Come Back Quickly
While Laniakea rested in the Main Palace, Hyperion was moving without pause.
He had to. If he did not hurry, everything she had worked so hard for might come to nothing.
"You'll take charge of tracking the men who attacked us."
"Me? Have you forgotten I'm a civil officer?"
Signo ran a hand along an arm thick with muscle and looked up at him with glistening eyes, as if to ask how anyone could give him so terrifying an order.
Hyperion let out a short sigh. If the man was going to carry on like this, why did he train every single day until he looked like that?
"You'll be moving with the knights. That should be enough."
"But you know as well as I do that our knights are a poor fit for a covert pursuit."
Signo was right. In the northern forests, Hyperion's knights were stronger than anyone. For work that had to stay secret, though, they were far too rough.
Hyperion considered it. If all he needed was information, the people he had already set loose would suffice. What came next, however, required something quieter—someone small, quick, and skilled at getting in where they were not invited.
"All we need is exactly one person. Not one more, not one less. Isn't there any—oh?"
Signo had been turning the problem over in his head when he snapped his fingers.
"There is someone, Your Majesty!"
"Who?"
"Miss Lucy! The Lupin don't even need a rope to climb a wall—they're astonishing at it. And I hear they can see perfectly well in pitch darkness. Fast, and strong enough to match it."
"How do you know that?"
"She showed me the other day."
"Since when have the two of you been so close?"
"The other day, downstairs in the Main Palace. We were stuck waiting together and ended up talking about this and that."
It seemed that while Hyperion had been with Laniakea, their closest aides had grown rather friendly on their own.
"No. She belongs to the Empress's Palace, and she has to guard the Empress."
"Do you really think anyone is going to make a move on Her Majesty in the Empress's Palace right now?"
"That isn't what I meant..."
After the attempt on the Emperor, even people with nothing to do with it were holding their breath. Afraid of being misunderstood, they were putting off their visits to the palace entirely and shutting themselves inside their own estates.
"Just a day—no, half a day. If we ask her to help for that long, it should be enough."
"Hmm..."
"Then I'll go ask her myself."
Before Hyperion could get another word out, Signo was already sprinting for the door. He seemed convinced that Lucy's help was the fastest, surest way to finish the job.
A short while later, he came back alone.
"The talk didn't go well, I take it. We'll have to find someone else—"
"Miss Lucy's already gone. She told me not to worry and to wait three hours. She did say to make absolutely certain Her Majesty the Empress is guarded in the meantime, though."
More precisely, what she had said before running off was this:
"No problem. Three hours. Guard the Empress."
Even so, Signo understood her as perfectly as Laniakea did.
"And there was a message from Her Majesty the Empress."
"What is it?"
The moment the word Empress left Signo's mouth, Hyperion was on him.
"She said that in exchange for lending you Miss Lucy, she would like to borrow Your Majesty—and that she hopes you'll come back quickly."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"I wouldn't know. I assumed the two of you had already discussed something."
Hyperion looked baffled, and Signo's face made it plain that he was even more lost than his lord.
Other matters crowded in after that, so he never got the chance to press Signo further. Even so, Laniakea's message—come back quickly—circled through Hyperion's head for the rest of the day.
It was not until evening that Hyperion could leave the Emperor's Palace.
Everything had been finished so cleanly it was almost perfect. Lucy had truly returned in three hours with exactly what they wanted. When Hyperion asked how on earth she had gotten into the count's study, she answered with the look of someone who could not understand why he was asking something so obvious.
"Window. Open."
She meant she had gone in because the window was open. An open window, however, was hardly the same thing as a door.
In any case, she had brought back the charred scraps of a letter from inside the fireplace—part of the correspondence exchanged over this affair, some of it still legible. He had no intention of doing anything with them just yet.
I only confirmed what I needed to know.
They could not serve as evidence, and besides, Hyperion was waiting for something else: the enemy's mistake. They had failed, so they would be anxious, and that anxiety would drive them into a greater error still. When they tried to grow their strength and put down roots, he would tear them out all at once. Only then would the harvest be worth taking.
He left the rest to Signo and returned to the Main Palace. Behind him he could hear Signo whining that this was too much of him, but he did not listen. The man had finished the work easily thanks to the Empress's maid—what was there to cry about?
The moment he stepped inside the Main Palace, his pace quickened. On the stairs he all but ran, taking them several at a time.
She told me to come back quickly.
What had she meant, that she wanted to borrow him? Whatever it was, one thing was certain: Laniakea was waiting for him.
A maid started toward the inner rooms to announce his arrival, but he could not bear even that brief delay. Hyperion opened the door himself and went in.
"Laniakea!"
"Your Majesty?"
Seated at the table, Laniakea saw him and hurriedly shoved aside whatever she had been writing.
"Were you working?"
"No! It isn't—truly, just a little! Only the things that would be a nuisance if I didn't do them now!"
She rushed to explain, but Hyperion was not listening. He reached for what she had hidden behind her. She defended it fiercely, yet slipping free of his persistence was hopeless. Even so she did not give in easily, and in the end he caught her about the waist with one arm and finally pulled free whatever she had been hiding at her back.
The instant he saw what it was, a dry laugh escaped him. The death list she had been compiling had grown thicker still. How on edge had she been all day after the attack, watching everything around her, to remember it in such detail?
Then Laniakea, still in his arms, shoved him hard. The push was stronger than he expected. Thinking he might have held her too tightly, Hyperion hastily loosened his arm.
"I'm sorry. I held you too hard."
"No. It isn't that..."
She mumbled, then turned her reddened face sharply away. It was not the look of someone embarrassed to be caught working. It was the look of someone caught at something shameful.
Laniakea took a step back from him and glared at the innocent floor. It was not because he had found what she had been doing in secret. A moment ago, when he pulled her in, their bodies had pressed together completely. The trouble was that she had not left the Main Palace all day, and so she was wearing only thin clothes. When they were flush against each other, she had felt him—below—against her stomach with perfect clarity.
The instant she registered the heavy weight of him pressing into her belly, she remembered how he had looked in the dream a few nights ago: calling her name, his hand closed around himself.
No. Good thoughts! Clean thoughts!
It was not that he was filthy. The filthy one was her, spinning indecent fantasies all by herself.
Perhaps because she had put distance between them, Hyperion looked apologetic and cleared his throat.
"We'll talk about this later. Signo said you asked him to tell me you wanted to borrow me. And that I should come back quickly. Has something happened?"
When he changed the subject, Laniakea hurriedly scrubbed the indecency from her mind and answered.
"Yes. Would it be all right if I stepped outside the Main Palace for a little while?"
At her question, Hyperion nodded.
"I'm not trying to restrain your movements. I only hoped you would stay and rest, so you don't need my permission to go anywhere."
He seemed to think she had been waiting for him so she could ask leave to go out.
"All right. Then—"
Laniakea held out her hand and took his.
"Would you come out with me for a little while?"
She smiled as she held his hand, which still carried the chill of the outdoors. This was why she had asked them to tell him to come back quickly. Because she had wanted to go out with him.