I froze, remembering. Yes, I’d only been wrapped in the towel, since my long bath. The knock on the door and the discovery of the ring had completely distracted me from this little, yet crucial, fact. And I was standing in front of Raphael, the Perfect who’d stormed into my life and swept me off my feet, wearing nothing but… a… towel.
“Oh, dear,” I managed, my heart jammed tightly in my throat.
My face burned hotter than the sun, and my brain went into an automatic shutdown. Unable to process this situation, I did what I knew best. I stayed on topic. “So, the ring. Someone left it at my door,” I continued, foolishly thinking it would be enough to divert his attention, since I was firmly rooted into the floor and unable to run back into my room—which had, in fact, been one of my first instincts, prior to my brain’s self-sabotage.
“Amelia,” Raphael said, his eyes finding mine. “As much as I would love to talk about this ring, I cannot, until you put some clothes on. I can’t even think straight, at this point.”
“Oh…”
“I’ll wait for you in Eira’s room, with Taeral and the rest of the crew, in ten minutes,” he said, and cleared his throat. “Just… put some clothes on. Please.”
“Okay,” I mumbled.
It took me another twenty or thirty seconds to actually turn around and go back into my room, but, when I finally did it, I heard his tortured sigh behind me. My fault entirely, I thought. But Raphael had every reason to ask me that. I would’ve been equally mindless if he’d shown up at my doorstep with nothing but a fluffy blue towel around that perfectly chiseled pair of hips and—Oh, wow, I am droning on and on and on!
The Raphael effect was in full swing. Shutting the door behind me, I giggled like a teenage girl, though I wasn’t sure what I’d found so titillating. The thought of only a towel standing between Raphael and me, or the thought of only a towel wrapped around his waist… which was still only a towel standing between us. I was due for a quick cold shower, obviously. I had ten minutes to get dressed and meet him in Eira’s room.
Surely, I could squeeze in a couple of minutes to get that gorgeous image of him in a towel out of my head. It might take a lifetime, though.
Raphael
The image of Amelia in a towel, her hair still slightly wet and spiky, would forever be seared into my memory. In fact, if I were to die in this Hermessi affair, I knew she’d be the last thing I’d see as I closed my eyes—just her and the fluffy pale blue fabric wrapped around her upper body, with her milky skin and long, athletic legs, with sapphires burning wickedly in her eyes… Yeah, I can definitely die a happy man.
I’d gathered the troupe in Eira’s room. We were all here, with Amelia being the last one to come through the door. Part of me deflated like a sad beachball upon noticing the absence of that glorious towel. She’d switched to a more comfortable linen pant and shirt combo, but her cheeks were still flaring pink from our earlier encounter. I shook the thought away completely as she showed Eira the ring that had been left on her doorstep.
“I didn’t see who left it, but I caught Skit’s scent again,” Amelia said.
We huddled around Eira to get a better look at the ring in her hand. She gasped, recognizing the Cerixian symbols. “This is Trap’s,” she murmured, her eyes wide with shock and worry. “These are his initials. I think it was given to him when he joined the army. He never took it off.”
“Someone brought it to us, specifically,” Taeral replied. “They probably want us to know something or look into it.”
“Or both,” Amelia muttered. “Either way, we clearly can’t ignore this.”
“It reinforces your theories,” I said, glancing at Herakles, Riza, and Eira. “About Medina. Don’t you think?”
Riza nodded. “If it’s Skit, then he’s doing it without anyone else knowing about it. Chances are, he’s hiding from the prime minister, and he’s trying to tell us that we need to investigate Trap’s situation.”
“I agree,” Eira replied, looking at Taeral. “We should check the prison, first. Remember, he had an office there. Maybe he left a clue or something behind.”
Taeral thought about it for a moment. “You and I will go. The rest of the crew should stay here,” he said. “It’s best to be discreet about this, especially since we already suspect her of deception and we’re due to go out looking for Eirexis tomorrow. That’s still our priority.”
“I get that. But this ring was brought to us for a reason.” Eira sighed.
“We should really talk to the emperor about this, as soon as possible,” Nethissis said, shaking her head as she stared at the ring.
“You heard him tonight. We can’t bring this up with him unless we build a solid case against Medina. It’s still our first day back on Cerix, and we’re already gearing up to accuse the new prime minister of wrongdoing. I think we’ll have something more palpable to confront Medina about once we find Trap, and that’s where Taeral and Eira come in,” Amelia replied.
“We could look through the cells, too, while we’re in the prison,” Eira suggested. “If Trap is a government prisoner, for example, he might be held there without anyone else knowing. It wouldn’t be the first or the last time that happened.”
“Secret prisoners? Really?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “That sounds more like an authoritarian regime than a well-balanced empire.”
Eira shrugged. “There’s a fine line, sometimes. I guess it depends on who’s prime minister, these days. They tried to keep Inalia jailed, too, because it served their purpose. If Medina has a shady agenda of her own, I can definitely see her imprisoning those who might oppose her.”
“But, honestly, does she strike you as that kind of person?” Eva replied. “You know her better than all of us.”
“I wouldn’t put it past her. Power tends to skew perspectives, in general, and people who might’ve been prone to certain types of behavior will likely act on their more hostile urges once they have the carte blanche of such a leadership position,” Eira said. “In other words… Medina might’ve been capable of doing certain things prior to becoming a prime minister but never did them, whereas now, she can and she probably has done some, if not all, of said things.”
I thought about this for a while, as Eira bounced theories back and forth with the rest of the crew, regarding Medina’s involvement not only in our mission for Eirexis, but Trap’s situation, as well. What was she up to? How would it affect us? What was her endgame? Those were the three main questions, to which we’d yet to come up with valid answers.
I could easily suspect her of Hermessi cult affiliations, but to what end? If she were a cult member, she would’ve pounced on us by now. She would’ve brought down the entire Hermessi fleet on our asses the moment we’d set foot on Cerix, but she hadn’t done that. So what was it? What was she after?
“What if we don’t find Trap anywhere in the prison?” Taeral asked. “What then?”
“Check Medina’s private properties,” I said. “If she’s involved in this, if she’s holding him unlawfully and against his will, it could be that she’d be keeping him somewhere private, away from the public eye. It could be that this whole Hermessi suspicion she’s cast on Trap was manufactured from the very beginning, which would, in turn, make it all the more possible that she’s keeping him hidden, and not in a city prison.”
Eva grinned in a way that made my blood curdle. “I can do us all one better,” she replied. “I can cook up a truth serum. Herbal stuff, powerful Druid magic. While Tae and Eira check the prison, I’ll work on the serum. It’ll be ready by tomorrow.”
“Oh, you devilish fiend, you.” Varga chuckled. “You want to use it on Medina.”
“Of course,” she said. “I’m in no mood to investigate the bitch. If she’s up to something, we have the magic we need to get the truth out of her, whether she likes it or not. And GASP will sanction it, because these are troubled and dangerous times. If any of us suspect a current ally of working with the Hermessi, we’re more than entitled to use such a serum.”
“Good. We’ll do that, then,” Taeral replied. “We’ll look for Trap, and you’ll cook your serum. By the time it’s done, I bet we’ll have gathered some more intel. Either way, Medina will be telling us the truth.”
“We need to make sure the emperor hears every word she says, too,” Eira said. “He’s a righteous man, and he’ll want evidence against her. I completely understand where he’s coming from.”
“All right, you two get crackin’, and the rest of us will scamper back to our rooms,” I cut in. “We don’t want Medina thinking we’re in here all night, plotting her demise. We’re supposed to be getting some peace, rest, and quiet before tomorrow. The less she suspects, the better.”
“Herakles and I will go back to the meeting room,” Riza replied. “The emperor gave us the eight locations for the rosy fish sanctuaries, and we should cross-check them with what sites we’ve gotten so far for the search, before even addressing this with Medina.”
“That’s a good idea,” Lumi said. “Just in case Medina tries to delay us further.”
Riza smirked. “Exactly.”
Herakles seemed surprised to hear his name in this conversation, but he didn’t mind it one bit. On the contrary, his lime-green eyes lit up with excitement. I figured he’d yet to work up the courage to talk to Riza about his feelings for her—a midnight strategy meeting sounded like the perfect opportunity, since we’d be dealing with Hermessi tomorrow. One last shot for him to take this relationship to the next level. The thought alone made me feel sad, not just for him and Riza, but for the rest of us, too.
“We’ll see you all soon.” Taeral took Eira’s hand, and they both vanished. We left Eira’s room discreetly, one at a time, and returned to our own rooms, locking the doors behind us. Taeral knew where to find us if he needed us, and we had both comms earpieces and Telluris connections to one another. All the glitches we’d encountered along the way had taught us to be prepared for anything, including equipment or magic failure.
If push came to shove, Taeral could still teleport back here. Amelia and I stopped outside her bedroom door for a couple of moments, without saying much. I was content with just leaning into the doorway and looking at her, memorizing every inch, every feature of hers, over and over, until the end of time.
“It’s already crazy, and we haven’t even gotten past the first day back on Cerix,” she said softly. I slipped a hand behind the back of her neck, massaging gently, the tips of my fingers incandescent with delight.
“When were things ever not crazy for us, huh?” I replied, slightly amused.
“I don’t know… This is still my first official field mission, remember?”
Ah, right. Amelia had not been involved in the Stravian war, besides some logistics and remote assistance from The Shade. This was as close as she’d ever been to death, and, even though she’d adjusted beautifully to the many sudden and dangerous hurdles, she was still wrapping her head around the concept.
“It doesn’t get any easier,” I said softly. “But with the right people around you, the odds of survival are slightly better.”
