Chapter 54. The Kingdom Has Fine Print Too, and I Used to Sign Those for a Living

Chapter 54: 54. The Kingdom Has Fine Print Too, and I Used to Sign Those for a Living

Hallis and Sharon had been gone for maybe ten minutes when the knock came again.

I hadn’t even managed to lie down.

After Eveline had been carried to the bench by the window, where she had regained consciousness and immediately apologized for fainting, the room had slowly emptied out.

Alicia and Laura went back to their own quarters to change into something less nightgown-shaped, and I sat on the edge of my bed with Sir Floppington in my lap and the Council’s letter on my knee, reading it over and over as if the words might rearrange themselves into something nicer.

They didn’t... But the person at the door had an idea of her own.

"Commander wants everyone in his office," said Sharon, leaning on the frame with her arms crossed. "Right now... He says he missed something."

"Missed what...?"

"Don’t know. He’s been staring at the back of that letter for five minutes and muttering." Sharon turned her back. "Bring your tea... You’re going to need it."

"My tea is already cold."

"Then you’ll need it even more."

I followed her across the yard in the dark, with a mug of something that had gone lukewarm and sour, and a bandage that had started to itch.

The garrison was quieter than I’d ever seen it. A few lanterns burned along the walls, and the guards at the gate watched us pass with the careful blankness of men who had been told not to wonder what was going on.

Hallis’s office was on the second floor, up the same narrow stone stairs we’d taken after the ceremony.

He’d lit every lamp in the room, and the maps on his long table looked washed out and exhausted under the glare.

He sat behind his desk with his cane propped against his knee, and in front of him lay the Council’s letter, turned face down, with its blank back showing.

Everyone arrived within a few minutes of each other.

Alicia had her braid redone and her order jacket buttoned wrong, which told me exactly how fast she’d dressed.

Laura was fully armored, the way she always was when she expected trouble.

Eveline came in last, holding her satchel against her chest with both arms and trying to look like a person who had never fainted in her life.

A messenger had also been sent to the guest wing where Martin was sleeping. He came back with a folded note, which Hallis read, snorted at, and passed down the table.

It said, in Martin’s tidy handwriting, ’I do not object to being forgotten tonight.’

’Please do not wake me unless the building is on fire, and if it is, please wake me gently.’

"I respect him more every day," Alicia said.

"He’s the only one of us with sense," said Sharon.

Hallis cleared his throat, and the room settled.

"I read this letter four times in my office before I brought it to you," he said. "Three times for the content, and once for the paper."

"I’m an old clerk at heart, and in my experience... official documents are never really about what they say."

"They’re about how they’re made... So I held it up to the lamp."

He turned the letter over and slid it to the center of the table. Then he did something I’d never seen anyone do with a piece of paper.

He took a tiny knife from his drawer, slipped the blade under the bottom edge of the sheet, and carefully peeled away a thin strip that had been glued flat against the back.

Underneath it... was a second page?! How the hell?!

It was very thin, almost like onion skin, and it had been pasted behind the main letter in such a neat line that you’d never have noticed unless you were looking for it like really, really long or maybe full of concentration.

The writing on it was printed in ink so pale that it was nearly gray to literally camouflage with the paper.

"This is... an appendix," said Hallis. "It has the same Council seal, the same office stamp, and the same secretary’s signature..."

"I think it’s meant to be read after the main body... by whoever takes the trouble to look. If you don’t, nobody can say it wasn’t there."

He unfolded his spectacles and began to read aloud.

"Appendix A, regarding the detained prisoner Garrick Voss: In accordance with the Council’s authority over matters of national security, the prisoner is to be transferred to the Tribunal in the capital for formal hearing."

"The transfer shall be escorted by Royal Knights Roland Ravenshield and Alicia Ainzfield, who are already commissioned to travel to the capital under paragraph three."

"The party will depart Elarion no later than dawn on the second day following the receipt of this notice."

Nobody said anything.

"Dawn the day after tomorrow," Hallis repeated. "That’s when they’re expecting you to leave, with Garrick in a wagon."

"So all this time... the parade was a cover," Laura said slowly. "And the real order is the prisoner."

"It’s two orders in one... And if I hadn’t been feeling suspicious about the paper, I’d have found out on the day you were meant to ride out of the gate."

I stared at the pale gray text. It was... I realized with a strange kind of admiration, a very good trick.

I’d had a loan contract in my first life, back when I worked in logistics and got talked into a credit card by a smiling woman at a mall kiosk, and it had worked the same way.

All the nice, simple promises were on the front page, and every clause that would actually ruin you was on the back... in a font designed to be ignored.

’Well,’ I thought.’ At least now I know the kingdom has fine print too.’

"It’s legal," said Hallis.

He leaned back in his chair, and the old leather creaked. "That’s the worst part..."

"I’ve spent the last hour trying to find a hole in it, and I can’t."

"The Council has full authority to order a transfer of a prisoner who committed treason, and it can name whichever knights it likes as escorts."

"If you refuse, Ravenshield... they’ll call it disobedience."

"They’ll strip your commission and Alicia’s and probably Sharon’s for sponsoring you."

"Probably...?" said Sharon. "They’d do it with a ribbon!"

"And then what?" said Alicia. "We’d be two ordinary people who happen to know too much, with no authority and no protection?"

"Exactly... Which is exactly when something happens."

"Phase Two," I said.

Hallis nodded. "I don’t know what it is... But I’d bet my pension that it comes after you’ve been made harmless."

I looked at the letter and thought about the pattern, and it started to click together with an uncomfortable neatness. T

They’d taken the three people who had stopped the sabotage at the tower, plus the one man who might know who’d armed Garrick, and put them all in a single wagon train.

They would be leaving the city, away from the thick walls and the guards Hallis trusted, on a long road with no help for days.

If someone wanted to remove every inconvenience in one tidy move, they could hardly have designed a better setup.

"It’s too neat," I said out loud. "You’ve got your star witness, your three troublemakers, and a nice long road..."

"And all of it is wrapped up in a bow that says honor on it... Nobody planned this by accident."

"There’s more," said Laura.

She had been going through the appendix with her finger, the way she did when she was checking a map for mistakes, and she tapped a line near the bottom.

"The route... The party will proceed by the northeastern road, through the crossing at Greywater Ford, and onward to the capital."

"The Silver Road bridge is under repair and is closed to heavy traffic." She looked up. "Commander... is that true?"

"I sent a scout to check the bridge this afternoon because I thought the same thing," Hallis said. "It’s whole... No scaffolding, no workmen, and no notices posted."

"If anything... it’s in better shape than the last time I crossed it."

"Then the reason is... a lie."

"I’d say so."

"Excuse me," said a very small voice.