"Another beautiful day being a fugitive from the law," Claude said, grinning as he tugged on his signature white silk gloves, eyes surveying the landscape before him.
"Beautiful for me, though I can't say the same for you," Lindsay responded from next to him, her lips twisted into a haughty smirk. "You look like a mole rat who hasn't bathed in weeks."
Claude took great offense to this, self-consciously smoothing his hair. Minerva rolled her eyes at their antics and Ramona's lips quirked upward.
The village sprawled out before them was bustling with life, people wrapped in traditional white Snow shawls pushing carts and offering trades: a bushel of apples for three bales of hay, a bag of coins for a handful of jewels. Ramona had forgotten how poor South Snow was. Everyone had donkeys in lieu of horses, bartered personal items instead of pawning. Snow fell in thin flakes, the wind calm but frigid. Ramona pulled her worn brown cloak tighter around herself—the only item of clothing she had without holes cut out of the back. They didn't approve of fairies here, or half-fairies, or whatever the heck she was. She tugged the hood over her head to cover her hair for good measure. Bear tossed the large tarp over their van, which was parked behind an abandoned old monastery and would hopefully be mostly concealed by the trees.
"We can't stay in Snow long," Ramona reminded everyone, her expression guarded as her mind ran through the possibilities of police tracking them down, or worse, the royal guard being sent after them. She couldn't eliminate anything, however far-fetched it might seem considering the six of them were merely a band of traveling thieves (which was not a rarity anywhere in Fairytaletopia). "Surely the Central royals will start sending people after us."
Lindsay frowned. "I think you overestimate the competency of the Snow government."
"Could be entirely true. But I don't like to underestimate spite or grudges." She fingered the earrings she nearly always wore; small silver studs shaped like swans. Her gaze flicked to Minerva but she quickly glanced away again, choosing to pretend ignorance of Minerva's skeptical scrutiny, undoubtedly not buying the calm act. There was no way any of them could be calm after the events of the last few days, but that was her job, her responsibility. If Ramona couldn't pretend everything was fine, then none of them could. "We need to stock up, which means we need to split up. Steal what you can, buy what you can't. Stay out of trouble—" she spun on her toes to shoot Claude a pointed look— "I'm talking to you, Clo. Don't mess with anyone bigger than you. We're not going to be here for much longer than an hour or two, because it's freezing. Kapeesh?"
"I'll take care of weapons," Penny offered, sliding her knives into concealed pockets in her clothes. "Incident yesterday made me want to try out archery."
"Works for me." Ramona glanced at Baby Bear. "Food?"
He gave her a thumbs-up and a big smile. He was in a considerably better mood now that he was fully human again. "On it."
Lindsay draped an arm around Minerva's shoulders, pulling her close and grinning. "I could use some food too. Minerva and I will see what we can find—won't we, Minerva?"
She grumbled something unintelligible, but didn't resist as Lindsay practically dragged her in the direction of the market. Claude had scrunched up his face and was mouthing what Ramona had said mockingly: Stay out of trouble—I'm talking to you, Clo. Bear saluted to Penny and ducked toward the nearest crowd in the opposite direction as the girls had gone. Neither Penny nor Claude had noticed Ramona leave, but as they glanced around, it appeared she had already vanished into the hordes of Snow citizens trudging through the narrow streets.
"When do you want to meet back here?" asked Penny in that stoic voice of hers, tossing a brown winter wrap over her shoulders and flexing her ankles, her eyes already roaming the streets for potential targets.
"I'll try to be back by noon, but if I run into anything it could take longer."
She stared at him for a moment, her expression unmoving. Something told him she expected him to run into something, but she didn't say it.
"Noon it is."
Lindsay spun Minerva into the heart of the town square, instructing her to be on the lookout for targets to con. Minerva herself was more concerned with watching her back, taking note of the flashes of cloaks sweeping past and narrowed eyes of fellow criminals—they were easy to recognize once you'd been around enough of them. Takes one to know one, I guess. She knew better than to underestimate anyone in impoverished areas where stealing was probably the nicest thing people resorted to doing to survive. But while she was constantly on alert, she didn't have to focus much to steal anymore. It came as second nature after all this time, whirling past someone as her fingers slipped easily into pockets, bags—and then she was gone before they even noticed her face. Claude had watched Minerva again and again and he still said that half the time he had no idea when she pickpocketed someone, or how in some cases. She could maneuver her way into front pockets just as easily as back pockets, and had a knack for finding valuables in... other places as well. It was easy, when you were a pretty girl, to make nearly any situation bend to your advantage.
Pretty girls probably made the best villains, she decided.
They walked leisurely about the square and came to rest against one of the large supporting beams of a pavilion underneath which a few trading carts had set up shop. "Ready for this?" Lindsay asked, sparing Minerva a brief glance that, if she squinted, might have had traces of concern laced through it. Although perhaps she was imagining it, as concern and Lindsay didn't really go together.
Minerva traced the black ribbon that crisscrossed up her arm from where it was tied to her thumb on her left hand. "Sure I am," she managed, but it might not have been all that convincing. Every time she did this she kept thinking of the village men back home. The way they'd looked at her, the way they'd smiled, everything like a sinister shadow that never stopped following her, digging in its claws at the worst times...
"Well," Lindsay smirked, adjusting her top to hike up her breasts a bit and ensuring the collar of her jacket was straight, "the easiest way to a man's wallet is through his heart, you know."
"You mean his eyes," Minerva replied emotionlessly, side-eyeing her and noting that neither of them could pass as native Snow citizens in a million years, not the way they were dressed. Lindsay was always decked head-to-toe in various shades of green, jewels at her throat and dangling from her ears, and never covered more than half of her exposed skin regardless of the weather, insisting that beauty and discomfort often went hand-in-hand. She'd said once before that she refused to wear a few specific colors—pink, blue, white—as they had belonged to others in her life. Minerva, too, had heard the sentiment that beauty was pain, and all throughout her childhood, in fact. Being half-succubus in a place like Villagetown that only breeded the most generic of humanity was already bad enough, but life became infinitely worse when you were adopted into a family with a perfectly ordinary daughter named Beauty who was somehow perceived as more attractive than you.
Minerva hadn't been Minerva then. She'd been Laurette Minerva Lynon, biological younger sister to Claudette and Paulette Lynon, all daughters of an incubus who had left their human mother long before she died of the stardust plague on the outskirts of Hill Village. There wasn't anything wrong with him per se, as incubi and succubi were not of the committal type, but she resented him all the same. He'd made her this way. He'd made her less than human—or more. Whatever she was, the girls in Hill Village had hated it and the boys had lusted after it, ever since she'd turned about thirteen. Laurette and her sisters, when they were only small children, had been taken in by a rosy-cheeked and kindhearted merchant by the name of Sylvester Henderson, who gifted them with a roof to live under and an education that most in their village would never have been able to afford. He also happened to have three children already, two sons and a daughter, and their daughter was called Beauty for good reason.
Claudette and Paulette had hated her.
Every time their father went off to travel for work, Claudette and Paulette would drag Laurette with them out to town to fawn and seduce as their kind did, and Beauty just sat by the fountain in the square and studied, but somehow she attracted boys and men from far and wide who wanted to talk to her or even, if they were particularly brave, ask her hand in marriage. "It's her name," Paulette had told Laurette once. "It's a curse."
Laurette, being the youngest of them, dutifully followed her sisters in everything they did, and based on what they taught her she assumed that whining and wearing revealing clothes to please men was just the way the world worked. Every time there was a new heartthrob in town, the three of them would trail him and fawn over him, and for her sisters, it never got old. She'd always thought there was something wrong with her, because she could hear a little voice in the back of her mind: Is this really all there is to living? They didn't think it got old. But she did. The village boys called them 'the bettes', which she later learned was Villagetown slang for a herd of idiotic but beautiful women. She'd always been confused by Villagetown slang—Claudette had come home crying hysterically one day, mascara pouring down her face, and when Laurette anxiously asked what was wrong she had confessed that she'd been called a white rose. She'd slapped her when she'd asked what that meant.
According to Paulette, she'd been accused of being a virgin.
Beauty Henderson was never accused of anything, and never did anything wrong, apparently. Their father went off to travel again one fateful day and each of his children asked for him to bring back loads of gifts in exchange for his absence—expensive things, silly things, that they all knew could never match the value of time with their father but asked of him anyway. That is, except for Beauty, because she was just so good and perfect, and so she batted those innocent eyelashes and asked him only to bring her back a single rose. Claudette had scowled.
Oh, if only she had known what a price that was to ask. Now, years later, everyone knew the tale of Beauty and the Beast, but no one cared about the sisters she'd left behind, because she took a great deal of joy in telling everyone that would listen that those awful succubus sisters of hers had always been jealous and petty and treated her terribly. In all fairness, that was entirely true. Minerva still remembered very vividly the three of them dunking Beauty in the well behind their house, when Minerva was only fourteen. The fear in her eyes, how Beauty had spluttered and cried, she remembered all of it. She also remembered how guilty she'd felt, how she'd shrunk back and ran to the baker to get the day's bread if only to take her mind off of what she'd done. And she remembered the kind baker's son who smiled at her warmly and looked at her eyes rather than her chest, and offered her a dandelion for her hair and wished her well, and she remembered going home and locking herself in her room and clutching the weed to her heart as tears streamed down her cheeks.
Beauty, one of the renowned queens of Rose Kingdom, would never tell anyone any of that.
Because beauty was pain, but honesty was torture.
"Well?" Lindsay prompted expectantly. "Are we thieves or what?" She patted Minerva on the cheek. "You know what they say. A woman looks her best dressed in a smile."
Lindsay meant well, even if she could be irritating. Minerva rolled her shoulders. She could do this. She wasn't a kid anymore, and, as had been made clear her whole life, she was a succubus, after all. "Sure," she said. "But it's more fun to bare your teeth."
Lindsay nudged her with her shoulder, nodding towards a pair of men coming their way. "You take the one on the right."
"Considerate of you to give me the ugly one."
"It's a dog-eat-dog world, my friend. The one on the left looks easier; you're the better pickpocket. Take it as a compliment."
Minerva was very, very bad at acting. But when you looked like she did, there wasn't really any acting needed. So she kept her bored expression, running a hand down her thick bubble braid to ensure it was smooth. Lindsay, on the other hand, flashed an elusive smirk as the unfortunate targets approached them.
"Where're you two goin' dressed like that?" asked the one on the left, waving a flask and leaning on his friend. "Not Crooked Crown, I hope. You wouldn't last too long."
Minerva peered through her lowered eyelashes at the target on the right, fiddling with the lipstick in her hand. She scanned his frame—large, stocky. Bag slung across his chest, would have to get close to unlatch it. Both front pockets were full, which meant the back ones were likely empty. But one never knew. She would still have to check. She re-applied her lipstick and met his eyes. Not intoxicated. Her gaze flickered to his shoes. In nice condition, recently shined. He could have come from the shoe-shiner's down the street, which means he wouldn't be heading back that way. In the other direction would be bars and clubs. Blech.
"Wherever the day takes us," said Lindsay airily. She glanced wistfully in the direction of a fairly tall building with a large, colorful sign that read THE FAIR LADY. Saloons made Minerva want to gag. "We were hoping to catch ballroom hour—" something that didn't exist in Villagetown, but Minerva had recently learned was akin to happy hour but with organized dancing— "but neither of us have been able to snag a date." She pursed her lips in a pretty pout. Leave it to Lindsay to lure random targets into dancing.
Lefty grinned, displaying horribly crooked teeth. Ah, there was always a catch with those good-looking ones. "Ruslan and I just happened to be going that way." He held out his arm and Lindsay gladly took it, Minerva eyeing Righty—sorry, Ruslan—for a hesitant moment before looping her arm through his as well.
He leaned closer to whisper in her ear. "And what's your name, lovely?"
She tilted her head. "Laurette."
"Fairy Kingdom?"
She smiled with her mouth but not her eyes.
"Lucky guess." Not even close. But, to his credit, he wasn't the only one she'd met who had made that assumption. It wasn't just the name—it was what she looked like, too. Pros of being a succubus: you stand out among Villagetowners. Cons of being a succubus: you stand out among Villagetowners. Beauty is pain. Fleetingly she wondered what her sisters would think of her now, all three of them. Maybe Beauty would shake her head. Claudette would turn up her nose. Paulette would frown, pat her on the shoulder and say that thieving was one thing but curses, Laurette, fishnet leggings is another.
Well, it was a good thing their opinions didn't matter anymore.
"Then you must be a good dancer," Ruslan said, his eyes roving over her.
Minerva batted her eyelashes. "Guess you'll have to find out."
Some ways away from the town square, Penny (whose specialty was not remotely seduction, thank you kindly) was on the hunt not for marks but for weaponry. She didn't make an abundant effort to pick pockets, although a thief did have to make a living for herself—she slipped unguarded items on carts into her sleeve when no one was looking and ducked through busy narrow streets lined with stalls where it would be near-impossible to notice a few bangles or scarves going missing here and there.
She eventually came upon a clearing on the far side of town where a fairly large tent was situated. Curious, she slipped through the opening, and through the crowds, where she could just make out a great beast prowling about inside a roped off stage of sorts. She shuddered involuntarily. Manticore. As she got closer, the breadth of the sport became more visible: a dwarf wearing leather armor and swinging a battle ax was circling the creature, coal paint smeared across his face. She'd heard of this sport before—fablemachy—but had never been particularly interested in it, especially since endangered animals were usually roped into it. Of course, she didn't think the world would be worse off with one less manticore roaming it.
"AND... FIGHT!" the announcer shouted through an enchanted loudspeaker, and the chains wrapped around the manticore shimmered into thin air. It and its challenger lunged for each other. The sounds of cheering and growling and the announcer's booming voice served as background noise as Penny weaved her way through hordes of people to reach the weapons seller that she had been reliably informed by a jewelry merchant would be stationed here.
A long table was set up, stacked with melee weapons of every shape and size. Display stands behind it bore various styles of armor, and a rack of crossbows stood off to the side. Manning the table was a man probably in his twenties, with ruddy, sloppily cut bangs obscuring his eyes from view. He was shining a rapier the length of her arm. Penny tapped the table with her fingernails.
The young man finally looked up at her and smiled. It was so genuine that her brain felt fuzzy—she was too used to arrogant smirks, sarcastic grins. She couldn't muster a smile back. She swallowed.
"Hell of a crowd today, yeah? They're taking walk-ins and so every fight is an absolute riot. Just another Wednesday in Tolava, I s'pose. You here for somethin' close range?"
Penny shook her head, eyes roaming the crossbow rack. "You wouldn't happen to give archery lessons, would you?"
He only smiled wider. "Sure we do." He set down the sword and went over to run his fingertips across the bows, selecting a medium-sized one and weighing it in his hand. "You can start with this one. Light enough, but you look like you can handle one this size."
He gestured for her to follow him out around the back, where targets were lined up at varying distances. She readied the bow, hoping that enough watching others do this over the years would keep her from humiliating herself too severely, and he explained what the different parts of the bow were called and what they were for.
"So this here is called the shelf—" he pointed to it with the feathered arrow he was holding— "and that's where you're going to shoot off of. Now, obviously before you shoot you're going to want an arm guard, especially if you're inexperienced, because if you end up hitting yourself with the string it's not gonna feel great. Those leather cuffs you've got on should probably work fine. When you're shooting off the shelf you want to tilt the bow at an angle," he added, reaching up to adjust it as she turned it to one side. "But if you were shooting off of an arrow rest, you would hold it vertically."
Time ticked by, marked mostly by cheering and the hollers of, "OH! THAT'S GOING TO LEAVE A MARK!" by the announcer over by the arena, and Penny lost herself in learning everything about this crossbow. How to hold it, how it worked, which techniques were best in which situations. Her first shot was a stark miss, emphasized by the "MAN DOWN! GAME OVER!" coming from the announcer. "THAT'S A WRAP, WE NEED MEDICAL OVER HERE!" echoed in her ears as she pulled back the string a second time, and then a third, and then a fourth. On the fifth try the arrow whizzed into the target, just inches away from its center. Her instructor's eyebrows looked as though they were going to fly off of his forehead.
"Wow," he breathed. "You're a fast learner."
Penny shot again and again and again, improving minimally each time.
Two manticore fights later, when the weapons seller finally decided she was ready, they headed back to the booth so she could purchase the crossbow. "And here," he said, handing her a linen bag tied with string, "is enough cleaning supplies to hold you over for a while. Will that be trade or cash?" That was when a woman wearing a fur hat rushed over and slammed her hands onto the table.
"Adrik! We need a new challenger. We just had a dropout."
The weapons seller—Adrik, it seemed—held up his hands defensively. "I'm not going to do it! Have you seen that thing?"
"No one is volunteering, and if I don't act fast, I'm going to lose first the crowd and then my job." Her frantic gaze flicked to Penny. "You. You look spry. Looking to try your hand at the manticore, miss?"
Penny waved a hand. "No, thank you. I'll just be on my—"
"Do we have someone new? If we don't meet the quota today I don't get paid," a portly man with a scruffy beard huffed, appearing suddenly behind them. "We've got to keep the betting crowd. What's your name, young lady?"
She blanched. "Penny. Penny Windsor."
He glanced her up and down hurriedly. "She'll have to do." And with that, he disappeared in the direction of the announcer.
Penny glared down the woman, crossing her arms. "I don't have time for this."
"Two hundred gold pieces if you win," she said enticingly, jingling a bag of coins. There was something eager in her eyes. Penny's glower deepened. But money was money.
"Fine," she spat. "But how am I supposed to—"
"Perfect!"
Adrik assured her that he would hold the bow for when she got back. He gave a sympathetic wave goodbye, the woman dragged her off, and something like thirty seconds later she was shoved unceremoniously into the arena.
"WE'VE GOT A PENNY WINDSOR OFFERING TO CHALLENGE THE MANTICORE! PLACE YOUR BETS ON ONE PENNY WINDSOR!" howled the announcer. The noise in the crowd was deafening. Penny found the face of Adrik from afar, smiling and saluting her.
Penny turned to the manticore, his tail snapping in the air, glowing red eyes trained on her. It growled and she growled right back. She closed her eyes and held out her hand, her unbreakable silver sword materializing from the air. She opened her eyes and gripped it with fresh fervor.
It was just a big, nasty beast. She'd been married to one before. She could do this.
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Bernard Bear was a perfectly good thief. Unfortunately he had one fatal flaw: tricking people made him feel bad.
He was chatting animatedly with one of the sellers at a pastry booth, and his train of thought had wandered into If you go back empty-handed, Minerva is going to glare you into oblivion territory. The last steal, and the last one, and the one before that, he had backed out of because he took pity on how poor and scrappy all these small-town merchants were. Pity was dangerous, he knew. Pity paved the way for everyone around you to use you as a floorboard. Duckie had told him that practically a hundred times. And usually he didn't mind thievery as it was a rough world and sometimes if you weren't simply handed a happily ever after you had to fight for one. But with people who were just as poor as he was? His mother hadn't raised him to be this way. His talking cricket nagged at him.
But he couldn't exactly starve, now could he?
Most of the people here that he had come across thus far assumed he was a forester from a little ways up north. That was a fair assessment given that he had the appearance of and dressed quite like your average lumberjack. So that tended to be the default subject of discussion when distracting people with conversation in order to slip past their defenses. Of course, Bear had grown up in the Unicorn Forest nowhere near South Snow, but the life of a forester was universal for the most part.
"The worst thing about it is the cold," the man was saying, "but I don't think I could withstand somewhere hotter. It's easier to be cold, you know—you can layer up. What can you do if you're hot, right? Peel off your skin? But anyway, if you're looking for the really good axes, everyone tells you to go to Fisherman Joe's outdoor shop down the street, but here's a tip: if you take a left at Little Miss Muffet's and then take a right, and then go all the way down past the town square, you'll reach the fablemachy arena and there's a couple of guys with a weapons booth. That's where the good stuff is."
"Really? Not expensive, is it?" Bear said, pausing. He had just slid a whole loaf into his bag with a few quick movements, but this piqued his curiosity. It had been so long since he had held a nice, sturdy—oh, my. Oh. That was a very nice watch this man was wearing. If he could just shake his hand...
"Well, it depends on what you get. Some stuff is pricy. Worth it, though, I say. They take trade if you don't got gold. Ask for a guy named Adrik when you get there. So... which did you say you wanted again?"
Bear needed to focus. He cleared his throat. "Oh, yes. The raspberry almond, I think."
The baker wrapped three powder-covered pastries and stuffed them in a paper bag. "Will three do?"
"Three will do just fine." He exchanged the bag for a small coin pouch.
Bear hurried away from the stall, his mind still latched onto the prospect of a new ax. He was cursing himself, though, for missing the opportunity to try for that watch. Once he'd turned onto the next street filled with people pushing carts through the snow and walking in huddles towards their destinations, his eyes found a new target.
He unrolled a map and squinted at it, turning it, before slamming into someone, causing them both to fall.
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" he said quickly, helping up the man he'd bumped into and fumbling for his things that he'd dropped. He dusted off the man's shoulders and patted him to ensure he was alright, handing him the basket that had fallen from his hands, concern pooling in his eyes. Watch. Scarf. Belt buckle. Wad of redbacks. "Are you okay; nothing broken?"
The man—probably not much older than he was—scowled until he took in the full scale of Bear's size. He backed away, his eyes going wide. "I'm fine, I'm fine, alright? Just—just leave me alone!"
Bear frowned as he vanished into the crowd. His height and muscle mass sometimes scared people away, which was silly and had never made much sense in his mind. Still, it often worked in his favor. He examined his new watch. Not half bad. Minerva would be proud of that one, he thought, although perhaps she would note that subtlety was not his strength. Of course, Duckie would just say that as long as you get it done it doesn't matter much how you do it. The two of them tended to give conflicting advice. And he was never sure who to listen to, because Minerva was the naturally better thief, but Duckie was the one in charge...
Anyway, thieving aside, he was starving. But as he headed towards Little Miss Muffet's Tea Shop, pulling out one of the pastries he'd bought in order to make the bakery steal less noticeable, a huddle of scrawny children sitting by the door of the shop looked up at him eagerly, something familiar in their eyes. Something very familiar. Desperation. Hope. Hunger.
Pity is dangerous. Pity paves the way for everyone around you to use you as a floorboard, Baby. We all feel it once in a while. But don't forget that.
He found himself stopping, kneeling before them. "Hello there."
Three sets of big, adorable eyes blinked up at him. "You don't look like our fairy godmother," said the boy on the left.
No one told kids these days that no fairy godmother was coming to save them.
"You hungry?" Bear said gently.
Pity is dangerous. The little kids could be a trick, a ruse, a trap. It didn't matter.
Three little heads bobbed yes. Bear held out the paper bag. The little boy snatched it up and examined it carefully. He squinted suspiciously at Bear but didn't say anything. Bear smiled. And then he left.
Back in The Fair Lady, dancing, accompanied by drinking, had quickly made its way to exactly what Minerva wanted. The dim lighting of the tavern provided for dark corners where couples could kiss their worries away draped over couches or pressed up against walls. Lindsay did have an eye for these things, as she wasn't their resident spy for nothing, but it was almost too convenient a location. One of these days her luck would run out and Minerva suspected she would underestimate the wrong target. She would burn that bridge when she came to it.
Minerva had ensured that her mark drank as often as possible to make her job easier, but he seemed to have a tolerance akin to Claude's, much to her dismay. Hopefully she hadn't fumbled her way through dancing too terribly—instances where the gang had free time between heists and Lindsay decided to take it upon herself to give ballroom lessons had improved her skills somewhat—but thus far he hadn't minded the occasional clumsiness. She and Ruslan had made quiet conversation, but he was more of a talker than she was. She was used to that. Generally if you picked your target well then he would have no qualms about talking about himself and you would only have to encourage him.
But talking wasn't what Ruslan was looking for, or anyone in this establishment for that matter. This was a place to let go. And when people let go, they may as well have been painting enormous red targets on their backs.
Hence, her current situation.
Minerva pulled Ruslan closer by his lapels as his lips brushed her neck, carefully extracting the wallet sitting in his inner jacket pocket while keeping it pressed to his chest with her pinkie so he would be none the wiser. She trailed her left hand down his chest as he kissed her neck, her jaw, and their lips locked as she released the wallet and let it fall underneath his coat, catching it with her left hand. She tucked it into her own sleeve, bringing her arms around his neck, before sliding the wallet from one sleeve to the other, leaving it in her right hand. Then she could more easily drop it into the hidden pocket in the folds of her skirt as he pushed her up against the wall, breathless.
Now that they were this close whatever was in his left front pocket was much easier to access, and Ruslan definitely got the wrong idea when her slender thief's fingers made their way to his belt. The ribbon she wore wasn't purely a style choice—it helped her hook what was apparently a pocket knife onto her wrist and maneuver it out. Hopefully it wasn't too cheap; she would have to check later.
"Ah, ah—you're a naughty one, aren't you?" he murmured, gently moving her hands away from his waistband and clearly misunderstanding her intentions. But she had already tilted her foot and dropped the knife neatly into her boot.
"If only you knew how much," she said lightly, pressing a final kiss to his lips and pushing him off of her as she caught the signal from Lindsay in the corner of her eye that they should get going to find new targets. "Wait up for me, I'll only be in the powder room for a minute."
She made her way over to the bar counter and set down a small stack of paper Snow money—redbacks. "This poor fella has been walking around all alone," she said to the nearest bartender, nodding in Ruslan's direction. "Have some heart and give him a drink or two." That should cover him for long enough for her to be long gone before he got the good idea to go search for her. Besides, she wasn't heartless. Apparently the man was distracting himself from a nasty recent breakup.
Lindsay joined her at the back door. "That was fun, wasn't it?"
Minerva frowned. "You and I have real different definitions of fun."
"You wouldn't know fun if it hit you over the head with an anvil. Dancing is fun."
Minerva produced the wallet from her skirt, flashing it between her fingers before it vanished again into her sleeve. "Stealing is fun. Minimally. Where to next?"
Lindsay smiled the sort of smile that suggested some sorry chap was soon to be waist-deep in trouble and hard-pressed for cash. Pretty girls make the best villains.
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Lucien Regulus had long lost hope in the idea of paradise. Paradise had always manifested itself in his greatest regrets, his worst fears. Paradise was a trap, the lie that everything could be perfect without having to work for any reward that came.
When one was raised in the Stormy Forest by witches eager for a gullible guinea pig to test new potions and spells on, a hand extended for a new opportunity, as suspicious as it may have seemed, was unquestionably reliable in the eyes of thirteen-year-old Lucien, a lost and wandering soul. In his years following the eleven traveling boys who had found him—Lost Boys, of their own sort—he learned plenty about Lakeland Kingdom. Cadogan told him endless stories by the light of the fire, tales of messy bar fights and terrible rulers and snow-covered poverty. Everyone, he said, who called Lakeland prosperous simply couldn't see past the glittering frosted towers of the Central Palace. Jael, who had always been dark-eyed and mysterious, had even darker, more sinister tales to tell—beheadings of witches and fairies, sirens burned at the stake, gang wars leading to goblins and ogres murdering each others' children in the streets.
Only Hayden, Hayden Calypso, the oldest and the wisest, had hope to give. "There are places where magic flourishes," he'd told Lucien. "No one will poke you or prod you for who you are. We'll feel no oppression of nobles or anyone else above us. We'll be princes, all of us."
Lucien had always been a quiet child. He'd simply nodded.
Long before Snow White or Sleeping Beauty took their places on the throne, the world was a shipwreck. People didn't like to talk about that now. It was easy, so easy, to blame far-too-young queen Ella Charming for the unfortunate financial state of many of the ordinary citizens in Fairy Kingdom. Snow White, who had already had strange and publicized incidents in the past which led many to fear or distrust her, was an easy target to pin blame on for rising gang activity in the north. But who could forget the last queen of Lakeland—now Snow Kingdom—and the king before her, and the king before him, and the queen before that? And what of the local royals, of West, East, North, and South Snow Kingdom? What of the wealthy nobles, who stood by and counted their coin and thought nothing of the laborers who worked for that money they considered so precious? Were they, too, not to blame for the state of Fairytaletopia? Lucien was many things and simple-minded would never be one of them. The last five years had been so disastrous and extreme that everyone's eyes landed right on the most obvious targets.
But for a hitman, a target could easily belong on anyone's head.
"Crowns and targets, one and the same," he murmured softly to himself as he strolled languidly into the Crooked Crown Tavern, a small establishment in Tolava, South Snow. It felt like it had been ages since he'd last visited Snow Kingdom. He avoided it for the memories. Now that he was here he may as well make the most of it. He stopped for a moment in front of the large, sprawling bulletin board that was cluttered with everything from advertisements to missing pet signs to wanted posters. Lucien smiled only slightly at the sight of a weathered and yellowed, useless old parchment with a drawing of a red spider lily and the words LYCORIS RADIATA, DEAD OR ALIVE scrawled across it. What physical description would anyone be able to provide, to confirm the Corpse Flower Assassin's capture? No one bothered with attempting to find such a ghost.
Lucien intended for it to stay that way.
Conspicuous as he was in a small village like this, filled with fair northerners wrapped in wool and fur, he walked through the tavern as if he came here for a drink every day. If there was anything he remembered liking about Snow Kingdom, it was the fights. Poor young men and boys searching for a bit of spare coin would have a go at a larger opponent in an underground arena, hoping to eventually find riches or fame or something better than the life they had. It was bloody and violent and beautiful and he adored watching it. Someone nearly always died.
Word had gotten 'round that this establishment happened to sponsor fights at noon, and it slid perfectly into his schedule as he intended to meet someone here today. So here he was, scanning with a lazy sort of curiosity the board of flyers, his brow furrowing when his roaming eyes landed on something strange.
Lucien snatched the paper off the board and folded it neatly, slipping it into one of his many pockets. Middle-aged women who fancied themselves sensible and were really just very fond of themselves and their own opinions tended to whisper about his clothing style as he passed by, calling it "outrageous and inappropriate" or sometimes "sleazy and immodest". It was hardly his fault that he was partial to chokers, harnesses, and seemingly randomly placed leather straps that could actually be quite useful in concealing weapons, among other decorative accessories. He simply had an unmatched eye for fashion. His tunics—always in various shades of white, turquoise, blue, and purple—were also sleeveless, high-collared, and perhaps tighter than they needed to be, but that was none of anyone's business. Particularly now in the frigid north his... shall we say, eccentric clothing choices would make him stand out further. He wasn't sure if he should care or not. Was it better, safer, to blend in? Or to be so obviously different and walk so confidently that no one dared question you? A dilemma for the ages, surely.
Crooked Crown Tavern, from the looks of it, was a hub for brutes and criminals, so he was either far less likely to be judged or immensely more likely to be judged. Luckily unpredictability happened to be Lucien's forte. He flashed warm smiles to the girls eyeing him from the tables he passed as he made his way over to the bar, sidling up to an empty stool. The state of the place was grimy and drab, the chairs torn and mold growing in wall corners, but it was alive with activity, people chattering vibrantly and doing anything from downing six shots to arm wrestling to making shady deals with old friends. This was the type of place that most of the world looked down on but Lucien had a difficult time not respecting in a way, a congregation of poor people who had mostly given up on a better world and were making the most of what they had for all it was worth.
The bartender who approached was a dwarf, bearded and bulbous-nosed as many Snow dwarfs were, with a long scar running through his right eye and a fur cap atop his head. He was standing on a raised platform behind the counter so as to be eye level, and squinted suspiciously at Lucien.
"We don't serve dusters," he said brusquely, jabbing a thumb toward the rusted sign that read NO FAIRIES. Lucien blinked, and then after making a realization, laughed under his breath.
It must have been the blueish shimmer that sometimes showed on his skin that gave him away. "I'm not a fairy," he replied smoothly. "Siren heritage." When the bartender arched an eyebrow, unimpressed, he added, "Merfolk don't carry the plague."
The stardust plague still haunted Fairytaletopia years after the last breakout, and sometimes it was easy to forget that many places outside of Fairy Kingdom were not at all like the hub of multicultural diversity that could be found there. He must have spent too long in Fairy, gotten too comfortable. Not everyone was as tolerant of fairy blood when they didn't get much exposure to it, and it was easy to fear what one did not understand.
After a moment more of scrutiny, the bartender shrugged. "Fine. What'll it be?"
"One Jack N' Jill, on ice." He assessed his surroundings, tapping his fingers languidly on the counter. There was no way to tell when his contact would arrive, and he didn't want to sit around and waste time. "Hey—where will the fights be?"
The dwarf paused.
"We don't do fights."
Lucien turned his head to meet his eyes again. "Right. So where are you not having them?"
"Fancy yourself a tourist, do you?" he said gruffly. He leaned forward. "I imagine we certainly don't have any sorts of questionable events at noon, and if we did, we wouldn't go around telling people where. When you decide you're done asking stupid questions, it would be wise of you to look for a blue hat."
He hummed. "Entirely useless information. I'll forget this conversation immediately."
"Good." And with that, the bartender disappeared, presumably to take another order or, preferably, prepare his drink.
Thankfully Lucien wasn't left waiting long for his contact, who wordlessly slid into the stool adjacent to him hardly a minute later. He didn't look at him, and they sat in silence for a while before the bartender came back around to deliver Lucien's order and ask for the newcomer's. Once Lucien had gotten a bit of alcohol in his system and decided he was ready to face the situation, he turned to the stranger-who-wasn't-really-a-stranger.
"Hayden Calypso, I presume."
A slow smile spread on Hayden's thoroughly marred face. Lucien didn't remember him looking like he'd tussled with a dragon. But there was no mistaking those eyes, dark as night and shining like stars. "And you, Lucien Regulus. You've grown."
"I was led to believe you were banished from the kingdom."
"Actually, I'm dead."
Lucien arched an eyebrow. "How dreadful. I was never informed."
He leaned back, clasping his hands together over his stomach. "I quite like being dead. Very preferable compared to being wanted. No kings or dukes running around demanding to see your head once they know you've been cremated."
Lucien rocked his glass back and forth. "On the contrary, I've found being wanted to be loads of fun." His mouth twitched in what might have been the start of a smile. "But this isn't a reunion, now is it?"
Hayden hmphed, eyeing him with what might have been a watery mix of wariness and contempt, but for now they needed to put their differences aside and simply make their exchange. "Yes. Right." He lifted a satchel over his head and rummaged through it, producing a file folder and setting it on the table. "This should be enough to get you and whoever you're with through customs. You don't all travel together often?"
"No," he said sourly. "It's a rarity." And thank the Writer for that.
He flipped through the falsified documents. Finding someone in Snow who could forge passports and identification had been harder than he'd anticipated. Certainly the last person he expected to end up working with was Hayden Calypso, but allegedly he was good at it. And skimming through his work, Lucien believed it. Hayden looked as if he wanted desperately to ask what, exactly, Lucien was doing with this, but Lucien handed over the payment and thankfully he kept his mouth shut and his nose out of his business.
By the time the bartender arrived again both men had stashed their respective trades, but Lucien had more than one thing on his mind. He produced from his pocket the wanted poster he had retrieved from the bulletin board. Hayden watched him with mild curiosity.
"You wouldn't happen to know who this is."
Lucien flattened the crumpled sheet of paper on the table, and Hayden scratched at his jaw.
"Oh, yeah. That's that Ugly Duckie gal, the teen thief from the middle of nowhere. Suppose she's older now. Old as you at least. Villagetowner from the looks of her. Surprised you haven't heard of her; I thought everyone in the crime scene knew about her and her lackeys. They break into banks, mansions, palaces..."
"I don't associate myself with gangbangers."
Hayden shrugged. "Well, gang-associated or not, she's on the list of suspects in the case of Queen Snow's murder."
Lucien's blood boiled. "Is she now?" If one more fairy-godmother-damn two-bit criminal took credit for his work, he might just start waltzing into police stations and flat-out telling them his identity. It was annoying enough that everyone seemed to think he was a woman, likely because of the flowers (could a man not admire flowers?). The careful planning, the endless months of biding his time, the choreographed perfection of his entrance—and some loser who had never been on his radar before and whose worst crime was likely her awful haircut was a suspect. How was that even possible? No one had been in the castle except for the Alliance... or, no, wait, Astrum had mentioned running into trouble. He hadn't thought much of it. His lips twisted into a scowl as the pieces clicked together. The muttering that had occurred after they all had made their escape... no one had thought to tell him, their only resident assassin, that their job had technically been compromised? If someone else had been in the castle, thieves or otherwise, they could have seen some of them, could have recognized someone. If his identity leaked, fine. It wouldn't stop him doing what he was doing. But the Darkness Alliance was tenuous, and he didn't trust most of the others if they were captured or questioned not to give up names, addresses, plans...
It was just so in-character for the Sandman not to tell him. "Knowledge always comes with a price, and you should never know more than you absolutely have to," he would say. It wasn't all that surprising for him to keep those who didn't yet know that anything had gone wrong in the dark. And that was assuming he even knew. But he always seemed to know everything, like he was the Writer or somebody. Not that Lucien believed in the Writer; it was just a figure of speech, of course. He wasn't superstitious. But he was pissed.
Hayden lowered his voice and leaned closer—uncomfortably close, in Lucien's opinion. "I know you're the Corpse Flower Assassin." Lucien tensed and had to force himself to relax. "It wasn't all that hard to figure out. You've had an obsession with those flowers ever since our first day in that prison. And honestly, Lucien, it was only a matter of time before you became a psychopath. I saw it. We all saw it."
"You think you know me so well, Calypso. I'm not the child you knew. I'm much worse."
"One more monster in the world can't hurt."
"I'm not just any monster. I find the other monsters, those without spines, and I kill them," Lucien hissed. "But you sympathize with the spineless bastards, don't you? Because that was always your dream. To give up your heart and soul for a crown on your head." And crowns and targets are just the same.
Hayden seemed to find the threat merely amusing."This is Fairytaletopia. The world doesn't take itself seriously, and quite honestly, neither should you, my friend."
Lucien's eyes flashed. "We are not friends," he said, his voice low and dangerous but his expression remaining calm. "You ruined my life."
Hayden sighed. "Lucien—"
"Shut up." Lucien brought up a hand, and something in his eyes must have signaled to Hayden that he should actually heed his instruction, because rarely did Hayden Calypso listen to someone he found inferior to himself. Lucien's gaze followed a girl with a hood pulled over her head, sweeping past the bulletin board without sparing it a glance but frowning at the NO FAIRIES sign. She settled into a table in the back, watching the bar carefully as if she was expecting someone.
"What? Who is that?"
Lucien didn't have time for idiots. He jabbed a finger to the poster of the Ugly Duckling that was sitting between them, and Hayden shook his head.
"You think that's her? That looks like just some chick."
"And you just gave me a description of the Ugly Duckling."
Realization dawned and Hayden squinted. Lucien turned to him again.
"Who does she work with?"
"On her crew? No idea. Guy named Dolos signs their notes, and I know there's at least a couple other girls. No one knows any real names."
Lucien turned back, tapping his heel repetitively. She was still in Snow, which meant it was very plausible that she had, in fact, been at Snow Palace. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know more about her crew or not. But a voice tugged at the back of his mind—she could know something. She could know something about him, about the Alliance, about the reason behind Snow White's death. And that could be a good thing or a bad thing, but he didn't want to take his chances. At the very least he should ask Tom to look into it; an idea which made him internally cringe but, in all fairness, if anyone in the Alliance could gather intel on an obscure young thief it was him.
Mental note: send a request to that idiotic midget Tom Thumb. So much for not associating with gangbangers. Lucien had a well-informed suspicion that Tom's loyalty was more tethered to the gang he worked for than the Alliance itself, but then they all had mixed priorities.
It was then that, entirely out of the blue, a man wearing a brown leather jacket rose from one of the tables and strolled leisurely past the bar on his way to another table on the other side of the establishment. As he passed Hayden and Lucien he dropped something in front of them and continued walking, potentially handing out similar flyers to other patrons. Lucien's faculties of reason fizzled for a moment, processing who on earth that was and what he wanted with them. Hayden picked it up and angled it his way. "I was wondering when crime spree season would finally arrive."
ANNUAL BLACKHEARTS CRIME CONVENTION, it read. In Fairy Kingdom this year. Lucien wasn't surprised; things had gotten a little boring in Fairy the past year or so. They could use a crime spree. If left alone for too long the Fairy Godmother Council would get too comfortable.
All he offered was a noncommittal "Hm."
"Look," Hayden muttered with a slight sigh. "I don't know why you killed the queen. I doubt I want to. But if you've gotten yourself mixed up with something bad enough to drive you to do that, then you should seriously reconsider where you are, Lucien. Who you are. You were an alright kid, Luce, and I don't know what you are now, but you had better be careful. You might be messing with something you don't fully understand."
Lucien's blood boiled. He thinks he can tell me who I am and what I'm capable of. He wanted nothing more in that moment than to see Hayden's blood spilled across the tavern, leave him here for dead, but he had one rule and one rule only. He was a one-man act, and anyone with less coin than he had couldn't afford tickets. He could take one look at Hayden Calypso and know immediately that he was not, currently at least, well off.
Hayden was very, very lucky that Lucien had any morals at all.
He knocked down the rest of his drink and rose, leaving his payment in his empty cup as he knew was customary and pocketing the Blackhearts poster. He was a knife for hire; he went every year. Maybe this year, feeling particularly ambitious, he would really try to win—
But for now, he thought as he spotted a blue hat getting up and heading toward the back of the tavern, there were other things to think about.
🙤 ˖ ࣪⭑ ┈┈┈┈ · ✦ · ┈┈┈┈ ˖ ࣪⭑ 🙦
Claude figured he would have liked himself considerably less if he wasn't pretty. However, pretty did not equate to intimidating, and it was times like these when he wished he could exchange one for the other. Or, better yet, manage to achieve both.
"Who's next?" barked the large man beside him, raising a triumphant and monstrous arm and downing a glass of whiskey with the other. His unfortunate arm-wrestling opponent gritted his teeth and rose from his stool, cradling a swollen wrist. Sprained or fractured, no doubt.
Don't do it, Claude told himself. Don't do it don't do it don't do it.
He was going to do it.
"I'd be happy to try," he said lazily, glancing up at him. Inwardly he was immediately cursing himself. This could only end badly. Well, maybe today it wouldn't. He'd dealt with arrogant, brain-dead hunks of meat before.
The man's attention swiveled toward him, and he took one look at him and burst into laughter. Claude scowled.
"What? Don't think I can do it, do you? Think I'm all skin and bone?" Claude leaned forward, aura exuding confidence—an action that probably wasn't the wisest, all things considered. Then again, when did he ever act wisely? "I'd watch yourself. I took on all of the Three Bears, one after the other, five minutes, tops. Less than a year ago. Can ask 'em yourself if you think you're so tough." Truly, he would never fight Bear's mother. She was a very nice woman. And the idea of getting into a conflict with Bear's father sounded terrifying. But that didn't matter.
"Oh really, pretty boy? You think me dumb enough to fall for that one?" The man cracked his neck with a loud pop, his knuckles following. "My grandma could snap your skinny little arm just like so—" the man slipped a rock-solid hunk of bread from his other seat mate's plate, which he gave a hearty snap in demonstration— "and she don't do nothing but knit."
"Every small-town piece of beef jerky thinks he's some brand-new brand of gangster," Claude sighed, leaning back in his chair as if he'd like to be anywhere else in the world, "but I'd bet good money that you've never stolen a dime, let alone snapped anybody's arm. Can't speak for your lovely grandmother, of course."
The burly man had him pinned to the counter in an instant. "I don't like filthy little runts who don't know their place," he growled, close enough that his breath was hot on Claude's face. The air in the room visibly shifted, other curious bargoers perking up at the prospect of a potential fight. Claude's blood boiled, in anticipation and anger, but his expression remained relatively controlled.
"First of all, sir," he spat mockingly, "I'll have you know that I'm upwards of six foot—" a lie, he was five-eleven— "which is hardly 'little', especially in a kingdom populated mostly by dwarves. And as for 'filthy'... I can't possibly smell that bad, can I? I will admit it's been difficult to find a place to shower the last few days."
The man bared his teeth, eyes flashing. "Think you're smart, do you? I'll have your—"
He halted suddenly, his attention catching on a man who had dragged a stool over to a post to nail a paper up. Claude's gaze flicked in that direction as well, and it took him a moment to register what he was seeing. He had of course seen himself displayed on wanted posters before, but never in Snow Kingdom, and certainly never connecting his face to his name. It would say thief or even occasionally associate of the Ugly Duckling. But here he was, staring down a poster of himself which read 'WANTED FOR ATTEMPTED THEFT OF THE QUEEN'S CROWN: CAREER THIEF DOLOS'.
The man who had him pinned burst into wheezy laughter. "The queen's crown? You'd have to be crazy! Or crazy desperate." This was ridiculous. How was 'attempted theft' even a crime? It wasn't as if they'd actually managed to steal anything. He was going to murder Ramona for this. The man sneered at him, lifting him by his collar, and fleetingly Claude thought that dammit, he was getting his grubby hands all over the nice tunics Sicilienne liked to send him. "You're that Dolos fella, aren't you? You write the notes for the Duckling gang!"
Claude did a double take, even more severely offended by this comment than by the dirtying of his clothing. "I'm sorry, people call us what?" he sputtered. That was when he saw her out of the corner of his eye. He didn't know how he'd missed her—she was sitting right across the other side of the bar, lazily encircling a finger around the rim of her glass, her eyes trained on him. His eyes wandered to the wooden post just behind her. WANTED FOR ATTEMPTED THEFT OF THE QUEEN'S CROWN: CAREER THIEF AND SUSPECTED BLACK APPLE ASSOCIATE THE UGLY DUCKLING. The same haphazard pigtails, the same deep-set eyes and freckle-specked cheeks. And she seemed to be pretending not to notice.
That absolute witch. She would have many a comment about the wanted posters later, for certain. He could practically hear it already: I haven't worked for any sort of black market since I was a teenager! I don't even use the Ugly Duckling calling card anymore—not that I chose that name in the first place!
Claude slipped his hand discreetly into the satchel hidden under his jacket, closing around the handle of his enchanted knife as the other men sitting around the bar got up to get a closer look. He'd be surrounded before he had the chance to make so much as a sarcastic quip.
"Ain't Dolos one of those dickwads suspected in the murder of Snow White?" someone asked, scratching his scruffy beard. "There's a pretty price on his head."
Another one cracked his knuckles, dragging his tongue along his teeth. "I could use the money. Hand him over, tough guy."
A woman brandished a long bronze knife. "Step aside, boys. He's mine."
Claude sighed, ever the level head in situations like this. His eyes flicked momentarily from person to person, assessing them as quickly as he could manage. "As flattered as I am by all this," he said, "and I am, really—I do have places to be." The man holding him down went for his neck and he whipped out his knife, praying to the Writer or whatever else was out there that the spell on it considered this situation dangerous enough for violence to be necessary. Judging by the pained grunt and surprised expression on his enemy's face as he shoved the blade into his kidney, it had. Claude sucked in a sharp breath, feigning sympathy. "Oh. That looks painful, my friend."
He yanked the knife back out and pushed his assailant off him, ducking past the closest person in the crowd slowly closing in on him only to slam into another. Shoot. He socked this one right in the face, spinning out of the reach of a man with beefy tattooed arms. He glanced up just in time to see the woman's knife headed for his chest, his eyes widening. Suddenly she froze, dropping her weapon, as a hand grabbed her arm and a curved blade appeared at her neck. Ramona Swan leaned in to whisper in her ear.
"Out of your league here, miss. Gangs protect each other."
The woman swallowed as red swelled at her throat. She held up her hands in surrender and Ramona released her, kicking the back of her legs so her knees buckled. Many of the others had backed off—Claude was spinning a magic diamond blade and Ramona had just almost slit somebody's throat. But 5,000 gold pieces was a lot in any region of Snow Kingdom, and the Ugly Duckling was worth even more as the well-known solo thief she was in the past. Ambitious customers were rising from their chairs and emerging from the shadows, nearly all of them with weapons or fists at the ready.
"This place is about to riot," Claude muttered.
"I think we've outworn our stay in Snow Kingdom," Ramona agreed with a grimace. They both made a beeline for the door, and chaos ensued.
Burly men knocked each other over trying to get to the wanted thieves, chairs went hurtling through the air, and someone smashed a beer bottle over Ramona's head. Claude ended up with a bloody nose after knocking out someone's teeth and splitting someone else's skull open, and Ramona earned a thin slash in her side after snapping someone's left wrist. They both managed to stumble out of the bar in the chaos, clinging to each other for dear life.
"Hey," Ramona said breathlessly as they dashed through the markets to get back to their meeting spot, occasionally looking over their shoulders to ensure no one was chasing after them, "remember that thing I said about not getting into trouble?"
"Hey," Claude retorted, leaping over a stack of apple crates and grabbing one that flew in the air on the way, "remember that time when I asked? Oh wait." Ramona shook her head, laughing lightly, and they both ducked into an alleyway to catch their breath. Ramona pressed herself against the wall of a building, gently pressing her hand to her bleeding side, squeezing her eyes shut and letting her heartbeat slow. He furrowed his brow, realizing something. "Why did you follow me into Crooked Crown?"
"I didn't follow you," she said, eyes still closed. "I was following a target." She reached into the satchel slung over her shoulder and lifted from it a handful of watches, jewelry, and other accessories before letting them fall back in. "Saw you, so I stayed."
"Because you knew I would run my mouth and piss somebody off," he finished for her with a grimace.
"You tend to."
"I am a delight. It's not my fault that guy was putting up a wanted poster of me at an inopportune time. I didn't think word about Snow Palace could get out that fast. It's been less than a day."
When she met his eyes it was obvious she was somewhat irritated, but there was something else there too. Disappointment. That was worse. That would always be worse.
"We both know that none of this would have happened if we'd pulled off the Monarch Republic Castle heist," she said quietly. His throat went dry. She'd helped him, but she hadn't been happy about it. "One mistake spirals into another and then suddenly we're suspects in the murder of Queen Snow. Something made you stop that day. Feel like telling me what it was?"
What was he supposed to say? How could he explain the pull he'd felt? Fate, destiny? Could a person like Duckie possibly believe in something like that? He just stared at her, schooling his expression to mask his turmoil, but she didn't look away. Claude half-hoped that some bruiser would appear before them, have a go at them, give him an excuse to end this conversation, but he came upon no such luck.
They were right behind a shop. He thought fleetingly that they'd met in an alleyway just like this one.
"I had to do it," he said finally. "You and me—we're extras, side characters, here in this world to fill up space. What do they say about Fairytaletopia? Everyone has a destiny to fulfill. Ours is to exist in the background, to be a villager that Jack passes by on the way to sell his cow and get the magic beans, an invisible servant in the castle while Beauty falls in love with the Beast, one of the kids who gets screwed over on the island in the Pinnochio story. No one gives half a peck of pickled peppers about us. But I felt something that day, Ramona. Unlike anything I've ever felt before. I did something that mattered. It was like—like I was part of someone's story, really part of it, and someone got to see their next chapter because of me. I—" He blew air out of his cheeks. "I don't know. It seems stupid to believe in destiny—really believe in it, I mean. But, I thought about it, and... If it's true what they say, that everyone has one, then, you know, maybe that was mine."
Claude wasn't sure what he expected her to do. Laugh, maybe. Suggest that he should see a therapist. But after watching him for a moment more, she simply nodded.
"Okay," she said.
Claude blinked. "Okay."
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Holy crap I would never have gotten this enormous monstrosity out without my editor, she is literally a lifesaver even though I pestered her a ton about it before we got it done lmao (she would never admit how amazing she is though). It's a miracle we actually got any editing done with all the talking because we FINALLY both had free time to call each other. Anyway. This chapter may seem like it was just a bunch of stealing stuff but I'm pretty happy with all the characterization that was accomplished! Feel free to give me your thoughts in the comments!! :)
I sincerely hope you paid close attention this chapter, because there were a lot of moments that are actually VERY significant to the mounting plot, and that's all I'll say about that, wink wink. Have a great rest of your day/night/whatever (if you want to!).
⸺Ginger