“Oh, absolutely,” Evelyne replied, smoothly stepping into the role of engaged nobility. Rhyssa was on her side; she didn't even have to come up with a topic. “I’d be very interested to hear about that.”
The Ninth picked up the entire stack of ledgers and walked towards the shelves. The First didn’t seem to pay attention, which was perfect. Vesena rose smoothly from her chair.
“I’ll help him,” she said.
It was delivered so mildly that it wasn’t registered as unusual. The scribe merely nodded, too focused now on describing the ink classification to question it. Vesena sauntered over to the Ninth, and lingered beside him just long enough to hand off a book.
Then she drifted past him.
Right through the bars. In the smoothest way she ever saw.
Evelyne forced herself to keep her eyes on the Archivist, nodding politely as he traced a particular line of ink with genuine scholarly frustration. Something about how dates were being abbreviated inconsistently. But all she could hear was the thunderous rush of her own pulse.
Every second Vesena stayed behind those bars, she was one step closer to something neither of them could walk away from easily. The Ninth was still shuffling scrolls, ascending one of the side ladders.
“I wanted to ask,” she interrupted, tone as level as ever, “about the logs from 1318. I noticed the margin codes have changed since the standardization edit. Was that under Marshal Ravik’s direction or the stewarding arm?”
The First Archivist’s expression brightened in that specific way scholars did when someone remembered the footnotes.
“Ah—an excellent question,” he quipped, diving into his explanation. “That shift happened during the first quarter review of 1316, but the foundational decision was indeed authorized by the Marshal’s office. I believe it began as a response to duplication discrepancies reported in the Eastern Watch archives, though it later became protocol.”
1316… did something happened then?
Evelyne nodded along. “And the reissued orders—were they recompiled manually or based on previous entries?”
The Archivist looked as if someone had given him an estate in the countryside. He began to answer her question in detail, and Evelyne began to sweat. And stopped listening three sentences ago.
Her eyes drifted again toward the barred entry, where Vesena had vanished, and minutes stretched into a quarter of an hour.
Do hurry, Vesena. I’m running out of synonyms for ‘enthralling’.
The Ninth clambered down the ladder and dropped with just enough sound to make Evelyne’s pulse spike.
The scribe turned his head, slow and fogged. Evelyne held her breath, spine taut, mouth composed into a perfectly polite listening expression. And then out of the corner of her eye she saw Vesena slip back through the gate.
Almost. Her apron caught.
Just for a breath. A single, cursed second. The tiniest drag of fabric snagging on the edge of a rusted hinge. Evelyne felt her ribs tighten.
The Ninth stopped mid-step. And stared.
Mouth ajar. Eyes blinking slow and owlish as they tracked Vesena’s movement with the growing awareness of a man who very much wasn’t supposed to see what he was seeing.
Evelyne turned toward him.Look this way. Look only this way.He started to turn—likely to alert the First—when his gaze met hers.
Her heart thundered in her ears.
“Please,” she mouthed softly. “Don’t say anything.”
The Ninth froze, like a man caught in the path of a galloping horse. His attention flicked to Vesena, then to Evelyne, and back again. Very slowly, he inclined his head—just before the First’s attention shifted his way. It lasted no more than three seconds. Whether he agreed out of loyalty, confusion, or sheer terror of doing something wrong in front of the king’s daughter, Evelyne didn’t care.
Vesena’s brows furrowed but she eased the fabric loose, like she’d simply adjusted her skirts, and moved into place beside Evelyne with the grace of someone not breaking at least five royal laws.
The elder blinked a few times, chasing the thread of his own monologue.
Evelyne exhaled slowly and gave the Archivist a brief, grateful nod.
“Thank you,” she said, pushing her chair back, “for your time and assistance. It was most enlightening.”
