Page 36 of Trial of Bronze and Blood
A dead end.
It doesn’t mean there’s nothing to find, just that Cato doesn’t have any visible incriminating evidence. She would search Marcus’s room, but he should’ve destroyed his Faithless orders the moment he stepped through the gate to Anziano so they wouldn’t fall into the wrong hands. The only way Cato would have a record of the orders is if he wrote it down somewhere.
Which reminds me.
She heads back into Cato’s chambers, closing the door after her. It locks on its own, and she glances back, impressed by the mechanism needed to accomplish that.
“Did you find anything?”Sabina asks.
Dru shakes her head, whispering, “Is the courtyard clear?”
Sabina peeks out through the crack in the door and shakes her head.
“There are two guards loitering near the pool. And they don’t appear to be moving any time soon.”
“Can you distract them?”
Sabina looks around the room behind them until they land on something, her eyes lighting up. “I certainly can.”
Leaving her spot at the door, she picks up the linens she brought in moments ago and holds them high enough to nearly block her view.
Sabina glances back as Dru opens the door for her. “Wait for my signal.”
“What signal?”
But Sabina’s already gone. Dru watches her through the thin space between the doors, watching for anything out of the ordinary.
Sabina heads straight for the guards, raising the pile of linens a bit higher, right before bumping into one of the men. Yelping, she loses her grip on the linens, and they fall into the pool.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she says, running her hands through her hair nervously.She’s good. “I tried to carry too much at once. Would you help me?”
The two men agree, kneeling down and facing away from Dru. While they fish out the soaked linens, she creeps out of Cato’s chambers and gently closes his door. Sticking close to the wall, she heads for the front doors. Opening them slightly, she shuts them loud enough for everyone in the courtyard to hear.
She heads for her room then, pretending to notice what happened out of the corner of her eye.
“Sabina, are you all right?” she wonders, feigning concern.
“Nothing to worry about.” Sabina removes one of the smaller linens from the pool and rings it out.
Dru decides to play it up a little. “I hope those weren’t mine.”
Sabina purses her lips. “Don’t worry,ospite d’onore, I’ll fetch new ones.”
Dru nods. “Good. I’ll be in my chamber.”
She heads into her room and shuts the door behind her.
Letting out a breath, she places her tools back inside her cloak. Even though she didn’t find what she wanted to in Cato’s office, she did manage to become what some might consider friends with one of the only female staff. And Cato’s cousin, nonetheless. Something that can only work to her advantage.
Sobering, she reaches inside another pocket of her cloak to find the slip of paper from the Faithless.This is the last order given to both Ovi and me.Her chest tightens. Dru will never know who the man behind the blue door was. Maybe he was a soldier who died that night in the battle against Namicus, or one of the few officers in the village. Perhaps he was a courier given an important message to the Imperium.
Swallowing past the hardness in her throat, she first looks to the lantern beside her as a way to burn it. But something about it doesn’t feel grand enough.I’ll wait for night, she decides, tearing it into tiny pieces and placing them inside an empty coin purse. She’ll take them down to the beach and scatter them among the waves.
Like Ovi would’ve wanted for her own ashes, had Dru been allowed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DRUSILLA
