The Grim (Ravens #3)

xxii. the chameleon

A/n: There is a quick poll in the planning book that I posted on 2/10/18. If you could fill that out that would be incredibly helpful for me. :)

Emma had no trouble sneaking Donny out of Monarchia's grim excuse of a palace, as after almost four months of living there, she'd learned every back exit to that prison. Many times she could get away with using the front doors, but knew from the start that it was in her best interest to memorize the blueprint. She brought him to the exit near the servants' quarters, an area typically barred to anyone who did not claim that demeaning title, but Emma had a special privilege: fear. Although she was just as much a prisoner as them, all the king's subordinates knew better than to disobey her.

Donny saw that authority, how her voice lowered with a cool confidence as she demanded that the guards let her and her friend enter. He saw how the guard—a man more than ten years older than them—gulped and stepped aside, averting his gaze to the ground. He saw how Emma smirked, that smug little arrogance taking hold of her heart, how she relished that tiny sliver of power.

She had cried in his arms the night before. In the morning, she had made no comment, her silence a signal that neither of them would ever discuss what had happened. The girl who glared at the guard had a heart of ice instead of armor. This girl had never shed a single tear.

"You should be so terrified of me."

Maybe she was right. Emma Gail Harlem had too many different sides, a chameleon with different colors and skins she could shed at a moment's notice. But he knew who was at the core. Underneath all the strength and terror and violence, was the Emma that he knew, the Emma he saw last night.

But one thing he knew for sure was that Emma had seized the situation, molded it so that it served her. She was not tip-toeing on broken glass like he and Sebastian had suspected, she was sweeping the glass aside, finding solid floor where she could walk right through. She was trapped, but she wasn't helpless. She was a prisoner, but in some strange way, she was free.

When she was certain Donny had left the premises, Emma approached the kitchen. Ezra would be there, she knew. It was Saturday. He was assigned to the kitchen on Saturdays. She'd memorized his schedule long ago.

The kitchen was one of the few rooms in the whole building with an abundance of natural light, the only room in all the servants' quarters that wasn't suffocating from the lack of windows. There were six people there at any given time, all dressed in the same uniform: heather gray t-shirt and cheap beige pants, their gender playing no part in the outfit. She found Ezra in the back, his head hanging down.

"Hey," she said quietly, approaching him from the side. He looked slowly to the left, and she smiled as his icy blue eyes relaxed and the obvious tension in his muscles dissipated.

"How are you?" he asked, voice hardly rising above a whisper. She watched as his gaze fixed on something behind her, and turned over her left shoulder to see an older servant woman staring.

"Did they pay her off?" Emma mouthed these words, her attention returning to her lover. With her back to the perspective spy, the words were solely for Ezra, who was undoubtedly still distracted.

"Watching me like a hawk for three days now," he muttered, closing his eyes tiredly as Emma reached for his hand.

"It's alright," she said, squeezing her thumb against his palm, and now it was his turn to notice that something was off, that she was biting her tongue, that she was holding back a waterfall, a legend begging to be told.

"What's going on?" he asked, this time grabbing her other hand, leaning down so that his forehead pressed against hers.

She looked towards the ground, staring at a floor tile rather than him, but did not pull away from him. "I'm fine," she said eventually, but Ezra knew she had to think that answer over, had to decide how little of the truth she'd give away.