Jade Mouse

Chapter 22

I sat in a now-familiar burgundy and grey chair, my arm in a sling, trying not to look too uncomfortable. Connor stood beside me, wearing some old clothing I'd found that was more appropriate for a formal meeting than his rags had been. He looked only the slightest bit nervous as the two of us waited patiently to see the Prince.

Shifting in my seat produced a stab of pain in my shoulder, and I winced. It had been murder trying to lower myself from Connor's roof the day before, even with help, which made me realize that I'd been very lucky to have climbed all the way to the top after injuring my arm. Adrenaline was pretty amazing stuff.

After that, and once our feet were safely on the ground, we'd headed south and found Cyrus and the others less than a block away, quite relieved to see us. Blackstaag's knights were with them, bound hand and foot and looking extremely surly. They all wore bandages as well, and their various injuries looked like they'd been attended to.

My own knights had appeared okay. Sonja was tending to her horse, Khia and two of her injured companions were talking in a carriage, and Theo was holding Orin's axe and demonstrating a few things to the attentive young knight. Cyrus was coordinating things with the remaining knights, figuring out how to get everyone back to Tucat Keep.

I'd located our public carriage driver, a small fellow who looked as though he'd just experienced the most exciting day of his life, and quickly settled the matter of payment, offering him three times the going rate for a full day's hire. Then, after observing the sheer amount of blood and muck staining the inside of his carriage, I doubled it.

The ride home had been uneventful, and things went pretty smoothly from there. We'd housed Blackstaag's knights in the stable, under guard, and then tended to our remaining wounded, which included Connor and myself.

Connor was exhausted by the time the main hall torches had to be lit, and it had taken very little effort to convince him to accept a room and get some sleep. Once he'd been looked after, I'd sent a messenger to the Palace, sent other messengers scurrying back and forth, checked in with Garrett (who had been bullied into staying the night by Talia, and who was overjoyed to learn of Connor's rescue), talked over some new plans with Cyrus and Theo in the basement, and identified the remaining objects I'd collected from Jaedemus Keep. Somewhere in there, I'd managed to return my father's journal to its proper place in my study, nearly weeping with relief as I did.

I'd also attempted to locate Talia so I could thank her right away. She'd been the one responsible for dragging me to see Garrett in the first place, which had in turn led to everything else. Actually, she'd been a critical part of everything that had gone right.

She wasn't around. I did find a note from her, however, one that explained where she'd gone at that hour and why. When I read it, I laughed out loud at what she had planned, and desperately hoped that she'd be able to pull it off. If successful, it might even help with the plans Cyrus and I were in the process of making.

The rest of the evening passed quickly. When not coordinating things with my staff or doing any one of a dozen things I suddenly had to do, I was staring into space, thinking of Talia and pondering what exactly I was going to say to her. Hours flew by.

I didn't recall when I got to bed, or how . . . and I didn't recall much about getting up either. I did wake up quite a bit earlier than I was used to, and very suddenly. One second there had been a mighty pounding at my door, hot tea hurriedly shoved into my hands, and the next thing I knew I'd been in my carriage with a sleepy-eyed Connor, both of us headed to the Palace at breakneck speed.

It turned out that a Palace messenger had come in the pre-dawn hours and informed my staff that Connor and I were due at the Palace right away, the two of us being Tenarreau's first appointment of the morning. Although it was a truly ungodly hour to be up and awake, there was one advantage to being dragged over there this early - it meant that there was nobody scheduled to see the Prince ahead of us.