Pax was beginning to get why being stationed at the Royal Circle was not a coveted job. While the bridges and ziplines in the main city were usually bustling during the day, the Circle was entirely quiet. No one was walking to and fro, there was no chatter to immerse himself in, no friendly waves from passersby. It was astonishingly boring. He was having a hard time staying awake, and standing in one place. Thank goodness for the canteen of coffee at his hip. At least, before he had drunk the entire contents.

He'd landed himself the job after an unpleasant reminder from Sofia that he still owed her one for switching places with him at the mid-spring fete. Sofia was a regular at the Circle, but she'd called in her favor to switch places with Pax this time, and for a whole day. So, while he got her dull Circle patrol, she got his usual rounds at the Spiderweb, the home of most of the city's restaurants and shops. Named for its ridiculous amount of intersecting ziplines, the Spiderweb could be counted upon to entertain for hours. Just watching people try to navigate the zipline system could keep Pax amused for his entire patrol.

Just as he was groaning, lamenting the fact that he still had to stand there and stay put for another two hours, he heard a call to his left. He expected one of the councillors or maybe a council assistant, but instead it was Damien Thorne, the always-busy architect, and the last person he expected to see out and about. He was accompanied by Felix Brooks, a ventriloquist Pax thought was actually quite talented, and someone Pax had never met before. A shadow, by the look of the knives on his belt. He wasn't even looking at Pax, but rather the Queen's old house.

"Hello, weary travelers," he joked. "Come far to be here?"

"Yeah, a whole one zipline," Damien quipped right back. "Since when are you on Circle duty? Isn't it boring as hell?"

"Oh, no, absolutely riveting," Pax said, faking droopy eyes and a yawn. "Anyways, what brings you here?"

"A job," Damien explained, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a short sheet of paper. "Got a legit visitor's pass and everything. I'm guessing we're going to be going in and out quite a bit."

Pax took a quick look at the pass (he didn't really read it, just skimmed it for propriety's sake), and waved them past. "Alrighty. Have fun, kids."

"Thanks," Felix said, and Damien nodded, shuffling by Pax on the bridge. The shadow finally took his eyes off the Queen's house to look at Pax.

"You seem too energetic to be a sentry," he commented.

"And you seem just grumpy enough to be a shadow," Pax fired back, smiling. "Your hair is nice enough to be a politician, though. Do you carry a comb and oil with all those knives? I can only assume they're essential survival tools for you."

For a minute, he expected the shadow to sneer or insult him back. However, the man just chuckled lightly and grinned. "Nice to meet you, too." He followed the architect.

Pax let out a breath, glad to finally have some people to watch. Maybe this wasn't going to be as totally boring-"

"Pax!" someone else called. Kaiden stepped down the bridge, rustling the rope railings with his hand as he did so. "Hey, do you have a minute?"

"Two encounters right after each other," Pax mused vexedly. "Where were you for the first four hours of standing here doing nothing?"

"Well, I didn't realize you'd been assigned here today," Kai huffed, running a hand through his hair. "I wanted to talk to you about something."

"If this is about Myth, Kai, I'm sorry," Pax started, his smile dying, "But I don't have any news, so unless you found something at the waterfall-"

"No," Kai interrupted. "Well, actually yes, but no. This is something else. I'm kind of not supposed to talk about it, I think, but..."

"Oh, I can keep a secret," Pax promised.

"Pax, I love you to death, but you absolutely cannot keep a secret."

"I- that's fair," Pax stuttered. His head was buzzing for some reason, as though he'd only heard a very select part of that sentence. Pax, I love you to death. Pax, I love you. "So, uh, what, um- What is it? I mean, what are you allowed to tell me?"

"Unfortunately, it's actually a question. You're a sentry, so you hear and see a lot of things... I was wondering if you've ever seen Councillor Mendax doing anything... weird."

"Mendax? Everything the guy does is weird," Pax shrugged. "I swear, if he could find a way to yell at the sun, he'd do it. The guy loves the sound of his voice, but only when it's loud enough to be heard across the ocean."

"Well, have you ever heard him, you know... not be loud? Like, whispering. Maybe." Kai was fidgeting with his earrings. "Or whatever. But especially with the other councillors. Or... maybe... Prince Arion."

Pax tilted his head. "Kai, did you see something?"

"No," Kai said quickly, "Just curious."

"Okay, you know how I can't keep secrets? Well, you can't tell lies," Pax said. "Don't tell me if you can't, but at least be honest about not being honest."

Kai sighed. "Yeah. I'm sorry, I promised not to tell. But I have an inkling that this is serious. I feel like I can trust you, so I figured it was worth asking."

Paxton bit his lip. "Well, I haven't ever heard Mendax whispering with Arion, but I've heard him whispering about Arion."

Kai's eyes widened. "Tell me."

"Well... it was a couple of days before the Queen was killed..."

//\\//\\

Pax was barely able to stay on his feet, he was so tired. He kept reminding himself, Micah had promised him that he was only on the graveyard shift for a few more days before he got transferred to the Spiderweb for a more permanent position. If he had to stand in this abandoned corner with no one but ants for company for much longer he might actually drop dead on the spot.

He stretched his arms and yawned deeply, figuring that nothing was going to be happening that night. The moon wasn't even there, so it was ridiculously dark; a horrible night for anyone to be doing anything. If he just took a quick nap and was up before someone came to relieve him, no one would know, right?

He unbuckled his sword from his side and sank to the ground, leaning against a tree and bringing his knees up to his chest. Yeah, everything was so quiet, and it was practically impossible to see anything. He'd be fine dozing off...

A creak on one of the bridges startled him. His eyes were still begging for him to just let them rest, but he heard whispering voices, and so held his breath, trying not to make a noise. His hand, however, drifted to his sword on the ground next to him.

"... it's a mistake, Arona," a gruff voice scolded. "We wouldn't survive it for more than a week. Not to mention the public outcry. Do you really think everyone's just going to get over it? This is the only way."

Arona? Pax wondered. The Queen. What is she doing wandering backstreets in the middle of the night?

"Our people deserve better, Dray," the Queen replied hushedly. "Better than what we've been giving them. I know your opinions on it, and a late night stroll with you is hardly going to be changing my mind. I've made my decision."

Dray... Dray Mendax? That was the only Dray Pax knew of... and it made sense for the Queen to be talking about him. Were they trying to keep this conversation a secret? He scooted a little further behind the tree, trying to stay completely out of sight even in the darkness.

"And what about Arion?" Mendax raised. "What will he think?"

"I'm doing this for Arion," Arona hissed. "I'm going to tell him first, in fact. He deserves to know."

"It's a mistake, Arona. You're going to undo everything."

"If everything depends on..."

Their voices faded into the distance, and though Pax tried to focus on them, he was still tired, and he could barely keep a train of thought. He peeked around the tree to find the two of them completely gone, not even their silhouettes visible. He finally let himself breathe regularly, wondering if listening to private royal conversations was illegal. Well, if he never talked about it again, surely nothing would come of it.

//\\//\\

"... and I never did talk about it again," Pax finished. "After all, it was hardly relevant since she's dead now."

Kai hummed to himself. "So... you're telling me Mendax was arguing with the Queen-"

"Less of an argument, more of a quiet disagreement-"

"An argument," Kai asserted, "About something she was planning to do, and a few days later she gets killed?"

There was a pause.

"Kai, I know what you're suggesting," Pax warned, "And I'm telling you to drop it right now."

"But you have to admit it's suspicious-"

"Kai, this is serious!" Pax exclaimed, grabbing kai by the shoulders. "Mendax is a councillor, and he was Arona's friend! They got along for years! Besides, there was evidence that it was Ailica-"

"And now, there's also evidence that it could have been Mendax," Kai argued back. "It's worth looking into."

"Looking into how?" Pax crossed his arms. "Do you want to ask the Queen? I hope you've got some necromancy talent you can muster up if that's the case. Unless you want to stroll right up to Mendax and ask him if he gets murderous urges. I'm sure he'll take that well."

"No, not Mendax." Kai shook his head. "But we can ask Arion if he has any idea what his mother was planning to tell him."

❁

Damien unrolled the blueprint in front of him, matching each detail of the room to the diagram. Felix sat down in one of the armchairs, and Rig walked slowly around the room, tapping his knuckles against the walls.

"It sounds hollow," Rig said, tapping it again for emphasis. Indeed, a light, airy sound came back rather than a dull thud.

"The walls are bamboo, not plank," Damien replied. "It always sounds hollow. Besides, if the walls were built hollow, the blueprints would show it."

Rig tugged a bit at the window latch, frowning at the rattle. "Did the council tell you anything about how they found the assassin?"

"Not really. In fact, no one really knows how she got in. The most anyone knows is that Arona screamed, and that's the only reason sentries even knew anything was amiss. They caught her just as she was about to escape out the window."

Felix tapped a lamp on the table next to him, humming. "But I'm guessing she couldn't have come in that window."

"Every window is within view of the sentries," Damien affirmed.

"And this is the room where she was killed," Rig said.

Damien used his foot to nudge the carpet, folding it up. A dark brown splotch was still stained into the wood. "Definitely."

"Could she have entered somewhere else and walked in here?" Rig wondered.

Damien looked down at the blueprints again, trying to match up the measurements in his head. The angles, the placement of furniture, the dimensions of the walls-

The dimensions of the walls.

He looked down at the number written then back up at the wall. "Felix, hand me my measuring tape?"

Felix dug around in his pocket and pulled out the rolled-up belt, notches carved into one side. Damien grabbed it and held it against the length of the wall.

"Hold that end," he directed, and Felix held the farthest end of the belt to the corner. Damien let the rest of it unroll across the bamboo, counting each notch. "Ten... eleven... twelve..." The wall ended one notch earlier than his blueprints indicated.

"This wall is shorter than it should be," he whispered.

"What does that mean?" Rig asked. "Did someone make a mistake in construction?"

"I need to check something," Damien muttered, pulling Felix and the tape into the other room. He checked the blueprint, and measured the wall on the other side, finding it was also too short.

"Of course," he breathed. "I should have figured it out sooner-"

"Figured out what? What's wrong with the wall?"

"It's a trick I've seen used before," Damien explained, running a hand along the adjacent wall. "I've used it, too. In older houses, like this one, the system of getting rid of rainwater from the roof just wasn't working, so architects designed a way to drain the water out through the walls of the house for efficiency. By cutting just a bit of space from two rooms, a tunnel could be formed between them for the water to run right out of the house. It was an addition to the house, not made during its initial construction, so it wouldn't be mentioned at all in the blueprints, if at all... but every single one we made had a maintenance trapdoor in case we ever needed to make more adjustments..." With perfect timing, Damien's fingers found a thin opening between two stalks of bamboo, just wide enough to sneak a finger behind, and yank on a small lever. A flap on the wall opened up with a pop, water droplets falling to the carpeted ground.

"Clearly, it's been opened recently," Damien said, pushing it up and down on its hinges, "Or there would be a whole lot more dust in the cracks."

"So I was right." Rig noted. "The walls are hollow."

"Well, not the one you were tapping. But yes, this wall in particular is hollow."

"And the assassin snuck in through there," Rig wondered, peeking his head into the darkness behind the hatch. Water dripped from the ceiling, and it was such a thin passage that it was hard to believe anyone could fit inside. However, Rig grabbed the top of the doorway and hauled himself in, grunting. "It's not exactly a comfy fit." The walls were pressed right against his back and chest, but he could scoot sideways down the passage. "It's on a slope."

"So water could run down and out of the house," Damien explained. "Follow it and see where the exit is. If it's not visible to sentries, we know how our assassin got in."

Damien and Felix rushed out of the house, interrupting whatever conversation Pax and Kaiden had going on (when did Kai get there?) to look out for Rig coming out of unseen doors on the house's exterior. They split up, each taking a different position around the house.

Damien fully expected not to see him. He was confident that this was how Nefia had entered without being seen. However, to his disappointment, another flap opened up on the farthest side of the house from the entrance. Yes, it was discreet and not in direct sight, but movement instantly drew his eyes. The flap had hinges on the top so it could open both ways and with very little resistance, and Rig nearly fell out when he emerged, his boots slipping a bit on the water at the edge. He gripped his chest and flung his other hand out to steady himself, eyes wide. He saw Damien a second later, and Damien sighed in frustration, banging a fist against the rope railing. "Dammit."

Rig hopped out onto the branch of the nearby tree, composing himself and getting his breath back.

"Come back," Damien called, disappointment leaching into his voice. "That can't be it now."

Rig looked around for a minute before launching himself onto the walkway and pulling himself onto it. "That's ridiculous. It can't be anything else."

"Well, it can't be that either," Damien reasoned, rubbing his eyes. "There's absolutely no way you'd get past a sentry unseen using that as an entrance."

Rig cursed, gritting his teeth. "We're close. I can feel it."

"I'll see what else I can dig up on the water passage," Damien resolved. "That's still the key, I know it. I just have to figure out how."

❁

Val tapped his finger nervously on his thigh, breathing deeply to keep from panicking. He tried focusing on Berri squirming in his front pocket, but that only made his thoughts get worse. He'd expected this to happen, but at the same time, he'd been hoping and praying that it didn't.

They hadn't gotten very far into the desert before finding the camels, just as he'd predicted. There were only two of them, so Aylin rode one in the front and Val and Poppy followed behind her on their own camel. With no saddle, Poppy had to hold on to Val's waist to keep from falling off the animal, which made his cheeks go even redder than they had been in the heat. Thank goodness she was behind him and couldn't see.

The camels had been more than happy to take them to Ailica's capital, especially when they found out that he could hear snakes and direct them to avoid the reptiles ("They're just napping, let's go around them and let them sleep."). For the beginning part of the journey he and Poppy had a lovely conversation with them, with Val working as the translator. The camels filled them in on some of the happenings in the desert recently: rain had been falling more frequently, which was a relief, and a few of the outskirt desert towns had enough food to spare that they could afford to feed the camels their extra crops when they passed by. More trading caravans had been out and about in the sands. The camels didn't know much about the capital since they didn't go very often, but it seemed safe to assume that those trends would stay true in the kingdom's most populated city.

However, part of the way through the conversation, the camels' voices had started to fade out. They'd become quieter, then even quieter, and Aylin's words came back to Val like a swarm of bees on his skin. Isn't Ailica a dead spot? Magic doesn't work.

The farther they got into the desert, the harder it became to understand the camels. For a while, it seemed like it was only true for the camels. Berri's thoughts were still loud and clear. However, as the sun began to set, Val felt the same thing; Berri got quieter, and while he could still hear him, it was harder, like he was listening through wool. He suspected it was harder to separate his magic from Berri since he was so close to the bird, but evidently their bond wasn't enough. Soon, Berri's squeaks would be as indecipherable to Val as anyone else.

"It's okay," Poppy assured him, probably sensing his distress at losing his magic. "It's only for a little bit. We'll be back in Janbu soon."

"Yeah," he agreed in a breath. "Yeah, I know. It's just... uncomfortable. Like I've got wax in my ears. I'm used to hearing the ants in the dirt and the birds in the branches. I never even realized how much noise there used to be. Now, for the first time, everything's... going quiet."

"Like sensory deprivation," Poppy guessed.

"A little."

"Well, I can keep talking, if it helps."

Val nodded. "Okay. We can try that."

"What do animals usually talk about?"

"Well, fish get really annoyed when bugs walk on their water, and, um, hummingbirds are obsessed with orange flowers specifically-"

"Well, they're right," Poppy said defensively, "Orange is such a nice color in flowers, especially in the ones that fade into pink at the tips of the petals. Those ones, I forget what they're called, they grow right outside of my window so I see them every morning when I wake up."

Val smiled to himself, just a bit, as Poppy got carried away rambling about flowers. It wasn't quite the same as animal thoughts, but it was a nice gesture, and the noise helped with the hollow feeling in his ears.

"There's so many different orange flowers," she continued. "And red, too. I wonder if there's a reason more flowers aren't blue? Blue's my favorite color, but I guess a blue flower would be hard to see against the green. If I was a plant, I'd want my flowers to stand out so I got more pollinators, so I guess that makes sense..."

She kept talking until the sun was completely gone, topics somehow moving from flowers to favorite foods, and from there to whether fire was a better choice for lanterns than lightning bugs. Eventually, the camels stopped, probably exhausted from the long walk with heavy loads. Val still couldn't hear them, but thankfully it seemed they would stay true to their deal and bring them to the capital. They stopped to make camp and sleep for the night. Aylin started up a fire and volunteered to take the night watch. She grabbed a torch and went to scout the area to make sure nothing would surprise them that night.

"She's a very capable shadow. You hired a good one," Val noted as he handed Poppy a banana. She was sprawled out on a blanket, her golden hair long enough to blend into the sand when she let it loose. She was looking straight up, not shivering at all in the cold of the desert night.

"Yeah. I hired a good guide, too," Poppy said, winking at him.

"I'm hardly going to be much use now," Val muttered, sitting down cross-legged next to her. He let Berri clamber out of his pocket and dance around in the sand a bit. "No magic, remember?"

"Oh, please, you're the only reason we've gotten this far. And you're great company."

He chuckled. "I'm awkward and I know it. You did all the talking while I bordered on a panic attack, remember? Yeah, great company."

"Well, you're talking to someone who is usually expected to stay quiet and listen while her brother talks."

"You never do that anyways."

"Well yeah, but I'm expected to. It's nice to be the one who gets to talk about everything and nothing for a change."

"Well, it did help. So, thank you."

There was a moment of silence.

"Lie down," Poppy said suddenly.

"Huh?"

"Trust me, lie down, right next to me."

Val's cheeks flushed once again as she tugged at his sleeve, trying to get him to stretch out in the sand beside her. Somewhat awkwardly, he did, trying not to get too much sand in his hair and clothes, but finally seeing what she had been looking at.

There were no trees or clouds to restrict his view of the sky. The fire had burned to embers, which meant there was almost no light. And so, the stars shone.

Nebulas painted rivers in the sky, purple and black and midnight blue, and the stars came in such multitudes he could see a thousand things in them - a school of swimming fish, the spots on a leopard's side, the glow of fireflies, and much more. It looked close, too. In the jungle, the stars had seemed worlds away. Now, he could convince himself that if he raised an arm, he could stir the night sky like thick honey, watching the clusters of light mix and brighten. He wondered what it would be like to cup his hands and bring the sky to his lips, what it would be like to sip the stars. Were they spicy?

"You can't see the stars like this in the jungle," Poppy said. What an understatement.

"Nope," Val agreed. Also an understatement.

"I'll feel bad sleeping. Wasting time with my eyes closed instead of looking up at them."

"Well... we could just keep looking at them. Is Aylin going to be enforcing bedtime?"

They both chuckled, and mentally, Val pumped his fist. Yes. A good joke. She laughed.

They gazed at the sky in silence, the sounds of their breath syncing up at some point. Eventually, Val drifted off to sleep, the glow of the stars still printed onto his eyes.

Word Count: 4058

Character Appearances:

Paxton Hæthwar by Avengers14

Damien Thorne by EstelElfstone

Rigmund Azazel Orca by SincerelyLoki

Kaiden Esterius by TheShortBosmer

Ignacius Valentine by TheExplosiveCyborg

Penelope Vorago by arcanevi

Also Featuring Appearances From:

Felix Brook by ghostofwolves

Mythil Ivor by DragonDancer55 (mentioned)

Aylin Starlin by New-Identity

A/N: Hiiii again to those of you still here. I'm still chugging away at this story! Still can't promise constant updates but that's better that no updates (*looks some of you pointedly in the eye*) (/j). Not too much to say this author's note around, so.... baiiiiiiiii

Wait shit a question uhhhhh... book recommendation pls