Nora rubbed the clammy sweat of her palms on the now crumbled skirt she had bought from a small tailor shop in Tama Square. She had worn the clothes right away, although she wasn't sure what was more bizarre to Mushans; a soiled trench coat with burnt edges and tears where there should have been none, or a dress in the midst of winter?

Still, the tailor had not fooled the spy. She had pushed the thick fabric towards her quivering hands, nodding frantically and muttering flattering exclamations. It was simple but would do the trick; fuzzy wool cinched at the waist and waving into graceful pleats towards the end, complemented by a black suede coat the tailor insisted matched perfectly.

The rest of the clothes were just as plain, and Nora was not complaining about it. She had purchased simple pants and shirts that would fit anyone, thick hemp jackets and large boots, along with some cotton to make sure they could be worn by both men and women. With a crooked smile and what she considered a quite convincing Gweini accent, she had managed to take the clothes for half the price. The tailor was a Gweini immigrant, Bela had claimed. It wasn't hard to hit that soft spot within the wrinkled woman.

Of course, the team's faces plastered all over the market did not escape her. She was lucky the sketches were sloppy enough to brush off as a creepy coincidence to everyone querying about her identity.

Now Nora thumped her polished boots on the porch of the witch's house, shaking off any snow that had sneaked between the laces. She could hear muffled voices inside, switching between hissing and growling sporadically. Before the suspicion that animals had slithered in from the windows creeped any further into her mind, Nora raised her fist and thudded the door with a deep rattle.

The voices ceased.

The floorboards squeaked awkwardly. Then, the door creaked open ever so slightly.

"Who is it?" a voice muttered.

Nora sighed. "Open up. I brought the clothes."

The door swung open, revealing a ruffled up Arden. His hair was disheveled into an indefinite shape and his jaw was set. Before she could frown and ask what monsoon they had set upon him, the boy snatched her arm and hauled her inside without further explanation.

Over the last few days, Arden's health — mental and physical — was deteriorating. The cuts across his torso hadn't looked too severe when they were still fresh, but now they had begun swelling and smelling foul, more than normal wounds should have. His eyes were constantly irritated, and his irises darted around as if he was listening for that snap of a twig or that loud breath that would confirm someone was looming over him at all times. Most of all, his temper was getting thinner, dangerously resembling the increasingly greasy hair falling across his forehead.

She didn't know where they were going. She wasn't even sure he had shut the door. Soon, they arrived at a room in the far corner of the mansion, one she had never seen before. It seemed like a drawing room. However, her attention was quickly captured by the hollering figures pacing around it.

"It's suicide!" a weirdly energetic Ailyn screeched, thrusting her hands in the air. Nora frowned at the radiance of her skin, the absence of the darkness on her chest. What happened while I was gone? "Don't you get it? We can't just waltz in the palace, they will mutilate us!"

Salo snapped his eyes shut and inhaled a long whiff of dusty air. "We can't afford to play safe at this point, Ailyn. Our cause requires sacrifices."

A laugh raved out of the princess's throat. "Our cause? Since when are you some — some anarchist? Since when do you preach the fall of the monarchy?"

"When did you ever care to learn otherwise?"

Ailyn huffed. She narrowed her eyes, and although the scowl never left her features, there was a glimmer of sadness in her gaze. "When did I ever have time to do so?" she asked lowly, but she didn't wait for a reply from Salo. She averted her glance and stared at the floor, chewing on her bottom lip.

Nora shook her wrist out of Arden's grip and approached the now silent figures standing before her. "What is going on here?"

Both Ailyn and Salo abruptly raised their heads to stare at the girl wide-eyed, like deer before headlights. Of course they didn't notice me. They were too busy arguing.

Arden finally broke his stillness and collapsed on the couch closest to the window. His metallic eyes had lost their silver tint, the deep grey color that always fascinated her. Now they were simply dull, glassy balls that stared at the storm outside with no interest whatsoever. Nora had noticed before, but now it couldn't become more obvious. Arden had changed, somehow. He seemed... tired. Torn out. Miserable. "You've missed a lot, needless to say. Want to hear the good or the bad news first?"

"I'll go with the good."

"We finally have a plan."

Nora's frown eased. A plan. We have a plan. "That's amazing," she uttered, her eyebrows almost reaching her hairline. "What could the bad news be?"

Arden glared at Ailyn and Salo, who were now eyeing the carpet awkwardly. "Well," he murmured and rubbed two fingers against his brow bone. "We can't decide on one."

The frown returned. An abundance of plans had never been a problem during training in Flouorn; they could usually fuse all ideas into one glorious but nevertheless chaotic feast of explosions and assassinations. Nora had seen it happen before. It didn't seem quite difficult.

The spy almost snorted at herself. The mission itself hadn't seemed hard at first, but a good look around her could reveal a lot about her judgment.

"I don't see a problem with my plan," Salo said. "A riot is not what we need right now."

"But saving a girl who probably doesn't want to be saved is?" Arden retorted sharply.

"I don't understand." Nora puffed out a breath and rested on the dusty couch beside Arden. "What riot? Which girl?"

So they explained. The things Nora heard that day were truly spectacular, if not a bit too spectacular. She couldn't deny the boys' creativity nor their perhaps overflowing ambition. Arden was vague, yet the message he wanted to convey was perfectly clear; spark an uprising in Frya, bring down the borders, probably scare the king enough that he terminates his alliance with Seyal in hopes he would be adored again. Despite the charm his plan possessed, and despite Nora's desire to terrorize the king, Salo's idea was solid. It was ready to be carried out. Still, the people it would be carried out by seemed untrustworthy at the very least.

"You made a deal with the Resistance?" Nora faltered, her eyes ready to pop out of their sockets.

"Maybe."

It was a good plan. Ride up to the palace disguised as musicians, then grab Ela at the night of the ball and run away like nothing had happened. And what if Ela didn't want to be saved? What if she was relieved to be back and wanted to rise in the ranks of the military? She wouldn't, Salo claimed. Yet Nora seriously doubted that.

The girl rubbed her chin. "Those are both some really great ideas, not going to lie. Yet there is an obvious flaw in both of them."

The two boys waited.

Finally, Nora sighed. They're never going to think of it themselves, huh? "Neither of them involve the real reason we're here. The Kingfisher, remember? That should be our top priority."

It was as if a switch had just flicked in their heads. Salo's eyes twitched wide before averting to the carpeted floor. Arden, on the other hand, sighed and the excited arch of his brows vanished as quick as it had appeared. It was as if realization had washed over their plans and carried them along the current, where they would be never unearthed again.

Nora didn't like breaking it to them. Yet she had to remind herself, too. Those few days she had forgotten why she was going through all of this torture, why she was still away from the base; to take the artifact and hopefully get some kind of recognition, at last. As that thought crossed her mind, she couldn't help but scrape her nails across the sensitive skin of her palms. It didn't ring true to her anymore, somehow. She wanted to shake her head hard enough to force some selfishness back in there; only selfish people could survive in that world.

But a part of her wanted things to stay the way they were.

Arden glanced at her. His eyes were trying to convey something, something she should have picked up, but the temporary wall of arrogance she had raised didn't allow the message to pass through. "It's not about just the Kingfisher anymore. You know that."

"We placed a goal at the beginning of this mission," she sassed. "Now all that remains is to achieve that and we can all take our separate ways."

The questioning curvature of his eyebrow was back. "I got the impression you weren't planning to ditch us after this."

Nora's heart fluttered wildly, and she resisted the temptation to bang a fist against her chest to try and stop it. No. Don't get attached. Don't care. But it was too late for that. She gulped down the words begging to churn out of her mouth and quivered her head. "Then I suppose you got the wrong impression. This team —— means nothing to me."

Silence. Long, thick, smothering silence. Then, "Is that so?"

"Yes."

"Then say it like you mean it."

Her head snapped up to face the boy. His jaw was clenched and his eyes were fixed on the spy's face, searching intensely for a sign she was lying. She didn't waffle, however, no matter how much she wanted to tell him the truth, that she just wanted the best for everyone now, that he mattered more than any number of Kingfishers would. That they all mattered.

Nora eyes bored into his. "You mean nothing to me."

They stared at each other. The storm outside had begun subsiding, yet the atmosphere in the drawing room wasn't getting any lighter. Nora did her best not to apologize, and she immediately scolded herself for even considering that. One thing that hadn't been altered by the mission was her determination. I'm not shying away now. Arden didn't hesitate to eye her meticulously, either. He needed a sign she was lying, and she wanted to give it to him. A twitch of the lips, a slow blink, anything he could pick up on. Since a long time, he seemed desperate.

Yet Nora did not move. Her pride was holding all of her muscles glued in place.

Arden's chest rose and fell faster than usual. At last his lids bolted closed. A smile occupied his lips; not the genuine smile he would give her once in a while, but the bitter, self-pitying kind. His palms slapped on the smooth fabric of the couch, sending dust flying across the beams of light the moon cast through the windows. "I can't believe I was such an idiot," he whispered and pushed his body off the seat. With a few sharp strides, he was out of the room.

The door behind him hurled shut, and the bang echoed through the almost empty room. It was like a bullet in her heart. It felt so final, like a climactic ending in what little they had shared. It was scant, indeed. But it was something. A feeling Nora had never felt before. He was just a thug,she reassured herself. A lowly thief. You can do so much better. Yet she doubted anybody could reprise the wild beating of her heart anytime he was around, the sweating of her palms, the churning of her stomach whenever they were close.

The throbbing of her heart was not something she could ignore anymore. It wasn't aimless or an accident.

It was infatuation.

Nora couldn't feel more pathetic when her eyes started itching.

The girl brought up her hand, angrily rubbing away any drops that managed to escape from her now red eyes. Never cry for a man. None of them are worth it. But Arden was not any man. He was a bastard, yes, a jerk and perhaps the hugest prick she had come across. Beyond that, however, lay a man who truly cared.

Not all men were worth fighting for. But this one was.

Ailyn sighed, resting where Arden sat before. "You're right," she said, picking at her bedraggled nails. "We should be focusing on the artifact. I have my own idea that can satisfy that."

Salo stayed rooted in place, but still raised his clear eyes to glance outside the window with a huff. "Is it any better than mine?"

"Your plan doesn't involve any Kingfisher, therefore it is abortive." The princess gave him a small smile. "Any idea is better than that."

"Go on," Nora prompted impatiently, hoping to avoid any more disputes.

Ailyn's taunting smile fell as her eyes turned to Nora. She puckered her lips, her glance darting left and right. It's dangerous, Nora diagnosed. There was no other reason for Ailyn to be hesitating so much.

"Bela knows where the Kingfisher is. She might not be able to tell us, because Korin was her friend, but she knows. If we could actually do as—"

"Absolutely not," Nora snapped curtly, regarding Ailyn through narrow eyes. "We're not bringing that monster here."

Ailyn shook her head. "That's not what I would say. We must take her with us to Seyal."

"So you agree with Salo's plan."

She appeared to think for a moment. After a few seconds, she huffed out a breath. "I suppose I do."

Salo quirked his brows, resuming his pacing around the dimly lit room. He avoided Nora's glance, no matter how much she tried to catch his. "That riot isn't that bad an idea either. If Frya breaks away from Seyal's influence, we might be able to return to our homes."

Nora slowly turned around, eyeing the carefully engraved doors before her. Little flowers graced the wood around the frame, and the golden handles gleamed so bright they seemed polished, even under the coat of dust they wore. "Could you arrange that? Please. I—"

"Just go."

She smiled awkwardly, even though they couldn't see it. Reluctantly, she pushed the doors open and walked into the long corridor.

The house was quiet. Bela was nowhere to be seen, still. Witches need sleep too, she reminded herself and continued her treads across the awfully silent room. Her heartbeat was the only sound vibrating her body, thumping louder and louder as she walked deeper into the hall. Her step was trembling, unsteady. It wasn't like her. Love isn't like me, either. She cringed at the word. It seemed too strong. Yet only that could describe the absurd convulsions of her muscles whenever the boy cracked a rare smile at her.

Paintings were nailed on the walls, picturing crystal lakes which no ripple disturbed, snow-coated woods of mystery, even the packed market of Musha Bela so liked to dislike.

Her son's face appeared in one, when he was a little bit younger.

Nora stopped to examine the image. The painter had done a good job; he had captured the set jaw the man always carried with him, the raven hair on top of his head. Yet one thing the painter missed completely was the eyes. They seemed innocent, no sinister twinkle in the irises, simply the eyes of a young man who had dreams and ambitions. Perhaps once he did have those. This needs to be updated to current standards, the girl noted and finally snapped her glare off the portrait.

The last few steps to the end of the hall were filled with unexplained anxiety. Her fingertips had started to throb, as well, and her heart was starting to pick up again. It could be the eeriness of the silence that reigned over the mansion, or maybe the drawing she was previously looking at. She took a few wobbly steps towards the turn. She could hear heavy breathing around it, gulping and some more forced breaths.

Her brows plunged to a frown. "Arden?"

A yelp echoed through the empty house. "Yes, what is it?" a strained voice she barely recognized to be the boy's called.

"We need to—"

"Another time."

Nora groaned. "No, now. Unless you have something better to do." She took a few careful steps forward, producing deafening creaks from the floorboards.

"No!" he yelled. "We'll talk another time, I promise."

"Why—"

"Nora, just leave. I beg you."

She considered leaving him alone for a moment. He still needed his space, and Nora knew all too well that she would, too. Yet something didn't sit right with her; the tone of his voice, the forced syllables and all that panting. Has he been running? It wasn't possible. He had just left a few minutes ago, no person in their right mind would begin exercising after a fight like that.

She knew she would regret it, yet she hurried around the corner and halted almost immediately.

Arden was not alone. Two men were grasping his shoulders, dressed in blue and black. Seyali soldiers, Nora realized with growing dread.

Then she remembered. Arden hadn't shut the front door.

***

Merry Christmas everyone! I wish you a happy new year if I don't update till then, as well ♥

So after some difficulties with my laptop this is finally up. My update schedule may be more sporadic now, as I might update more than once a week. I want to have finished publishing this by February so I can focus on other projects as well!

Thank you so much for reading! Please consider voting and commenting, it helps me a ton ☼