whisked and whispered against the slick-smooth floor. And then there's me. In all of this room, the only spot of colors are my eyes. I stand with my hands in my pockets, with no shift or smallclothes showing at the folded neckline of my robe.

Yheta's greens and browns looked like a rude intrusion into this opaque world, he leaned in like he knew he was a smudge against the antiseptic perfection I had found here. A dozen pools, all with the slightest ripples, a dozen pillars with a dozen candles, and me. The gentlest wind blew my hair, wafting it off my shoulders. I had tried a lot of combinations, which doors to open to get that perfect drift of a breeze. Yeah I won't front- I spent quite a bit of time making sure this was perfect.

Aura farming is an art for dedicated students.

"Natalie?" he said, and his voice joined the dripping water, traveling once around the room before it broke into a hundred pieces that walked over each other and muddled down into a mangled murmuration.

"Yes," I said. My voice fell into his ears without touching the walls of this place. I nodded to him. and he stepped in through the door. He was in conflict. On the one hand, the most Yheta parts of his soul were eager and exultant. Natalie has invited him to a bathhouse! A naked place! Rented out and emptied so they would not have to share! Surely this means that today Yheta gets his due!

But then there's the part of his hindbrain that has been paying attention to his uncle Lewot for years, and has developed a sense of self-preservation. And that part of Yheta is aware that everything about this feels wrong. If he listened to his smarter instincts, he would walk away safely. Just pay attention to the real world instead of the version of it he has made up in his head to justify his actions. If he acts smart, he will live through the day.

Or, he will see something he wants and try to grab it, like always. Yheta's steps moved slowly. He was trepidatious but he approached, he was nervous but it did not stop him. He had his eye on the bait and he walked in.

"You asked to see me," he said. The echoes took his words- see me seeme cimicimismeeee...

"I did," I said, and I let my voice travel and stumble and ricochet off the hard-edged walls. dididddid.... His smile started to creep wider, and his feet clopped on the tile as he walked closer.

"I've waited for -" The curtain to the waterworks slid itself aside, white silk on a bleached-white wooden rail. And another blaze of unwelcome color walked in. Ruddy skin, blaze-red hair. And a tap, tap, tap that accompanied him. The wooden walking stick measured itself against Bruce's footfalls. The shifting lights in here caught his glasses, arcing away. Yheta's face fell.

"What- I don't-""He's here to watch," I told Yheta. I immediately regretted phrasing it that way, but I refused to show my reservation. I never took my eyes away, just let my gaze morph into a glare by degrees, a swelling of disdain that at long last I did not bother to conceal at all. For the first time ever I let every single thing that I feel about Yheta Snairlin filter into my face. The three years that his stalking was my only relief from loneliness.

The months of cultivating his naivete so I can steal his livelihood. The secrets he tried to keep, the grabbing, the excuses, the interruptions. The hundreds of times I have needed to push him back. Most people are lucky if they get two warnings from me. Nobody has built up a well of debt on my patience like this. Bruce glanced at me.

"Him?" hm-m-m-m-m, said the walls.

"I don't-" I nodded. Yheta glanced at Bruce. Bruce watched Yheta. Yheta looked back at me, eyes widening. He started to mouth a name. Wendy.

"Yheta," I said, steady and strong, "you were supposed to understand." And then I crumpled him into himself, the surprise was still on his face when every organ imploded. He was gone, leaving only a hole in the air that pulled wind from every corner of the room. And in a second I released it. Thunder boomed throughout, blasting our hair back. And the room went red. Pink water rippled, crimson dripped off the ceiling. The echoes rolled and rumbled.

All the white of the bathhouse was transformed in an instant as the gore painted every surface.

"I'll clean this up," I said.

"You can go shower off." Bruce took off his glasses, their lenses were rose-colored now, panes painted in the death of a man who has haunted us all. He used a clean corner of his robe to wipe the round lenses.

"Thank you," he said.

"We'll talk. Away from here." His footfalls echoed through the dripping reverberating echoing fall of blood. I waved my hands, and the liquefied remains began to gather together. I conducted the essences to clean this up while Bruce, filled to the belly with long-delayed vengeance, walked to the showers to cleanse himself of the blood.