The Marble Tower

-30-

The girls came out of their tents in the morning when it was time for breakfast. Raquel went to sit with her brother. Iris and Mira just chatted among themselves across from the fire. The twins were who knows where and Draco and Charles were in front of the tent that they had put Mystery Girl Two for the night.

"How's the leg?" Xavier's voice made Robyn jump a bit before answering.

"It's better."

Xavier nodded. "Raquel did a nice job."

Robyn gave him a grim smile, "Yeah, she did, though it didn't feel like it at the time."

Xavier chuckled, "I suppose you've never had a need to disinfect any wounds?"

"I've never had any serious wounds before to be honest."

"I'm pretty sure that none of us have. Though I hear that the twins came all the way from the capital to be hear so they might have had some bad experiences."

"Really?" Lidia's real capital had always been in the center of the country. The very center. Robyn had grown up in Ryn, Lidia's false capital. In fact it was a bigger city than the capitol was. Though the real capitol was at least a month away from where they started their journey, on horseback. If the twins had gone all that way on foot they must have really needed the reward money.

"Yep. And it's amazing what they can do together, though..."Xavier trailed off, obviously referring to the mission.

"They're not perfect." Robyn finished.

"Yeah."

Awkward silence.

Charles called Iris over, and they started speaking in hushed tones. The cook went to do something in his tent as he left the pot on shimmer. The camp was busy, but it seemed to be stalling, waiting for an order. Robyn glanced at the sun. They had been there for at least an hour longer than they should have been.

"So..." Robyn finally said, "How did the mission go?"

Xavier shrugged, "So-so, we managed to get a little out before the guards came and we had to split."

"Oh." Robyn replied half-heartily. They had failed.

Breakfast was a little while later and Robyn welcomed the distraction. Soon after people started to wander around. They didn't know what to do. Some of them glanced at the ten that Charles and Iris had ducked into to talk. Raquel even went so far as to help the cook with the dishes. Robyn decided to go to his tent and just wait there.

"We don't have a few days. We can't just wait around here for some, girl to get rid of a fever she got by following people she shouldn't have been following into a place she shouldn't have gone." Charles's voice came from the tent. Hushed but angry.

"Mr. Saunders, it's bad, really bad. And I think that she knows it too. She's scared and I won't let you abandon someone who needs our help!" Came Iris's voice, she was calm, or calmer than Charles at least, and she wasn't trying to keep her voice down.

"Iris, I appreciate your moral compass. But sometimes you have to look at the bigger picture."

"If we abandon her she could die!"

"And if we stay here, we could die!"

"Well maybe you should have thought of that before bribing a bunch of low lives and criminals to do something dangerous and stupid without explaining to them why!"

Silence. Dead silence. Robyn froze for a bit, thinking about what he just heard before he snapped back into reality. He swung a glance at the tent they had put the girl and quickly went back to his tent.

And though he couldn't gather much from what he had just heard. He did know that it meant one thing. Iris wasn't like the rest of them. It was kind of obvious from the beginning that Charles and Draco were somehow more important than the rest of them, and she had always given off a weird vibe. But now he knew that she was in with them. At least a little bit. Though he could also tell that she didn't like what Charles was doing.

And how did she know that I was in trouble? How did they know Iris needed back up?

Whatever the reason, Iris knew something. There was something about this more than a few miss placed weapons.

Robyn sighed. He was starting to wish that he had listened to Ryder.