Vera's Story(To Love and To Lie)

Chapter Twenty-Five

A week passed, and Vera saw neither hide nor hair of her mother, Derek, Mira, or Tom, but she didn't let that stop her from proceeding with her plans. She let Fowler know that she wouldn't be signing another contract with them after this one, and continued undoing contracts for them.

Vera also began some, rather intense at first, physical training with Miriam, which managed to draw out Vera's instincts and previous royal training in a way that Tom and Derek hadn't been able to do. Vera was pretty sure it had something to do with how Miriam attacked her like she was actually trying to kill her, using every dirty trick you could imagine to get the upper hand, and training for hours every morning on the roof of the apartment building Vera was living in. She wouldn't have called Tom and Derek's lessons gentle and kind before, but after Miriam, she would one-hundred percent say that, and also that they were both soft, and slow. The lessons she'd had thus far, however, from them and from her royal instructors long long ago, prepared her to fight Miriam in that she had all the movements and basics down. Now Miriam was giving her the reflexes and experience to utilize their training quickly and effectively, and adding in all the dirty tricks as a bonus.

Miriam had, thankfully, decided that merely moving into the apartment next door to Vera would be acceptable, "Invading your privacy *that* much just isn't okay. If you don't tell Fowler, I won't." Was what Miriam had told Vera when they'd gotten back to the apartment building the first night, and Vera was extremely grateful that Miriam had decided not to stay in her apartment.

Vera didn't actually have much of a plan for how to rescue Damon. All she could really figure was that whenever they put her in there, she had to figure out how to get everyone out of the room and then create some kind of a distraction or crisis that would get them to take Damon out or let her get Damon out. If she couldn't do that, Vera had decided that she would just go straight to the city guard, reveal who she truly was, and get them to go and break Damon out of wherever they were keeping him.

As far as Vera's daytime work went, after she had trained with Miriam from eight to ten, they would both go to work with the actors. The day after Miriam had decided to work there, ten other young men and women who all vaguely knew Miriam had come to audition. Diana, Jake, and Gregory, true to form, accepted all of them into the troupe with very little auditioning or interviewing. Vera had two assistants now to help with all of the backstage stuff, and the other eight people all joined in and rehearsed for the show they had decided to put on in two weeks, one week, now. They had even officially named themselves 'The Princess' Actors' in honor of their apparent hero, Princess Vera. Vera couldn't help but feel flattered every time she thought about it. Vera had requested several times to be paid less, but Diana had politely refused each time, and Vera didn't have *that* much will to fight her about it.

"Wanna go out to eat for dinner? I saw a noodle place that's not too far of a walk from here that said it was open overnight. I'd pay for you," Miriam asked as they trudged down the hall to their apartments.

"I don't really want to go anywhere but my room tonight. I almost fell asleep in the carriage, *twice*. Thanks for the offer, but I think I'm just going to go to sleep." Vera told her, narrowly avoiding the wall as she accidentally swerved towards it.
"Ah, fair enough. Let's go there tomorrow then!"

*How can she still be this bubbly? It's like three in the morning!* Vera thought tiredly. "Sure, goodnight,"

"Goodnight!"

"Finally decided to show up, huh?"

Vera looked over at Damon, who was sitting on her armchair, holding one of her books like he'd been reading it. "What?" She had fallen asleep and almost immediately opened her eyes in her room, sitting on her bed as she had been the last time she'd been there.