Oath of Steel

19 |Drinking Hangman|

Hopefully it would have been the first option.

"A guest to be treated with absolute respect. That's all you're going to get for tonight." Nathaniel 's lips twitch in delight at Grey's remark, right before shrugging those daring words off his back without much care.

"Who was that?" Rosalynde asked after Grey instructed Nathaniel to bring her some plain and mundane clothes for her to wear.

Rosalynde changed first inside a room full of piled bars made of gold. She stripped off her second armor, replacing it with a plain cotton tunic, a single pair of worn out working trousers and snow boots that the workers used while cleaning the roads from the snow.

She looked like one of the many workers of District Street that barely got her throughout the month with flood and water.

"My personal assistant, at times," Grey said from the other side of the wall, his last two words coming out feeble, as a branch shaken and beaten by a brutal wind of the East.

Rosalynde halted briefly her action of closing her tunic to process his words.

If he'd said the truth then she'd just met the official public operator of the Bank of Lun. Grey had been named the Gilded Phantom exactly for that reason, because he always sent someone else in his stead.

That some apparently being Nathaniel himself.

"At times?" Her question found the answer in the silence that came after.

She would have asked again, but not now. Too little time has passed, and she still hadn't prepared for her next move.

Grey sighed in reply as he changed, his shoes tapping lightly against the pricey carpets the Bank of Lun had on that particular floor. They'd switched places, with Rosalynde now waiting for him to finish, her dress carefully folded in a basket in a corner of the room.

But she never made her eyes steer away from Nathaniel 's form, his shoulders free of stress longing towards the floor, free of tension.

There was something in him, a dark glim hidden behind his already dark eyes. It was a stare she'd seen before, and knew by heart. A hiding gaze, a mask she'd used once on herself. Many, many, years ago.

That man was dangerous, and judging by the way Grey talked with him, he seemed to know it well too.

When they both changed, Nathaniel led them out, holding the door for Rosalynde as she exited into the frigid winter night once more. Grey right on her heels

"Be ready for that, if anything happens," Grey said. Earning an understanding nod from his personal assistant, who smiled in return, making it clear that he knew exactly what Grey was talking about.

Then they were off with a new carriage awaiting for their arrival in front of the Masiner Atelier.

꧁꧂

She had to admit it, Grey was probably the most reliable source of information in the empire, not counting her esteemed network of course.

He'd explained it all in the carriage, but only when their voices mixed with the nearby surroundings of the streets. All those precautions just to make sure nobody except her could hear his words. He'd even marked the roads for the coachman to follow. And it hadn't come out as a surprise when she'd figured out why he'd picked those streets out of all.

All of those roads were filled to the brim with holes and uneven stepping stones, making the carriage dangerously rattle without end.

They got off the carriage a quarter before midnight. Placing over their heads two dark hoods to make them blend with the moving crowd. District Street appeared to be busier than ever, even if less than two months ago she'd brutally killed Finger Keeper in one of the parallel alleys they'd seeked refuge in.