Damien nodded, looking him over once more. Amma trusted this young man, so he supposed he could as well. “The soldiers here, the ones all over your city and this keep that aren’t local, what thefuckis going on with them?”
The poor, little holy man looked absolutely scandalized, and Damien chuckled a bit, but then Perry swallowed, working out an answer that amounted to, “I’m not supposed to say anything bad about Brineberth March.”
“But you dowantto?”
Perry swallowed again, saying nothing.
“What about that man Amma is meant to marry? He’s from that place too, yes?”
“The marquis?” Perry couldn’t hide what his face did then, disgust crawling over it, and Damien knew he had an in.
“That man is a marquis?”
“Well, I’m not totally sure, but he calls himself one. His older brother is one too, and I think maybe they split Brineberth March when the title was handed down? It’s confusing though, because the march is still one big piece between Faebarrow and the sea. It’s on three sides of us, actually, and I guess that’s supposed to be a good thing? Faebarrow’s never really had to have an army before, thanks to them. But anyway, Cedric Caldor’s the marquis who came here about a year ago, and it was just him and some of his people at first, advisers and his head mage, Gilead, but then some guards came for protection, I don’t know from what, and then there were more, and then he proposed to Amma, and we all sort of expected it, but it was still weird because then even more soldiers came, and things changeda lot. So, that’s why Amma went and—” He cut himself off, eyes wide.
Damien opened his mouth to coax him on, but it was too much, scaring him off.
“I have to go. I’ll tell Am—Lady Ammalie what you said. Promise.” He drew a symbol across his chest which Damien could only assume had to do with his god. Then he gave him a short bow, robes trailing behind as he went to the door and knocked with a quickness.
Damien tried to get him to wait, but the guards let him out and swiftly shut and locked the door once again. “Kaz, come here, quick.”
There was a thump, and then the hurried clacking of nails on the floor as the dog paced up to his feet.
Damien squatted down. “Listen to me very closely: make yourself into something small and follow that acolyte until he reaches Amma, and then I want you to follow her. Do you understand?”
“Spy on the trollop. Yes.”
“If I had more time, I would make you pay for that, but you need to go, now.” He stood quickly and grabbed the bag the man had left, striding to the door as there was a cracking and a sizzle from behind him. The air smelt of passing brimstone, and when he looked back, a tiny, grey rat was climbing out of Kaz’s sweater left abandoned on the floor.
Damien knocked, strangely not the first time he’d had to knock to getoutof a room, and he scowled at the memory before pushing it away when the guard cracked open the door.
“Your priest forgot his things,” he said, holding up the satchel with a forced grin.
The guard eyed him through the small opening and shouldered the door open to take it.
Damien glanced down long enough to see Kaz’s new rat tail slip out into the hall. When the door was again closed, Damien shook his hand, the light warmth from the divine magic within the satchel uncomfortable, then fell with his back against the door and closed his eyes. He reached out with his mind, darkness swirling behind his lids, and he caught onto Kaz’s aura just before the imp in rat form got to the hall’s end where he would be too far for Damien’s spell to reach.
Kaz’s body jolted as Damien’s conscience entered it, along for the ride as he continued on, and he saw through the rat’s eyes as he flew down the hall, hugging the divot where the floor and wall met.
It was not a spell Damien used often, detesting imps for the most part, but using one as a conduit was handy for exactly this. It was also nauseating being jostled about every time Kaz juked away from a set of feet or climbed himself up and over a step.
But the rat that was really an imp found the acolyte again and did his best to keep pace being so small. Perry was also a scurrier, like a human mouse, trying to be unseen as he hurried through the keep. He was almost lost a number of times until finally the holy man came to a door where he was let in immediately. The door shut again just before Kaz could reach it.
“Master, I am sorry!” Kaz’s tiny voice rolled inside Damien’s mind.
It’s fine, it’s fine, just wait until he comes back out.
Kaz did wait, and eventually the door opened again, but instead of just the acolyte, there were three sets of feet, two of which moved in one direction and the third, belonging to Perry, went another way. Kaz followed after.
Not that one, idiot, Damien told Kaz mentally.
The rat turned itself around, and there was Amma, rushing away down the hall with another young woman in tow. She was clad in a long dress, simple but elegant, that she kept tugging on to move quicker. It was strange to see her dressed so differently, but he supposed this was actually the baroness’s typical guise. Her hair was falling long and loose down her back instead of in its normal braid or knot too, but there was a single bundle of it secured at the back of her head with what might have looked like a long, silver pin to anyone else who hadn’t seen her dagger so many times. There, that was the Amma he knew, tucked away and hidden but ready to strike.
She was speaking in a rushed, hush of a tone to the other woman, much taller with a cascade of dark brown, pin-straight hair and a slight point to her ears. Laurel, Damien thought, the half-elven woman Amma had spoken of, surely.
Kaz did his best to keep them in his sight, but the two were whispering and keeping to the shadows. Then the two stepped into an alcove and fell into complete silence when a set of guards turned down the hall. Why in the Abyss was Amma hiding from the soldiers in her own home? Kaz was at least able to catch up then so he could hear their voices as they darted out through an archway to a side courtyard, doused in the shadows of early evening.
“You know Thomas is in town, right?” the other woman who he assumed was Laurel was saying.
