Page 2 of Needed in the Night
My fingernails dug into my palms, but I kept walking. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard some variation on that particular insult. Apparently my predecessor had been very friendly with the guards. I didn’t judge her for it, but I wasn’t interested in clandestine threesomes with the Erotovo’s armored palace defenders. I was here on a mission and I didn’t mix business with pleasure, even to relieve stress. Too many ways that could go wrong. Too many lives at stake.
Not to mention, men who signed up to serve a despot didn’t exactly moisten my panties.
Our walk down the winding staircase from the palace’s third floor to its first underground level took less than two minutes. Every step, every breath, seemed to simultaneously take an eternity and not long enough, as if I both desperately wanted to reach the kitchen but dreaded it.
No signs of trouble. No indications that our journey to the kitchen had attracted unusual notice. No frantic warning from my shadowbat. Everything remained quiet, except the chatter of voices drifting up from the kitchens, where the staff was hard at work unpacking the provisions brought by the cargo carrier, clearing up from breakfast, and preparing the midday meal.
Still, the little hairs on the back of my neck prickled more intensely with each step and my uneasiness grew. Desperation led me to reach out for some kind of reassurance.
Brae, I thought. My mental voice sounded strained even to me.Give me news.
Tell me my instincts are wrong, I willed him, while giving Novee the tiniest of reassuring looks so maybe she’d stop shaking.
His reply came just as we reached the bottom of the stairs and the wide hall that led to the main kitchen.
All seems well. Brae’s voice in my head was quiet. Myshadowbat companion probably sensed my tension and was doing his best to ease my fears from a distance.The Erotovo hasn’t emerged from his council chamber. All guards appear to be on routine patrols. No unusual activity.
I let out a breath.Thank you.
I wished Brae was with us, but his job right now was to slip through the palace, keeping watch and reporting any concerns or potential dangers. I feared for his safety as much as ours, though he was all but invisible.
Novee and I had made it down the third floor hall and the stairs. That was two of the four tasks before us. Only two more to go.
No guards in the hall that led to the main kitchen. There seldom were, but I breathed just a little easier seeing an empty, echoing corridor before us. No Vorcian marble or Fylorian tapestries or fine sculpture down here, either. The Erotovo didn’t care about impressing anyone who lived or worked in the bowels of the palace. The kitchens contained the finest foods and the most high-quality prep equipment built by monk-gastronomists on Bacora to ensure his banquets were second to none, but this hall and the staff quarters on this level were mean at best.
Our steps sounded much different on cold, damp stone than on marble. I liked the sound far better, though, and not just because it meant we were getting close to the doors. Marble reminded me of my own former prisons. Every footstep on its gleaming surface catapulted me back to nightmares I’d give anything to banish.
The main kitchen bustled with activity. Chefs, cooks, assistants, assorted household staff, and the uniformed crew of the cargo carrier rushed in all directions, carrying crates, platters, dishes, ingredients, and utensils.
Novee's chest was heaving now. She reached out as if trying to grab my arm before she dropped her shaking hand back toher side. At least we’d made it to the kitchen before she started hyperventilating. If I couldn’t calm her down, the odds of a successful clandestine exit would dwindle even further.
A trilling voice cut through the clamor. “Ach…Halena, Novee, my loves.” Vila, one of the cooks, hurried to meet us in the doorway. The little four-armed Manorian clapped both pairs of hands, sending puffs of sweet-smelling flour into the air. “I am late getting your basket ready. I am sorry, I am sorry. You will come with me to the pantry to choose what you like?”
I let out a breath. If the basket of high-calorie, carbohydrate-laden food Novee needed to sustain herself during a strenuous practice session had been waiting for us, something had gone wrong and we needed to abort the plan. An invitation to the pantry meant everything was going according to schedule. The lack of a warning from Brae supported that assumption.
If only my stomach and those little hairs on the back of my neck would get the message.
The carrier’s crew hurried in and out through the wide doors that led to the landing pad, bringing in fully laden antigrav sleds, unloading them, and returning to the ship with the empty sled for another load.
The clock in my head was now ticking so loudly that I almost expected it to be audible to everyone in the kitchen, if not the palace itself.
If timing had been crucial before, now it was everything.
I used the mild pandemonium as an excuse to put my hand reassuringly on Novee's lower back and guide her as we followed Vila across the kitchen and into one of four main pantries.
Provisions filled shelves and cold storage units floor to ceiling on three walls inside the pantry. A cargo carrier crew member wearing a full-face breathing apparatus and coverall was busy unloading when we entered.
“Is full,” Vila said to another crew member, a diminutiveYmarian who approached the door with a full sled. She pointed to the storeroom next door. “Unload there.”
“Yes, madame,” the Ymarian said, all three of their eyes downcast as they guided their sled away.
Vila was no taller and weighed less than the Ymarian, but she had an aura of authority that demanded respect. I worried about her safety once we were gone, but I had to trust the plan we’d put in place with her help. I had to have faith.
The carrier crew member with a covered face put a crate down near the door. I heard a very quietbeep.
The hidden holo projector activated. To hide us from prying eyes, it created the illusion in the doorway that Vila, Novee, and I went about the pantry collecting items for the basket.
“Now,” the crew member said, her voice tinny and rough through the respirator.
