As the Crow Falls | ✔

Chapter Twenty-Six

The next half-hour passed in a blur. Isaiah pulled together spare clothes and personal belongings from around the room while Niccola first helped where possible, then began rigging a rope of knotted bedsheets off the balcony to the roof below.

"She's not there," she said when Isaiah appeared and checked the crow-house behind her.

He confirmed it, then topped up the crow's food and water bowls and returned them to their places. He hovered by the crow-house for a moment more then, running a hand over the crow's bedding as if to determine how long she'd been gone. If it had been longer than a few minutes, Niccola knew, there would be no warmth left to feel.

"She won't know where to find me," said Isaiah, withdrawing his hand.

"Then find her instead." Niccola cinched the last knot on the makeshift rope and reached around Isaiah to pluck a feather from the nest in the crow-house. She tucked it into his hair, a nod to Varnic fashion that drew the faintest smile from him as he plucked it out again and twirled it slowly between his fingers, running one up its side to gauge its shape and stiffness. It was a soft one. He pocketed it for safekeeping.

Every birdsong that rang out in the silent pre-dawn set Niccola on edge as she finally swung herself over the balcony railing to scale down the rope to the roof below. She landed lightly and whispered back up to Isaiah. He dropped his pack for her to catch. All the possessions he cared to take with him could not have weighed more than fifteen pounds, a telling monument to just how unconnected he must feel to his palace life. Niccola slung the pack over her shoulder. She would carry it down to the ground, at least, to leave Isaiah free for the most treacherous part of the descent.

He managed the rope just fine, proving strong enough to lend backing to his past statement that he could defend himself. Niccola wondered where he got the chance to practice. Seeing how he'd frozen in the face of confrontation by his mother, she was sure now it had not been from her.

"It's only a small slope," she said when Isaiah landed and reached out to find her. Niccola took his arm and held him steady as he found his footing. The roof was slate-shingled like most Calisian rooftops, pitched at a shallow angle that would afford them precarious but passable footing as they made their way to the end of this palace wing. There, the trees at the garden's edge reached leafy fingers up past the roof. It would be the work of a moment for Niccola to grab hold of those branches and shimmy down, but she could tell Isaiah was considerably more nervous.

"You can hold onto me if it helps," she murmured, touching his hand. He took it wordlessly.

The slate was slick with dew, and rattled if they stepped too firmly. Niccola's heart remained in her throat as they left the wall behind. They would be difficult to see against the dark slate and still-dark sky, and their noise could be mistaken for an animal skittering its way over the slate. Yet she could see the dark holes of windows in other wings of the palace, one wall of which faced them directly from only forty paces away. Anyone looking out at their level would almost certainly see them. Niccola could only hold her breath and hope that none of those rooms belonged to the queen and king, and that even if they did, the Calisian monarchs would remain soundly asleep at this hour. At least if a palace servant saw them, they would only warn the guards.

Niccola was shivering by the time the tree extended its branches like a blessing to meet the two of them. The internal cold of stress chilled her to the bone, even as exertion set her skin afire. She drew low into the canopy's cover. Isaiah crouched beside her. Just as he was about to lift a hand to find a branch, though, footsteps from below sent them both ducking. A pair of guards marched in tandem down a path through the side-garden below. Neither looked up. They were on their way to relieve those at the gates. That meant their ally at the kitchen gate would be in place soon, if they weren't already. Isaiah tapped Niccola's shoulder and pointed surreptitiously. Further footsteps—the crunch of boots on gravel—sounded from another part of the palace grounds.