Clara led me off the platform and through a side door into the magistrate’s residence, which was far nicer than the single sentence I’d written about it had suggested. Apparently, describing a building in one sentence was all it took for the narrative to turn it into something impressive. At this point, I was beginning to wonder whether I’d been a lazy writer or whether the world itself simply enjoyed showing off.
The magistrate followed us, and so did Ren, because of course he did. He wasn’t about to let a strange man in stolen clothes walk off with the woman he’d set his sights on. He trailed three steps behind us, his jaw set and his blue eyes practically burning a hole in my back.
Clara led me into a small room off the main hall. It looked like a study or perhaps an office, with bookshelves, a desk, and a window overlooking the square. The festival noise filtered through the glass, muffled enough to sound distant. She closed the door behind us, and the noise dropped to almost nothing.
The magistrate stood by the door, Ren took up a position near the window, and I stood in the middle of the room, trying a little too hard to look like someone who belonged there. That was difficult when my shirt pulled across my shoulders every time I moved.
"Talk," Clara said again. She crossed her arms and leaned against the desk. Up close, without the festival crowd between us, her exhaustion was even more noticeable. She looked like she hadn’t slept properly in weeks. She probably hadn’t.
"The letters," I began. "You’ve been getting them for weeks. They’re anonymous, with no return address, and they’re sealed with a mark you don’t recognise. They threaten you by name, and the people sending them know things about your schedule, where you’ll be, and what you’ll be doing. You haven’t told anyone because you weren’t sure they’d believe you, and because you thought that if you ignored the letters, they’d eventually stop."
Clara’s face went through about four expressions in two seconds. Surprise, suspicion, something raw, and then suspicion again. It seemed the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree.
"How do you know that?" she asked.
"I know a lot of things," I said, which was both true and the most clichéd answer I could’ve given. "The people sending the letters are called the Thorn Collective. They’re not just sending letters, either. The letters are stage one. Stage two happens tonight, during the fireworks. They’re going to try to take you."
The magistrate shifted his weight by the door. His hand moved towards his cane, not casually, but with the sort of movement a soldier made when reaching for a weapon before using it.
"That’s a serious claim," the magistrate said. His voice was even and measured, belonging to a man who’d heard plenty of serious claims and spent his life sorting the true ones from the false. "What evidence do you have?"
"None," I admitted. "I’m a traveller. I heard things. Rumours in towns east of here, talk about an organisation and plans for a kidnapping during a festival. I came here because the description matched."
It sounded thin even to me, and the magistrate’s expression suggested he thought so too.
"He’s lying," Ren said from the window. He delivered the words the way someone might state that the sky was blue, without anger or accusation, simply because he was confident he was right. "He knows more than he’s saying."
I looked at Ren. He stared back at me, scrutinising me so intensely that I could practically feel the weight of his attention pressing against me like a change in the air before a storm.
"Everyone knows more than they’re saying," I replied. "That’s usually how conversations work."
Ren didn’t blink, and the magistrate didn’t laugh. Clara, surprisingly, almost did. She caught herself and turned it into a cough, but I noticed.
"Show me the letters," I said.
Clara looked at her father, and the magistrate looked back at her. Another one of those silent conversations passed between them, the kind that made me feel as though I were watching a scene I’d forgotten to write.
Clara eventually reached into the leather pouch at her belt and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She unfolded it and held it out to me. I took it and examined the contents.
The handwriting was different from what I’d written. In my draft, the letters had been crude and blocky, the handwriting of someone barely literate. This was neat and controlled, the penmanship of someone educated. But the seal at the bottom was the same: a thorn wrapped around a circle. I’d designed it in Chapter 6, sketching it on a napkin while eating lunch before describing it in a single line: "The letter bore a seal unlike any in the kingdom, a thorn encircling a void."
The seal on this letter was a thorn encircling a void.
Screw the narrative.
"I recognise the seal," I said.
"From where?" Clara asked.
"From the rumours," I replied, and it was the weakest lie I’d told since arriving in this world. Clara’s expression made it clear she didn’t believe me. The magistrate looked disappointed, and Ren’s expression revealed nothing at all, which was somehow worse than either of their reactions.
"The attack comes during the fireworks," I continued. "Three men will enter through the east gate, and there may be others. One will go after you while the rest create diversions. They know you’ll be on the platform, and they know the fireworks will mask the confusion."
"How many?" the magistrate asked.
"Five attackers in total. Two secondary, three primary. But there may be others I haven’t accounted for."
That was the most honest answer I’d given since walking into the room. The man in the dark coat was still out there, and I had no idea what he intended to do or whether he was even working with the Thorn Collective. All I knew was that he wasn’t one of the five attackers I’d overheard discussing their plans.
Clara folded the letter and slipped it back into her pouch. She studied me for a long moment, and I could see her weighing the situation. I wasn’t sure she’d decided whether to believe me, but she was clearly considering whether she could afford not to.
"Why would you help me?" she asked. "You don’t know me. You have nothing to gain from this."
She had no idea how wrong she was. I had everything to gain. A companion bond, a luck modifier, and a chance to stop being a doomed extra whose life could be snuffed out whenever the narrative felt like it. But there was no way I could tell her any of that.
"Because I can," I said. "And because nobody else will."
Ren shifted beside the window. I could tell he didn’t like that answer. I was an extra who wasn’t behaving like an extra, and he was clearly smart enough to recognise that there was something strange about me, even if he didn’t yet understand what it was.
The magistrate straightened. "We’ll prepare," he said. "I’ll double the guard on the platform and position men at both entry points. If what you say is true, we’ll be ready. If it isn’t, we’ll have wasted an evening’s preparation, which I can live with."
He regarded me like a magistrate examining a whistleblower he wasn’t sure he could trust but couldn’t afford to dismiss outright.
"Stay close," he said. "If there is an attack, I’ll want you where I can see you."
I nodded. The magistrate left the room, and Clara followed, giving me one last look that held a mixture of suspicion and something else I couldn’t quite identify.
Ren stayed behind.
He stood by the window, watching the festival through the glass, before finally turning towards me. For a moment, he said nothing. He simply studied me with those blue eyes, and the charm I’d seen him use so effortlessly outside was gone. What remained was sharp, cold, and paying very close attention.
"You knew about the letters before she told you," he said. "You knew the number of attackers. You knew the entry points. You knew the timing."
"I told you. Rumours."
"Nobody hears that many specific rumours." He stepped closer. He was taller than me, because I’d written him taller than almost everyone, and the height difference was doing exactly what I’d intended it to do. Scare the shit out of me.
"Who are you?"
"Joseph," I said. "I’m not a threat. Trust me."
Ren stared at me for a long five seconds. Then he gave a single nod and walked out of the room without another word.
I stood alone in the study and listened to the festival outside. The music was louder now, the lanterns fully lit, and the crowd had grown thick and happy, completely unaware that five people were planning to enter through the east gate and the service lane behind the tavern to kidnap the magistrate’s daughter.
I checked the System.
[Luck Meter]
Current Luck: F+
Modifiers: Companion quest active (pending). Proximity to target: Clara Dale.
F+ luck, no combat skills, a body designed to die, and Ren already suspicious of me. The fireworks were almost upon us, the Thorn Collective was coming, and the only things standing between Clara Dale and a kidnapping were Ren, who didn’t trust me, a magistrate who was only half convinced by my story, and me.
Great.