Basil blew out the candle and took a seat on the rickety chair across the room.
They slept.
Lucy awoke to the delightful sensation of being crushed. She accepted this as penance for some unspecified sin.
The Baroness had, at some point, rolled over and latched onto Lucy like an emotional barnacle. Basil snored softly in the chair, tilted at a forty-five-degree angle that suggested spinal betrayal.
Lucy pried herself free and sat up.
“Right,” she announced, stretching. “Time to meet the Brass Sparrow.” Lucy had heard enough about the guild to know two things: they respected results, and they despised hesitation. She had plenty of the first and none of the second.
Basil jolted awake with a gasp. “Are we under attack?”
“No,” Lucy said, wondering why men always assumed they were under attack. “Worse. We have to socialize.”
The Baroness adjusted her hat. “Lead the way, child,” she said, even though Lucy was not the one with connections.
And together, one stubborn maid, one cranky knight, and one perpetually disgruntled noblewoman set off toward the most notorious guild in Valedara.
Lucy felt eyes on her back as they walked—familiar, steady, and deliberately distant. She didn’t turn around. Whoever it was didn’t close the space either. The awareness lingered anyway, quiet and unclaimed, like something patient enough to wait.
24
Lucy
How to handle a bleating noblewoman: pretend she is background noise.
Lucy skipped behind Basil as he led them through a dirty, narrow alleyway that smelled of mold and moss. The air clung to her skin, damp and sticky, as if the alley had not breathed fresh wind in years. Somewhere behind them, water dripped in an uneven rhythm that echoed off the walls.
The Baroness sounded like a dying rat as she trailed behind. Lucy did not know humans could make such high-pitched squeaks. She was almost impressed. Almost.
“Are you sure this is the correct way?” she squawked, tripping on her dress, which was much too wide for the route they took.
“I’m positive,” Basil groaned for what felt like the hundredth time.
Lucy, on the other hand, enjoyed their stroll. She was used to tuning out shrill noble voices. Selective hearing was a survival skill. Lucy had learned it young—what to listen to, what to let dissolve into static. Panic screamed. Danger whispered.
The smell of farm animals and sweat hit her first. They stepped out onto a dilapidated farm, where chickens scratched the dirt, goats bleated in complaint, and cows grazed lazily in the warm sunlight. Damp hay and goat musk mixed in the air, earthy and sour. A cow let out a long, mournful low that sounded like it objected to their presence.
“There is no possible way,” the Baroness whispered harshly, covering her mouth with her handkerchief.
“Yes, this is the Brass Sparrow,” Basil said.
Lucy liked places that lied about what they were. They usually meant business.
She did not know whether the sound that came next was the Baroness or a goat, but she laughed so hard she nearly doubled over. Her laughter carried all the way to the sagging barn door.
She clutched her stomach, fighting for breath, and made a special place in her memory to store the Baroness's horrified expression. It would be perfect to pull out whenever she needed a good laugh. Lucy treasured moments like this. Joy weaponized was still joy.
“That is enough, Lucy,” Basil reprimanded, using the same voice he used during Esther's lessons.
The barn door creaked when he pulled it open. It sounded like the hinges were screaming for mercy, which worried Lucy that it might fall off right then. Somehow, it survived. Sometimes the things that made the most noise were the ones that outlasted everyone.
Meaning the Baroness might be immortal. Lucy would put money on it. Spite fueled many long lives.
Inside, Lucy was about to stuff a dirty rag into the Baroness's mouth if she did not stop her constant bleating.
She complained about everything: the crooked door, the rickety stairs, the funky smell, the cold draft from a cracked window. Dust floated in slow spirals through beams of pale sunlight. The floorboards groaned under every step, brittle and splintery.
