Page 7

A week’s worth of mornings not waking up in the campaign tent brought the realization that time was still ticking.

This time it only took one mistake to find the staircase, which was odd because Harlow had taken moments before bed to canvass the area and double-check the route before returning to bed.

It was one wrong left turn.

Which made NO sense.

The staircase to the kitchen would then be on the wrong side of the mansion.

Deciding to not let it get to her, Harlow figured that her day would be caring for this...

plant and then asking Atlas about the staircase.

Perhaps then she’d also find out if Atlas had cast any other spells on areas of the house.

If she could work back the spell on the staircase she might be able to find a way to workshop a locating spell for magicked locations in the home.

She’d be able to find the vault.

She didn’t let it get to her head about cracking the lock.

Oh, how she wanted to, the feeling of a lock.

So simple, it would be a great reprieve from grumpy gardeners, eccentric manor floorplans, and the need to constantly check herself for letting Atlas on to the fact she was just a thief, a fraud.

Descending the staircase, she almost tripped at the last step.

So much so that she stopped to look down and give it a quick glare.

Was the step always more steep than the others? Surely she would have tripped earlier if that were the case.

Or perhaps she was letting herself drift off yet again.

Finalizing her glare, Harlow moved onto the kitchen.

A rather empty and quiet kitchen save the sounds of songbirds and the general creakiness of the home.

There were of course some things left out, clean and ready on a marble slab.

A glass press, a hand grinder, a beautiful even if cracked teacup, and a breakfast plate with fixings.

Still warm… and a warm plate as well.

There, just far enough away to not be confused for breakfast items ,was a large porcelain pot, a small burlap bag of dirt and a water can the size of a coffee mug.

She didn’t leave it out, which meant Atlas must have left it out for her.

Had they leaned into the raising of the plant when they were very clearly anti-plant before? And what was that about? All wizards were odd – they were not someone who didn’t fit the wizard mold.

Everyone had their tics, tendencies, and fallacies that made them unique.

She liked that about them, where thieves and rogues seemed to always be cut from the same cloth.

She liked that Atlas had more of these qualities than most. Did she like the qualities or the quality of Atlas… that was still to be determined.

She prepared breakfast and took her time, to see if the Spellsaven would stop in to check in on her or not.

Surely they’d pop in so that she’d hurry and they could get back to work.

Whatever that meant for Atlas.

But an hour or so passed and there was no Atlas, but there also seemed to be a cozy atmosphere that did not feel rushed.

Maybe Atlas was more of a night owl than an early bird. That would not be surprising. Wizards had a terrible sense of time and always kept odd hours. Something that drove Harlow NUTS.

After washing up and replacing her hand towel-dried dishes, she gathered the planting items and headed back to her room.

A repot would be something she’d have to do later.

For now it was more important that she take any more minutes she had of not being directly observed for her benefit.

She’d have to gather ingredients to detect the magic on the staircase.

Surely it would be alright if she cast it on the staircase first, and if it was an issue she could ask for forgiveness. A childish thought, but one that seemed to be commonplace in society.

Taking care to not rush and step quietly in the halls, Harlow found her way back to one of the many reagent closets with a basket of polarized stardust and a few shards of a hunting hound’s molar to cast.

But first, she needed to place a quick protection spell on herself should Atlas have equipped the staircase with any boobytrap spells.

No need for such a thing on a staircase but she didn’t know what was yet normal for Atlas, as she had only seen them cast a snowy rabbit and fingerprintless safety glass, and really nothing else since then.

A trail of thought for another time.

As she wound past the corner to the staircase she met another hallway.

The staircase was right there not even an hour ago.

It couldn’t rotate around, could it? She didn’t think of it before but it was entirely possible that having a moving staircase in a wizard’s manor was actually a totally TYPICAL wizard thing to think of.

That would also explain why the staircase was only one turn away this morning from the previous one.

She must have been off in her timing.

Harlow proceeded down the hall with a shrug.

She would have to do the footwork.

This was thankfully finally an area where her rogue training and experience could pay off.

She knew how to canvass an area and prepare for navigation.

Now with the knowledge that she wasn’t imagining things, the staircase really did move, that changed everything.

It was almost as if everything was always as it should be and it was just her own perception that needed to be adjusted.

That her own biases caused her own misunderstanding, and nothing and NO ONE else.

Through the years she had noticed that things made by people, like a building in this instance, usually met some kind of metric system.

Measuring systems were all called different things but they always had some kind of pattern.

So Harlow kept her steps at a consistent pace and tapped a half beat of them to measure locations of rooms, bends, and even windows.

At this moment, it wasn’t important really where things were or where they led to.

It was about finding the pattern the building lived by. The music it made with her heeled steps and muffled taps against her thigh.

Then, she could come up with a rhyme or a lyric that would keep her remembering.

Surely something about how creepy the place was, right? Or perhaps something lighter, airier like her fine-jawed and effervescent wizard.

Did she just say “her”

wizard? Harlow stopped in place.

Why was she thinking about them when she clearly should be focused on other things? She was literally in the middle of mapping the pattern of the manor and instead of going into her own memory palace to add a new wing, it was instead drifting off to Atlas.

What did this mean? What did it mean when you couldn’t stop thinking about someone else even when working on something important? When you were working on something that’s actually part of your actual passion, not something you were expected to do? Now she was thinking about Atlas even harder.

She even began to wonder if they were dressed the same way as yesterday.

With the billowing fabric that draped their frame and when they moved… and they were always moving...

it created windows to their skin.

Skin that Harlow was mesmerized with.

How soft would it be? They clearly loved the soft, thin drapey fabric that would be suitable for their delicate skin.

Ah hells, why was she wondering what their skin felt like? She shook her head, attempting to clear all the thoughts of Atlas, at least for now so she could focus on the task at hand.

Thankfully her fingers still tapped against her side in the same pattern as before and she was off yet again.

And then, a round of the corner, which if she would guess would have put her behind the manor’s central area.

Likely two rooms between her and the front receiving area.

And then there was a discovery.

One of flesh to be sure.

But not the flesh she was fantasizing about before.

Flesh on a body, yes, but a dead body.

Its short frame was wrapped in familiar dark clothing and it lay splayed on the floor.

It wasn’t Atlas, which was incredibly clear.

It was a stranger.

And unless magic was involved, the person must have passed recently.

She wasn’t a Sancti, so she couldn’t provide any medical observations, but she did know how what bodies looked like when they were dead… usually ones by her own hand.

This one wasn’t on her death card.

Wasn’t a target of hers at any time.

But she did know that face and that really odd belt.

It was woven from three different types of leather, all competing with different shine aspects.

Which was ridiculous for a rogue should anything glimmer, catch the light, and throw their position into the minds of scrying eyes or ones that could then be picked up by guards.

It was Copperkelly.

A fellow Thieves’ Guild member.

One of her equals, even.

The guild split many a job between the two of them.

She was always neater and more efficient.

However, he was extravagant and a bit showy.

Each mark and each job required different things.

She was the subtle knife and he the laugh in the face of death.

But neither was laughing now.

Why was he here? Was he here to kill her? Or Atlas? Did the Guild Master not trust her to find the vault? It was only a few days and he had already sent someone else?

Or did Copperkelly take it upon himself to try and show her up first? Harlow felt her feet tingle as if they wanted to run off on their own and nausea crept up her throat.

“Well fuck.”

She sighed and lost the beat from her hands.

“I’ll say.”

Atlas was standing so perfectly still next to her that it made her jump in place and put a hand on her chest.