Chapter 115: Back

The Moon’s Door had already begun to hum when a thought stabbed through my skull. I had forgotten something important, and it was the kind of thing that ruins a plan.

I canceled the travel at once.

The doorway collapsed like a soap bubble, and the dark corridor of the palace bathroom vanished. Silver fog, swamp wind and the smell of woodsmoke slapped my face instead. When my feet touched the ground, I was standing in front of Sera and the others again.

"What happened?" Sera asked. Her eyes were already scanning me for wounds.

"Nothing bad. I’ve got a question." I scratched my cheek. "Should I join the soldiers? It could bring me close to Culex."

Silence followed.

Mary was the first to speak. "Do you want to do it?"

"I think so."

"Then do it," she said. "Just do whatever is good for the plan."

It was a ’very’ Mary answer. She had handed me the sword and the responsibility in a single sentence, and she had not even blinked while doing it.

I nodded slowly.

"Honestly, it sounds good," Lee said, tearing a strip of meat with his teeth. "Soldiers get more access. They walk everywhere, they hear everything, and nobody questions a man in armor for standing around and gossiping. Spreading rumors would be a lot easier."

"The Twilight Order romors spreads faster when it is whispered by someone with a weapon," Arthur added cheerfully. "Also, you would look good in armor. A bit skinny, but good."

"Thanks. That was very useful."

"I know!"

Sera did not join the debate. She simply stared at me, arms crossed. She looked very much like me, which was annoying, because it meant I could read exactly what she was thinking.

"Be careful," she said at last.

Two words. They weighed more than Arthur’s entire speech.

"I will be careful," I said, raising both hands.

She huffed and looked away, but the corner of her mouth twitched. That was a win in the Sera dictionary.

We chatted for a while after that. Arthur wanted to know if the palace had any decent food, and I told him the truth, which made him go pale.

Sera asked how many soldiers were Fighters, and Mary asked a question about coin flow that I could not answer yet.

Then it was time. I raised my wrist and the bracelet glowed.

"Do not die," Sera said.

"That’s the plan."

The Moon’s Door opened, and I stepped through.

The cold, damp air of the palace bathroom replaced the swamp wind. I leaned on the wall as the weakness crashed into me. The door took almost everything it could take, and tonight it had been greedy.

I closed my eyes and sank into my Spirit Temple. The silver fog waited for me, endless and calm, with the pillars standing in their circle beneath the impossible stars. The fragment of myself I had left behind was still there, feeding fog into my Core like a diligent little farmer.

’Good work. Keep it up.’

When I returned, the numbers were already climbing.

Spiritual Power: 17/250

It was a pitiful sight. I did not wait for it to heal by itself, so I pushed the fog through my Core and forced the recovery.

It took a few minutes of sweat and gritted teeth before the number looked respectable again. I would have preferred a nap. Unfortunately, I was Peter, a frightened boy who had no business collapsing in a bathroom.

Now came the practical part.

I pulled out the bottle and poured water into the mug. Then I tipped the mug over the Indian toilet in one go. The water splashed across the stone and ran toward the hole.

I filled the mug again and washed my hands, scrubbing between my fingers like a man who had committed a crime. It was a very silly feeling. Bath water only flowed for people who completed a special mission for the King, so this tiny splash of purified water was practically a luxury.

I checked my reflection in the cracked mirror. A fair skinned, wide-eyed boy with deep blue eyes and a little long jet black hair stared back at me. I adjusted my expression to make it a little more terrified, then opened the door.

"Peter."

Charolette was sitting on the edge of her bed, holding a small pouch of coins. She looked at me. "You were in there for a long time."

"I-I had stomach problems," I mumbled. "The monster meat..."

Hazel, who had been polishing her crossbow, shuddered and moved a few inches away. Perfect. Nobody would ask for details now.

"Never mind that," Charolette said. "I exchanged the Awakened gift. It was for fifty coins, so it comes out to ten coins for each person." She tossed me a small stack. I caught it clumsily on purpose.

I almost said it. The words were already climbing up my throat. ’I don’t need it. I did nothing. Keep it.’ I had a dozen coins’ worth of friends’ gifts waiting in my pocket. Ten coins was a joke to me.

Then I remembered who I was supposed to be. Peter would never refuse free money in a place like this. Peter would probably cry from joy.

"T-thank you," I said, clutching the coins to my chest. "Really. Thank you so much."

Charolette’s eyes narrowed by a hair. It was so small that anyone else would have missed it. I felt it like a needle against my skin.

"You should buy a towel," she continued smoothly. "Or a set of clothes. You smell like swamp and blood."

"I... I will. Thank you, Charolette."

"Mm."

She returned to counting her coins, as if the conversation had never happened. But I knew she had been testing me. She was always testing me.

"Peter!"

A different voice called from the other side of the room. Camila was sitting cross-legged on her bed, waving at me with both hands. Her tight dark curls bounced with every motion, and her expression was the exact face of a woman who had been left alone with two people babbling in a foreign language for far too long.

"Come here," she said in Euniscopian. Then she pointed at Hazel and Charolette and made a helpless gesture. "Translate. I do not understand anything they say. Please."

I rubbed the back of my head and chuckled, trying to look as harmless as possible.

"S-sure. Sorry, I forgot."

I sat down beside her, and she let out a sigh so deep that it nearly blew my hair back.

"Finally," she whispered. "Someone I can talk to. Do you know how lonely it is to be surrounded by people and understand nothing?"

’Actually, I do,’ I thought. ’I just spent almost half an year pretending to be someone else in a world I was never meant to live in.’

Out loud, I smiled and said, "Then tell me everything."

Across the room, Charolette lifted her eyes from her coins and looked straight at me. She did not say a word, but the corner of her lips curved just slightly.

I had a feeling this palace was going to get very interesting.