Rosalynde and Grey glided in between the rushing servants with their hands full of laces and decorations for the upcoming opening of the first ball, the uniforms bearing the crest of the Imperial Family multiplying in the neverending bustle of the polished halls, only a handful of servants had stopped whatever they were in the middle of doing to turn around and greet the two.
They stopped and bowed down to try and be remembered, a good word coming from one of them would surely have saved them one day, taking out of their path a reprimand or a beating that would have left a permanent future scar.
But alas, saving their unfair life would have never made it to their list of priorities, not even in their next life.
Tarnishing the honor of the family by committing a foolish act of idiocy or by not being able to weigh spoken words before they were told meant facing nothing more than an outcast, unwelcomed even in his very own home.
All servants of the Imperial Citadel had an affiliation of a kind to the aristocracy of the Rowlian Empire. How, it did not matter - some could be daughters sent to catch an excellent match between those luxurious walls. Others could very well be sons sent to polish their image to the public opinion under the expert guidance of Lord Sandors.
However, the majority of the servants working under the Crown belonged to neither parties, or to be precise - not completely.
Many of them were bastards, born out of wedlock unknown best to the rest of the family except from the general deceiver, unwanted mistakes that after passing a certain age were thrown as disposable manpower into the Imperial Citadel.
They would have done anything to improve their status, their ears and eyes could be sold to the highest bidder, but only if they were in possession of the right amount of money to throw away.
That was why Rosalynde opted for the two of them to meet in the private library that Pharah used when researching ancient law texts that she could implement and then show during a council meeting, harrowing the armored man posing guard at the entrance, checking if someone was inside before inviting the banker to take a seat.
"You seem different today." Was the first thing Grey said to Rosalynde as she finished checking the perimeter, turning to look at him with her usual conscientious smile gracing her young visage.
She'd been preparing too for tomorrow's night ball after all, the maids close to her had been dreading to shower her with oils for the skin, hair and whatever else Pharah and Katherine had pushed her to use to make her skin glow.
"You seem to keep forgetting what's going to happen tomorrow night," she replied without a trace of any kind of emotion traspiring from beneath her clear seeking eyes.
She made sure to not contract any muscles while she spoke, knowing that people like her had mastered the art of unmasking the true emotions of the speaker.
She'd never harbored the desire of becoming the hunted, the role of predator had already rooted deep beneath her skin already countless years ago.
She thrived when she wore the robes of the slayer, she found it even more satisfying than watching the prey she'd caught die under her grasp - be that human or animal, under interrogation or in the middle of the streets.
"My bad, the next time I'll ask my assistant to remind me of this idiotic week filled with nothing but festivities every single day until I'll agree in commissioning a new suit for the event," His sarcastic reply nearly made her scoff in amusement, her half-bored eyes holding in something close to what people called a sight on understanding compassion.
Pharah had tricked her in commissioning a new dress for tomorrow what over a week ago, using the excuse related to what had happened at the Opera to trap her into three hours of excruciating measure-taking sizes and fabric choosing.
She didn't like people touching her without her consent, she didn't like people touching her in general without her expressed consent. She loathed having hands over her, touching her in places where her eyes could not reach, and the same had happened when taking the right measurements, when the palm of the seamstress had flattened the back of the dress she was sewing on Rosalynde before the latter turned around without warning - knocking the seamstress on the floor, needle in one hand and pincushion in the other.
"Well, now that you are the banker of the Imperial Family you'll have to get used to attending events such as this one," Rosalynde called out to him after a brief moment of silence, hands sliding under her chest as she made them curl on each other, relaxing her shoulder until she reached a comfortable position to remain with.
"Yes, both her highness and Lord Regulus were pretty clear on that part," he seemed everything except unperturbed by what had happened merely minutes ago, his gray eyes never leaving her seated elegant figure.
"What is it that you found?" Rosalynde asked immediately after, making sure to not give him time to reply to his own previous statement before.
Grey tilted his head aside, mimicking her stance as some dark locks of hair fell beside his face.
He looked different too today, but still Rosalynde couldn't guess if it was because of the clothes he'd decided to wear that exalted his eloquent body, or if it was because he'd decided to comb his hair backwards, but both final results had merged into a singular one at the end - and that had had the effect of nearly taking away her ability to utter even a single banal word.
The memory of their first meeting flashed for a brief second inside Rosalynde's mind, making her stretch her back by pulling her shoulders upwards, releasing the building stress before answering his question.
She told him of what happened in Mary Clark's storehouse, of the gutted swan sitting under the windflower.
"You don't seem particularly surprised by it though," Grey stated without half-terms after she finished narrating her tale, his reaction making her roll her eyes up towards the moon before making his words sink deep.
She'd indeed expected something like that to happen, especially after all that'd happened in the last month.
"No, but you don't seem surprised by it yourself," she firedback, taking a lock of silver hair in her hand, pulling it twice before wrapping it around her finger.
"Verity is targeting the Des Reslows, and that is something that can't be looked over, they already asserted their dominance in more than one subject."
"Then what if I told you I know exactly what provoked the explosion that killed Claire Adeline?" Rosalynde said nothing, letting him know that he had free reign to speak.
Could that discovery be considered a useful clue? Would that new undiscovered path he'd sought out change anything at all? The Smiling Dame hid her faltering thoughts as he squared her once again, as if sensing that she'd just hid something from him that she did not want the rest to find out.
Uncertainty crossed the mind of the personal attendant of the next crown bearer, her face relaxing with palpable difficulty.
"Claire Adeline was approached by someone before the start of the performance, it appears what caused the explosion was the headpiece she was wearing. A fine piece of jewelcraft that was taken off the market years ago for safety measure," Grey told her, the invisible gears inside her head turning non stop as she absorbed the information like a sponge did when coming into contact with a single droplet of water.
"Then the question is how did the security checking the workers backstage not localize it." Grey shook his head, denying her thesis.
"Actually, I can't really blame them, you see there's only one way to set off the jewel, and that's directly related to its composition," Rosalynde had read somewhere that certain minerals found in nature had properties to say the least... explosive. Deemeding them too hazardous after witnessing the side effects that'd happened on previous occasions.
Ah, there had been a report she'd temporarily borrowed from Pharah's office regarding explosions, a small booklet filled with nothing but records featuring the different causes the investigating teams had found and transcribed during the course of the years.
It'd drawn her mind into a state of reverence mixed with a speck of riveting, torrid trepidation, she'd nearly ripped out the page from the book to keep it to herself, a selfish possession she wanted to own alone.
"The environmental sounds can trigger certain reactions if exposed to its reactive agents for a prolonged period of time," judging by the look on Grey's face she knew she was on the right track.
What had been the trigger? The final drop that'd made the vase overflow with death and tears.
Claire Adeine had been recognized, of course prior to her unrightful demise, as a musical genius with an unparalleled voice. She could reach notes that no other singers could even remotely phantom touch, all while enchanting her crowd with her lovely looks.
Something seemed to click inside Rosalynde's head, eyes widening as her mind got hooked on a particular though.
Why hadn't the jewel exploded at the very start of the performance? If it really was related to the pitch of her voice it should have set it off from the start. No, it had indeed activated at the start of her performance, but it'd taken time for it to load completely.
"Her pitch range, the jewel accumulated the soundwaves Adeline released when she sung, and only at the end, when she ended the Act with that long high note, that the mechanism was fully triggered," Rosalynde slowly said, rewinding her own words as she reconsidered them attentively .
Claire Adeline had unknowingly sung to her death.
"What a smart way they found to end her," Steel could only appreciate the modus operandi Verity had used to kill her, earning a look full of disapproval from Grey towards her seated figure.
"But how did you find the ends of this intricate thread?" She asked with a subtle hint of surprise.
"I asked," here was something hidden in between his words, something she wanted to unmask with her mind alone.
"Oh? Did you now?" The smile she gave him nearly made Grey's blood freeze below zero.
"Indeed, I simply cornered the worker that gave her the headpiece. Captured him on a ship that was going to set sail for the Detrian Republic. It's amazing how money can make people change their mind, just a few golden coins and his wife had already ratted him out. Caught him just in time," he stated, with Rosalynde weighing his words before a formed sentence materialized inside her mind.
"Did the Republic agree to it?"
Because if the answer would have been yes, then the cards would have been mixed again.
"I have the document here." Her figure froze at those words, her eyes finding his as they exchanged a look filled with a newfound knowledge that'd just made everything plunge into a new ocean filled with nothing but incertitude.
The Detrian Republic never granted political asylum without gaining something from it, just like the Rowlian Empire did, except not without a good backing reason to sustain those who crossed the borders.
His safety in exchange for the secrets he was going to carry with him inside the enemy's country, a fair deal without a single doubt.
"You're saying that the Detrian Republic has a connection with Verity," She voiced out the words he'd been subtly pushing her to say in his stead.
His gray eyes thinned as a small smile graced his lips.
"Well, it surely looks that way. The man is currently under my custody. If you want to pay him a visit then will be my guest, tell me when and I'll personally lead you to him." He assured her with his inscrutable gaze, making Rosalynde agree with a curt nod of the head.
"After the week comes to an end, I'll have to stay close to her highness at all times to ensure what happened at the Opera doesn't repeat itself." Straightening the edges of her dress, Steel took a moment for herself and looked out of the window once more, her eyes following the trail left from a flake in its descent to the ground.
That was the first real snowfall of the year, meaning the great winter cold still hadn't arrived.
She hated when the snow swept the capital, tainting it a deceitful innocent white. Spreading with the wind currents a thick veil of rightful hypocrisy over the rooftops, unconsciously reminding her of things that were better left buried in her crimson-stained past.
"You don't like snow?" Grey suddenly asked out loud, his question quickly snapping Rosalynde back to look at him once more.
"Let's just say that It's not something I enjoy looking at," she replied honestly, halting her breathing for a second to retrace the words she'd just said.
"Ah, I actually find it quite fascinating, I never experienced snow until I came here. But you knew that already, didn't you?" He knew.
He knew what she'd found out after investigating him threw Cleia's clever eyes, and that had been one of the many secrets he'd been hiding up until discovery.
"Depends. Would you like me to call you Outlander? Or does it sound too aggressive to your foreign ears?" She concluded with a calculated smile, no teeth showing as Grey could not contain a slight chuckle from escaping his lips.
Rosalynde had suspected it when they'd first met. It hadn't been his gestures that'd rattled him out, nor had the Rowlian slangs he'd mastered using.
It'd been the way he'd pronounced the surname of the current ruling family. He'd stressed out only the first s, but everyone born in the Empire knew that you had to stress out both s to get the right accent coming out.
"I must say I like the word Outlander very much, maybe just as much as the name I used on you the night we first met," and for the second time he did not deny the appellative she'd labeled him with.
"You mean Silver?" She scoffed in sheer amusement at the memory they'd created at the Black Tide, the Werewolf game still impressed against her mind.
Grey knew she had no reason to call him out, especially since he'd dragged her into the obfuscated mess Verity was slowly becoming.
They had to collaborate if they wanted to overcome the daunting windflower watching their every move. If one would have been brought down, then the other would have faced the same ending, Hector could have bet his hand over a blazing flame just to remind the world of the truth behind his thoughts.
"I would like to propose a deal," Grey stated confidently, making Rosalynde raise an eyebrow with a look of total confusion flashing across her face.
"Go on," she conceded after a small break.
"You will help me with unmasking the main exponents of Verity, and in exchange I won't say to a single sword what you did to Haywire mere hours before his body was found floating on the Searis." He'd barely finished pronouncing the last phrase that Rosalynde was on top of him, gun in sight with her thumb grazing the heavy trigger.
A wider started playing on her lips, her eyes flashing with a sliver of hatred as she tilted both head and gun to the right, as if to look better at the man she was so tempted to fill with a dozen of iron bullets in the situation would have exacerbated with no chances of combing back.
The situation shifted the moment she felt his hand over her gloved ones, tightening his grip over her own.
Urging her to pull the trigger that would have surely made his soul travel to the other world.
She resisted the need to kill, a whisper that'd been combing in its long dark claws against the edges of her mind, not succumbing to his unexpected strength as she kept on skittering the trigger - not giving in to whatever he and her mind were trying her to make commit.
All this without his gray eyes leaving hers, not even for a brief second.
She realized his true intentions too late, his intention had never been in trying to make her pull the trigger, but to make her hand slide upwards until the front sight was hitting against his forehead.
"You think you're the only one who in this world was able to escape from the grasp of death?" He sneered at her without a hint of amusement, his fingertips urging her to choose what to do before he pushed his head up, foreheads clashing together as his uneven breath was now fanning against her neck.
"If so, then I suggest you try to guess again, Silver. Because for once your outstanding sense of observation and deduction has proved you wrong," his shadow was all she saw from there on, her eyes losing focus with the blur of a chaos made up of shadows and flashes of white.
Her body went flying in the air, swapping positions as her body fell on the cushions of the sofa, with him now straddling over her, a sly smile playing on his lips as he stared at her.
Rosalynde kept her grip steady on the gun, which miraculously hadn't fallen out of her grip, the two Apostles sitting still for an interminable number of seconds before a baffled laughter erupted from within him - his body rolling off her stiff one.
Rosalynde scoffed at that, her ears then sensing someone approaching the room, alerting her of the scene the intruder would have found.
Bouncing quickly to her feet, she skipped till she was facing herself into one of the old mirrors Pharah always kept inside her personal rooms. She'd bought a good amount at an antique store that recently opened close to Daunting Cathedral, placed in a narrow alley in between Noor Lake and The Barracks.
A lovely place in her humble opinion, dreary and small enough for Rosalynde to survey the area without the need to go out and check herself. She could have hid between the cobwebs and never been found again.
All looked good, except her right earring, which unfortunately had tangled up with a few strands of her silver hair that'd escaped from the hairstyle she'd chosen right after getting up.
The pending symmetrical silver double loops tingling on both sides framing her face in an elegant way.
She quickly tried untangling the strands of hair, her skilled hands failing to grab the ends, tumbling into a frustrating scene of sheer inability.
It was easier killing with her gloved hands rather than extricating the mess that was slowly forming.
Grey huffed with pleasant enjoyment, his footsteps bringing him closer to her as he was once more slightly hoovering her wispy yet agile figure. His eyes fixated not on her cold and chafed features, but on the mess she was creating with her hands alone, raising his own hands close to her ear before shooting a look her way.
He'd noticed it. He'd noticed a small detail that too many times had made her hands enclose in two unbending fists of steel all while making her blood boil in utter annoyance during parties and state dinners with high hailing from different lands.
He was asking permission to touch her, his eyes searching for her approval as she made her own hands fall to the side.
He was quick in freeing her earring from those thin silver locks, his hands working on it without rest as she sometimes felt them linger over her pale neck.
Occasionally, she consciously made her gaze look up and watch him for a handful of seconds before looking once more at the door, eyeing it with the growing apprehension of someone walking into the compromising position the two of them had fallen into.
"Done," proudly stated Grey. Tucking a strand of hair to the side as she looked once more at her image in the mirror.
"You have my thanks, now step back," she promptly replied. Unfazed she then stepped away from him, her heels hitting the door as she unlocked the latch as quickly as she could.
A maid with her hand raised in a fist stood right in front of her, her surprised face assuring Rosalynde that she'd heard nothing of the conversation. Because if she had, then the expression on her face would have been a completely different one.
People loved conjuring all sorts of rumors when the discussed object hailed from a certain party with grandstanding surnames, but not when the hot-topic of the court would have been her having an alleged underhand affair with the new banker of the imperial family.
She couldn't risk that, and without turning her head once she quickly ordered the attending maid to escort him out.
"Thank you for your time Lady Steel, hope I'll see you tomorrow night. Save me a dance will you?" He joked lightly before stopping beside her, asking for her gloved hand in sign of leave.
She cursed against the imperial etiquette, and under the curious eyes of the watchful maid Rosalynde didn't even blink when his lips left a small peck over her covered hand, his gray eyes amusingly squaring her face in search of a familiar emotion.
She stared at his back until his black tailcoat was the last thing she saw before turning the corner, her clear eyes slowly turning once more towards the familiar scene that'd kept on playing outside.
When she'd been young she'd loved playing in the snow, but that childish pastime had been just one of the many juvenile ways she adored that'd gone lost that night.
Turning on her heels, Rosalynde closed the door behind her, leaving Pharah's room empty as she made her body fall into the skillful hands of the maids.