I stood up, and she turned startled.
“Fuck, Percy, you move like the dead,” she exclaimed, her hand rising defensively, reflexively.
I ignored her and how the comparison was truer than she probably knew, and I looked over the edge too.
It was President Minerva, for sure. Her grey bun sat atop her head, matching her grey suit with red lining—her own uniform, as it was all I had seen her wear—the previous day and in every portrait of her in the Academy.
The Academy Guard was with her—at least a dozen men—and they headed for the mansion's steps.
The usual Royal Guard were not at the entrance, which was odd. But what was more concerning was that instead of a confrontation—which I would expect from Selene’s personal Royal guard, who lived in quarters within the mansion and were always on duty and would surely challenge any unauthorisedentry—there was only the sound of boots making their way loudly up the concrete staircase towards us.
“What’s going on? Where are the Royal Guards?” I asked, turning to Mhari.
Her yellow eyes were wide and panicked. “I don’t know. Shit! Shit! What do we do?” she asked, looking around as if expecting to find another exit and probably regretting coming to warn me.
We both turned to look towards the only entrance and exit. At any moment, the Academy guard would burst through the door.
I looked around, too. “What kind of shifter are you?” I asked.
“What?” she questioned.
“Could your beast handle a jump from this height?” I continued.
Her eyes widened. “What? Are you insane? No! Even if I could, I doubt I have enough time to shift,” she replied, obviously more panicked than me.
“Okay, okay.” I took an unsteady step away from the door as the sound of boots grew louder and unintentionally crushed a branch of the basil plant. It was so thick and heavy that it trailed across the rooftop ground.
“What about this?” Mhari asked, running over to the wall-mounted hose that Selene had recently installed for me after I had a small accident carrying a heavy watering can. One stumble and a grazed knee, and suddenly, I wasn’t permitted to carry watering cans anymore.
“What about it?” I asked, confused.
“How long is it?” she asked.
“Long,” I replied. “I don’t know,” I continued. It was long enough to easily stretch from one end of the roof to the other.
“I think this will work,” she said, a kind of shaky confidence in her voice.
“What? What are you doing?” I asked worriedly, realising Mhari’s plan as she grabbed the hose, unravelling it as she pulled it towards the roof’s edge.
“They’re coming up here—for you, for me—and we can’t exactly get past them. So, we need to go down. Unless you can fly, this,” she pointed to the hose, “is our only option,” she explained.
I worried her panic—that fight-or-flight instinct—was choosing flight, regardless of the risk.
She began to pull the hose from its reel, the length coiling at her feet. She looked at the hose, then down the side of the building, her eyebrows scrunching like she was doing complicated maths in her head.
“I hope this works,” she said ominously before gripping near the end of the hose and climbing up onto the ledge.
“Wait! Mhari!” I yelled, but she didn’t hesitate in stepping from the ledge.
I leaned over the ledge, my stomach jumping into my throat, expecting to watch her fall to the ground in a broken heap. Instead, I watched as she dropped dizzyingly fast toward the ground. The hose jolted to a stop about three-quarters of the way down, and Mhari hit the side of the building.
My stomach dropped. I held my breath. She groaned but kept hold of the hose. The metal wall hanging for the hose shook and groaned too, but it held steady, as did Mhari.
“That was wild,” Mhari shouted. She looked down. “I can jump from here,” she called up. I watched as she let go of thehose and fell about a floor and a half, landing with one hand outstretched to the ground—like it was nothing.
“You’re turn, Percy. Come on,” she yelled up. “Climb down.”
“Mhari, I can’t!” I called back, panicking as the sound of boots got closer and closer. I wasn’t a shifter like her. I wasn’t physically capable of jumping that far. I doubted I could even shimmy down the hose and hold my own weight for that long.
