Page 3 of The Spy

The B was his Uncle Braxton, chief spymaster for Toval and one of Karl’s adoptive father’s older brothers.Well, sort of.For political reasons, only one of Karl’s fathers was legally his father, Charmaine Musen, who had given Karl his last name.Char was married to Prince Fenwick, Fen, who couldn’t officially adopt Karl, but they both raised him anyway.

Karl had his orders, and he was going to do his best to complete them.Tonight he had to find that courtyard and see what had happened to Ama.First, though, he needed to get through dinner.

The barmaid returned, carrying a laden tray.She deposited a bowl of stew, a plate with two crusty rolls, and a mug of beer in front of him.“Enjoy.”She smiled at him before leaving.While she seemed friendly enough, the hairs on the back of Karl’s neck stood up.

A glance around showed the room was bright enough to conceal any errant flares of light from anyone watching.Karl called on his magic and sent it to explore the food.He didn’t have Char’s ability to neutralize poison, nor anything fancy like royal magic, but his magic was unique in its own way.Gold-colored magic was exclusive to royal magic.Green was of the body, so healing and military.Blue was household magic, including cooking, cleaning, and construction.Karl’s magic was red, which usually had only one purpose: assassination.However, what red magic really held sway over was decay.He could take a perfectly healthy plant and turn it into old fertilizer in seconds, and in some cases, he could reverse the decaying process to bring something back to health—although that was usually to reverse the effects of red magic use.He couldn’t heal or bring back the dead.

His magic told Karl the stew was merely simple stew.Beef chunks, carrots, onion, potatoes, and celery.Some beer and spices for flavoring.Karl would have used beef stock, and either okra or dried peas as a thickening agent, but the general taste was acceptable on his palate.The bread was a failure to his baker’s eye.The crumb was dense, which either meant their yeast was too old and didn’t have the oomph to make the dough rise properly, or they hadn’t given it enough time to proof before baking.Possibly both.The crust was flaky with a good crunch and, despite the crumb, did sop up the liquid from the stew, so Karl enjoyed it anyway.

The beer, on the other hand, was drugged.A decent barley beer and a good foam layer at the top that meant the tap wasn’t too old, but Karl’s magic sensed the extra bit of oddness inside which said something that didn’t belong had been added.A sleeping pill, Karl realized, chewing on bread to keep his frown from showing on his face.That was actually convenient.

He flooded the mug with his magic, forcing the contents to age and lose potency.The result was incredibly flat beer with a sharply bitter aftertaste and zero alcohol, but the sleeping drug was neutralized.Karl made sure to drink everything in the mug, killing the terrible taste with bites of stew and bread.When every dish was empty, Karl let out a happy sigh and relaxed into the chair, his legs stretched out in front of him under the table.

Finding the specific courtyard outside the castle dungeon wouldn’t be easy.For one, there was no telling how many courtyards surrounded the palace, and Karl didn’t know where the dungeons were located.For another, he would need to evade the Yarokai guards.Karl had barely been able to navigate the streets in the hazy light of twilight.The reason the city didn’t bother with streetlights was likely because the general population didn’t need them; the Yarokai were a step above the general population in ability.Evading the Yarokai was going to be difficult, but, hopefully, not impossible.

As far as Karl was aware, there were four classes of people in Yaroi.The lowest class and the most derided were people without any magic at all.The second lowest class were the people with magic like the rest of the continent, the green, blue, and red magic everyone else in the world used.But not in Yaroi.Yaroikians had their own, unique magic.The highest class in Yaroi were the royals with their golden magic that allowed them some sort of extra abilities with their shapeshifting.However, the most populated class was the middle to upper class, called the Kai.Every single member of the Kai had the ability to shift between human and animal form.Within the Kai were additional subclasses: carnivores above herbivores, and the more dominant and powerful the carnivore, the higher the rank.Nobles were comprised of only the fiercest creatures—wolves, bears, lions, and even snakes—and the rest of the Kai comprised a descending rank of creatures.The lowest rank held creatures like rabbits, but even a rabbit was above a green magic user in societal ranking.

What all that meant was the majority of residents in Yari could see perfectly well in the dark, thanks to their animal abilities, so they didn’t bother wasting taxpayer coin on lamps.When Karl snuck out and tried to find this Ama person, he would be at a distinct disadvantage as a mere human with only red magic.However, not only was very little understood about the capabilities of red magic since it was the rarest of the colors, but the Yarokai looked down on it so much Karl doubted they even knew what little was actually publicly available about its uses.Karl could definitely use that to his advantage.First, though, he had to convince anyone watching him that the sleeping drug was definitely going to ensure Karl would be completely incapable of moving again until the morning.

Enough time had probably passed for the drug to begin taking effect.Karl let his head droop so his chin was resting on his chest, and his eyes slid closed.A moment later he started to tilt in his seat, and then jerked upright, blinking blearily around the room.He stood slowly, using the table for leverage, and tottered his way through the crowd and out into the lobby.He knocked into the desk and leaned on it heavily, blinking slowly.

“Sorry,” he said to the woman sitting there.“The long day appears to be catching up with me.Do you know what time I should leave here in the morning to get to the caravan staging area in time to book one?”

She smirked at him but quickly covered that with a concerned frown.“Too much travel will do that to a body.Curfew ends at five in the morning, so you should leave here then.I’ll have someone come by to wake you just before.”

“Is that—” Karl stifled a yawn.“Sorry.Is that going to cost me more?”

“No, no.It’s on the house.”She lowered her voice to a whisper and leaned closer.“Between you and me, we do it to ensure you’re gone from here early.Gives us plenty of time to clean the room for the next occupant, you see.”

“Makes sense.Thanks, then.I’ll see you in the morning.”

Karl gave her a half-hearted wave that showed it was too much work to lift his arm any higher, then toddled to the stairs.He used the banister for leverage as he slowly made his way upward.Only once he was on the upstairs landing, out of sight of any onlookers, did he stand up straight again.He wanted to try out a theory.Smaller inns like this one often didn’t bother with the expense of locks with a master key.They were likely to cut corners instead.Karl slid his key into the door with a one burned into it, but nothing happened.He moved down to the door with a two, and the lock clicked open.He quickly relocked it and continued down the hall, going to his own room six and letting himself inside.He locked the door behind him and did a belly flop onto the bed, as if he had lost the strength to lie down like a normal person, hoping the thud was audible downstairs.

The key he had been given for room six apparently opened the even numbered doors, Karl mused as he lay there, his escape plan beginning to form.He rolled over and blew out the candle in the wall-mounted holder over the bed, plunging the room into darkness, and then he didn’t move again until after his eyes became accustomed to the darkness.The shade over the window was pulled down, but it was slightly narrower than the window itself, leaving cracks someone outside could peek through if they wanted.As long as he was careful of those angles, he ought to be good for now.

Karl slowly rolled off the bed, landing softly on the floor on the side closer to the door.First he removed his shoes.One, he let topple to the side of the door as if it had been offhandedly tossed there.The other, he planted firmly, sole down into the floor where any attempt at opening the door fully would hit it.The hard sole was slip resistant, designed to be worn in a kitchen where floors could be wet and slippery, and in a contest between the door and the shoe, the shoe would win.The shoe’s placement blocking the door only allowed barely enough room for someone to poke their head around the door, or for someone slim to slide through, but anyone of normal size would need to move the shoe to get in and out.This would aid in the illusion that Karl was safely tucked into bed.

Next, he moved into a clear bit of floor, lying on his back so he could do some sit-ups.He rolled over and did some push-ups next, before rolling onto his back again to do more sit-ups.He needed to work up a sweat, but quietly—anything that would get his scent permeating through the room, and all over the clothes he had already been wearing since early this morning without alerting anyone to the sounds of his exercise.

When he was clammy from sweat, Karl stopped.He didn’t want to raise his heartbeat too much or start panting for breath or make any noise that might signal he was up to something.He took off his sweaty clothes and used any dry spots on the cloth to wipe any damp areas on his body.

A spare blanket was folded on the floor under the bed.Karl rolled it into a lumpy form approximating the shape of a human curled up into a ball, then placed it under the covers of the bed.On top of the blanket, he draped his stinking clothes.

If anyone tried to peek into the room, the door would get caught on his shoe to prevent them from actually entering quietly.However, they would be able to see what appeared to be a body on the bed from that distance and would smell him clearly.

Now to ensure he wouldn’t get caught while out and about.The soap provided with the water pitcher and cloth was distinctly flowery and thereby easily trackable.Karl would use it in the morning to conceal his scent but for now stayed away.He dug into his bag instead, impressed by how well the searchers had returned everything when they were done.The clothes were folded along the correct creases, none of the papers in his folio were bent or wrinkled, and everything was in the same order and organized as before.The only thing Karl saw that indicated the bag had been searched was the slightest melting of the edge of the Timmonsville wax seal over the strings tying his leather knife case closed.The strings were only for show, of course, but they looked legitimate.Karl unhooked one of the strings from a hidden catch and unrolled the case, revealing all of his knives in perfect order.He rerolled the case and set it aside, then returned to digging through his bag.At the very bottom—because the things Karl needed somehow always sank to the very bottom—he found his sliver of travel soap.Tovalian healers had designed the soap to be anti-bacterial, so it would remove all traces of smell from Karl’s body, and since it was unscented, he wouldn’t add any additional odors he could be tracked with.

Getting clean took only a few minutes, and Karl changed into dark-gray pants and shirt before repacking his bag and setting it back where the searchers had left it.The gray would meld better in the city environment than black, and it looked less suspicious in luggage.Preparations complete, Karl found a space behind the door and out of sight of the window to sit and wait until it was time for the rescue mission to begin.

Chapter Two

THE AMBIENT NOISEfrom the bar downstairs slowly died down over the next hour or so, but at 9:00 p.m.—when the proprietress said they closed—the noise abruptly stopped completely.Sounds from the street outside Karl’s window continued for a bit longer, but by the 9:30 p.m.curfew absolute silence descended over the city, as if it had gone into stasis for the night.Karl remained where he was, leaning against the wall behind him and waiting.

He was dozing lightly, head resting against his bent knees, when the barest scrape and click from the door indicated someone had unlocked it.Karl froze in place, taking slow, shallow breaths so he didn’t make any noise.The door bounced off the waiting shoe and a muffled curse followed, and then the shape of a person’s head appeared in the narrow opening as a dim outline in the darkened room.

“His damned shoes are in the way,” a woman’s voice whispered in a low hiss to someone else in the hallway.She sounded like the proprietress Karl had spoken to when he checked in.

“Then he’s probably still there,” a man’s voice whispered back.

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