“Lucy,” Basil warned.
She blinked innocently. “What? I’m simply gathering facts.”
“You’re interrogating me.”
“I’m conversationally investigating,” she corrected.
The Baroness had recovered enough to chime in again. “I personally think this Sylva sounds quite charming. A tragic backstory? A hidden bloodline? A complicated family tree? Very romantic.”
“It is not romantic,” Basil snapped.
Lucy elbowed him lightly. “It’s a little romantic.”
Basil stopped walking and looked to the heavens, as if asking some higher power to take him now. “Can we please stay focused? We are going to see the information guild’s leader. The less said, the better.”
“Why?” Lucy asked, narrowing her eyes. “Is he scary? Dangerous? A criminal mastermind? Does he also have secret children?”
“No.”
“Sylva?” Lucy hissed. “Did he lie?”
Sylva paused, listening. “…No.”
“Ha!” Lucy pointed triumphantly at Basil. “Your son is on my side now.”
They turned down a narrower lane, merchant stalls thinning as stone buildings pressed closer together. The air smelled of smoke, old wood, and something bitter beneath it. Lucy recognized the scent of the wards as if it were home. They were littered around the palace—especially near Esther’s wing.
A wooden sign swung overhead.
Luna’s Tavern.
“We’re here,” Basil said.
“At a tavern?” the Baroness asked, affronted.
“Yes,” Basil said tightly. “Keep your voice down. And don’t mention my wife. Or Sylva. Or anything at all, really.”
“Yes, sir!” Lucy nodded enthusiastically. She had never been in a tavern before.
Sylva whispered, “She’s lying.”
Lucy inhaled sharply. “I am not—okay, fine, I am a little lying, but only because you’re impossible to resist messing with.”
“Lucy,” Basil said, pinching the bridge of his nose for the fifteenth time in the past hour, “I need you to behave.”
She saluted. “I will be the picture of maturity.”
“She’s lying again,” Sylva added.
Lucy turned and smacked his arm. “Stop listening to things!”
He startled—not from the hit, but from the contact. Then relaxed, as if filing it under allowed.
“That is my entire purpose,” Sylva said, unimpressed.
Basil groaned. “I regret everything.”
“Good!” Lucy chirped as they stepped toward the door of Luna’s Tavern. “Because I’m absolutely positive this will go perfectly fine and not at all explode in our faces.”
