“Take a closer look, I guess.”
“But how?” Daemon hovered in the air. It was uncomfortable, not having a plan. If Sora were here, she would have mapped out what to do ahead of time. Fairy, on the other hand, had no problem with winging it.
“Fly in,” she said. “We can cling to the walls and eavesdrop.”
It was as good an idea as any. He swooped in toward the castle.
Fairy began to whisper a gecko spell to stick to the wall.
“Wait,” Daemon said. “You don’t need to do that.”
He concentrated on the ledge right beneath the tall windows and imagined it extending itself.
“What are you doing?” Fairy asked.
The stone glowed blue at the ends. Then the ledge began to grow sideways, until it was five feet longer on one side of the windows.
“Making you a foothold.” He smiled and flew over to deposit Fairy on it.
“Wow.” She tested its sturdiness with one foot, then, judging it strong enough, hopped on with her other. “Much better than clinging with a gecko spell.”
Daemon landed on the ledge a bit precariously—it was hard to fit the width of his wolf body and all his paws in a narrow line—and shifted into human form. He was happily covered in a proper uniform and cloak, too. All his practice had paid off.
It wasn’t a moment too soon either, because a patrol rounded the corner of the castle below. “Guards,” he whispered.
They pressed themselves against the wall and remained still.
When the guards had marched out of view, Daemon and Fairy cast moth spells, which not only allowed them to communicate ultrasonically, but also gave them exceptional hearing. They leaned harder against the wall to try to listen to the conversation inside.
Even with their best eavesdropping spell, though, the voices were muffled. The bloodstone was too thick to conduct sound well.
Daemon began to miss Sora again. She would have thought through all this beforehand, and they wouldn’t have gotten stuck like this, perched uselessly on a narrow ledge in the rain.
“I’m going to peek in the windows so we at least know who’s in there,” Fairy said.
“Don’t! You might be seen.”
“I’ll be quick, and I’ll stay low. I’m small. No one will notice me.” She lowered herself to all fours and slithered forward on the ledge on her belly. When she was beneath the windowpane, she lifted her head just enough to spy through the glass.
“It looks like a study or library,” Fairy said. “Prince Gin’s in there. And a grizzly-looking old ryuu, a couple of younger men, and three women.” She ducked.
“That’s only seven.” Daemon paced along his short stretch of the ledge. “I saw eight silhouettes when we flew in. I’m sure of it.”
Fairy raised her head and peered in again, scanning the room a little too long for Daemon’s comfort.
“Get down,” he said. “What if the eighth person was Sora’s sister, but she went invisible when she saw us?”
“Then she’d pounce on us any moment now,” Fairy said.
Daemon prepared himself for an attack. Fairy crawled back from the window and readied her knives.
But there was nothing, not even a gust of wind, and after a few minutes, Daemon relaxed.
“It must have been shadows playing with my eyes,” he said.
Fairy nodded. “There were definitely only seven people in there. One of the women was talking and using a pointer on a map on the wall.”
“We have to get inside and see it for ourselves,” Daemon said.
“We’ll go as soon as the meeting ends.”
Time seemed to slow as they waited, as if the hourglass had been turned sideways and the sand forgot to fall. Eventually, though, the glow from the windows dimmed as the fire inside died down. Daemon snuck a peek through the windows.
“The room’s finally empty,” he said. “Can you break us in?”
Fairy nodded. “I’ll need to remove a pane of glass big enough for us to fit through.” Although the wall was floor-to-ceiling windows, most were too small. “The ones at the top will work,” she said, pointing.
Daemon squinted at them, looking from the narrow window frames to his own body. “It’s going to be a tight squeeze.”
“I guess you’ll have to stay out here while I go inside and have all the fun,” Fairy teased.
“How did I get stuck with such a cruel girlfriend?”
She smiled and pecked him on the cheek. It warmed away the chill of the rain.
“I’ll cut the glass as close to the frame as I can to give you space,” she said. “Just hold me steady.”
They cast gecko spells this time and climbed. At the top of the windows, Daemon stuck one of his hands firmly to the wall and made sure his feet were also well attached. Then he looped his free arm around Fairy’s waist; this freed her up to work with both her hands.
She pulled a slim vial from her botanicals pouch and what looked like a thin paintbrush. She dipped the brush into the viscous pink liquid and began painting the edge of the closest windowpane. The glass sizzled, then dissolved. Daemon kept their bodies close yet carefully away from Fairy’s concoction. One errant drop and their flesh would be burned straight through to the bone.
As she finished the final edge of the window, Fairy adhered one of her sticky feet to the glass so it wouldn’t fall and shatter. Her potion completed its work, and the windowpane released itself from the frame. It clung to her foot as if held tightly by a suction cup.
“And now for the acrobatics portion of tonight’s entertainment,” Fairy said.
She slipped the foot holding the glass inside the study, latched both hands onto the top of the window frame, and swung herself through. Her body arced upward one hundred eighty degrees so she was upside down. She stuck one foot to the wall above her and kept the other one—with the glass pane—far enough away so she didn’t break it.
“Bravo,” Daemon whispered.
Now it was his turn. With Fairy out of the way, he could get through the window frame.
He didn’t move immediately, though. Something creeped along the back of his neck, like an army of baby spiders. He slapped at them, but there were no spiders, just little hairs standing on end.
Was someone watching them? He was still a little worried about that eighth person he swore had been in the study earlier. But he darted a glance back at the ground and the wall beneath him, and there was no one there. If it were Hana, surely she would have attacked them by now.
You’re getting paranoid, he chastised himself. Daemon faced the window frame once more.
As predicted, it was a tight squeeze. The fighting arts teacher at the Citadel had always told him there was no such thing as too much muscle, but as Daemon contorted his body to fit through the space, he started to doubt the wisdom of his extra weight-lifting sessions.
With a gasp and some raw skin, though, he made it through.
“Maybe I should rub you with oil before you try that again,” Fairy said.
Oh gods. Daemon fumbled for words, but all that came out was incoherent noise. It also felt very hot in the room all of a sudden. Had the fireplace been stoked again?
Fairy moved quickly on to business, though, and flipped herself down, landing her free foot on Daemon’s shoulder while holding the one with the glass out in front of her. She released her hands from the window frame and balanced like a circus performer as he climbed down the wall.