The only thing I really know about my abilities so far is that they don’t seem to work on me. When I made Esther think she was imprisoned, I couldn’t see it. I can see into Glenquartz’s memories of his daughter, but I certainly can’t explore my own memories like that. So testing my new abilities will be tricky. In the evening, when Angry Cadet Dominic—I’ve grudgingly decided to remember his name—brings me dinner and collects the lunch tray, I focus all my thoughts on the tray as he reaches for it. I imagine a spider, hairy with a small dash of red on it. Slow-moving legs. A field of tiny shining eyes.
When Dominic reaches for the tray, he lets out a small yelp and slaps at it. I sit up sharply as if surprised.
“Spetzing spiders,” Dominic mutters. “At least they’ve got good company.” He glares at me. I put some effort into glowering, but I’m too smug with pride.
Aside from eating the food, which so far hasn’t been poisoned, I pace around the cell. I’m not used to sitting. I’m accustomed to scoping out a crowd, running through alleys, ducking between rooftops.
By the time night rolls around, I’ve paced every inch of my cell. Glenquartz stops by to drop off a new blanket and pillow to soften the news that Hat is probably alive but still “somewhere in Seriden.”
“If I was one of your guards,” I say, “and I watched a Nameless girl step forward with the crown tattoo, I might be inclined to keep ahold of the girl that the queen tried to save. Keep her as leverage. Blackmail. A hostage, even.”
Glenquartz winces. He isn’t thrilled with the idea that one of his guards would do something like that. But the longer it takes him to track down Hat, the bleaker things become. When he leaves, his aura teems with puzzled frustration.
As Dominic settles into place guarding my door, I use my knife from the drain to quietly slice open the pillow. It’s a mixture of chunked fabric and feathers, which I distribute underneath the blanket in the shape of a body. Then I sit quietly, breathing slowly, staring at the wall.
If I made a door invisible to Esther, I can make myself invisible too.
I imagine the textures of the dungeon wall on my skin. For a while I imagine my body not as translucent, but as a mirage of dark color. I get up after a while and approach the cell bars, where Dominic faces outward. I focus all my energy and thoughts on being exactly what is around me, on not being there at all. I use my metal lockpick to tap the bar behind Dominic’s head. He swivels around, bored.
I hold my breath. He looks straight through me and scans the cell, spends an extra moment glancing up at the corners of the ceiling.
I sigh with relief, and Dominic’s head immediately snaps back. I cover my mouth with a hand to keep myself silent.
Dominic may not be able to see me, but he can hear me. He stares at the cell for a moment longer, his eyes resting on the pillow and blanket. His lip twitches in disgust, and he returns his attention to the tunnel. I exhale. Slowly.
It’s not difficult, I tell myself. My whole life, people have looked at me and only seen the alley and the trash around me. They see my circumstances, but they don’t see me. They don’t see me. I repeat the mantra in my head.
The guards change places every three hours during the day and then every two hours at night. If they were smart, they’d check my cell in person when they traded places.
I move to the cell bars once again, but I won’t be able to reach around to Dominic’s inside jacket pocket for his key, so I use the metal lockpick from my pant leg and the small screw pressed with my thumb for torque. When I get the lock to turn, I leave it unlocked and closed. I withdraw to the bench and silently curl up under the blankets, reshuffling the disassembled pillow into a ball at my stomach.
It’ll be another half hour before the next Royal guard comes to relieve Dominic, and when they’re trading places—if I can be quiet enough—I can slip through the unlocked door, and be back in two hours at the next trade-off.
It takes everything I have not to count the seconds aloud. I haven’t been inside the palace before. Patrolling corridors in darkness and solitude is how I’ve explored countless homes. I may be an excellent pickpocket during the day, but at night I’m a rather splendid thief. In familiar shops in the Inner Ring, I know every creak of the floorboards. Here, not so much.
When the guards change places, no one notices when I slip out of the cell. I move slowly down the corridor. It takes a lot of concentration to make myself invisible to them. That’s why, even though I want to search for Hat myself—check the docks, the holding cells, the prison, even the crematorium—I don’t. I can’t. Not yet.
Besides, if Glenquartz is as trusting as he seems, then he is my best chance for finding out what happened to her.
At ground level, I move from room to room furtively, and in the first few, there’s nothing unusual—just a storage room filled with cabinets of fanciful dishware. The kitchen isn’t too far off when I see someone in pastel-blue clothing. A Legal working late for some reason. He wears a white waistband and small white epaulets, which mean he’s a servant in the palace. The Royals can put as many walls around their court as they want to, but someone has to fix the drains to the sewers, scrub the stoves, and cook their fancy meals.
I don’t have much experience cooking in a proper kitchen. I’ve only used a stove once, really, and that was to start a fire in a house I was robbing. That was hardly my fault, though. They came home early, and a distraction became necessary. What I know of food is limited to what I see in the markets. I know what’s poisonous. I know what’s cheap. I know how to sell a bag of near-spoiled potatoes for full price.
Over the next hour, I move through twelve rooms in the eastern wing of the palace, searching them and building a map in my head. There are closets filled with clothing and shoes, countless sitting rooms, and some spaces that are entirely empty except for a single podium or rug. I even come across a hall with a small elevated stage in front of several clusters of pews.
I’ve been gone for about eighty minutes, which means I don’t have much time to get back into position before the guards change again. I head to the dungeon, moving a few trinkets along the way. I snag an artist’s chisel and hammer and place them on the table nearest the dungeon. Always good to know where the nearest weapons are.
I stop off in a final sitting room. If I thought I could get away with it, I’d sleep in the horsehair rocking chair. But maybe…I run a hand along the decorative pillows resting on the couches. I’ve got maybe twenty minutes left until the guards switch places.
It’ll be a risk, but I can’t resist.
* * *
“Where did you get all of these pillows?” Glenquartz demands.
I can’t tell if he’s amused, aghast, or frustrated, but I’m certainly smiling.