"Report." The firm, no-nonsense voice of Orion, the master of the King's guard, traveled remarkably well through the thick wall making up the room I currently occupied. The guards had herded everyone here like a swarm of cats to wherever 'here' was, citing issues of national security. Why a single thief would be considered a threat on a national scale I wasn't sure.

Considering how the night had gone, though, I doubt there was anything left that had the power to truly surprise me. It all felt like a very wild hallucination, possibly one of those caused by eating the wrong mushroom in the forest. It would be a great relief if I could wake up soon, but the pounding in my head told me it was not likely to happen.

The room I had been told to wait in looked like something chiseled out of the mountain, rough stone walls with limited seams and a floor that matched in color, but had a smoother texture. The table was also a slab of rock, with the only thing messing with the image being two chairs made out of light wood. There was only one window, covered with bars but still offering enough fresh air that I hadn't gone completely mad. A thin layer of rock dust laid over everything, occasionally floating into my hair when the chair I was sitting in hit the back wall harder than intended when I rocked it back on two legs, giving myself something to do while waiting.

Patience has never been one of my virtues.

Bored daydreams had me imagining Orian’s office as something rustic, devoid of color, and obsessively organized, fitting his traditional control freak tendencies. We had met many times before, usually prompted by me trying to eliminate my boredom in unconventional ways. He had been sent here about a year after I arrived, ready to semi-retire in a more peaceful, less public estate, away from the major city where the King's primary residence was located. If not for the fact that his hair was already the color of a spider's web when we met, I would assume that at least some of his gray hairs were my doing.

It had been about 20 minutes since I was heartlessly abandoned in this desolate cell. Someone had been kind enough to leave a pitcher of water and a stack of cups on the table in front of me, but the water was lukewarm and did little to fill the void in my stomach that was loudly demanding to be filled with optimally hot food.

My mind wandered back to tonight's events. It appeared the guards had been just as shocked as I was to watch someone jump out a window on the third floor, And I remember them sitting with open mouths for an unprofessional amount of time before someone's had cleared enough to send four of the six to attempt to cut the thief off well she was still on castle grounds. Considering my current situation, it appeared that they had failed to catch her.

The other two surrounded me, trying to gently pelt me with questions that I wasn't sure how to answer. One of them delicately pulled the shoes from my frozen arms while the other attempted to wrap a light blanket around my shoulders, directing me to sit on my bed until she could ask me the major questions.

No, I wasn't hurt. No, I didn't know where she was going. We haven't met before tonight, and she didn't give any indication of plans when we talked.

That clearly wasn't enough, as I and as many party-goers and staff who witnessed the incident were collected together to see if there was any pertinent information between the two dozen of us. Orian was getting an update from one of his assistants, And I rudely eavesdropped from the next room over. As I had nothing else to do, it seemed the best course of action to collect as much information as was available to me right now.

The assistant in question cleared his throat in a way that indicated he was probably intimidated by the glare Orion was giving him. I had seen that stony-eyed basilisk stare far too many times, and it never failed to send a shiver down my spine.

“We sent a runner over to Baron Alcazar's estate. They should hopefully be back in the morning to confirm whether she was a lady in waiting or is she had somehow intercepted the Queen's letters.

“The invitation that she handed to the guard checks out, with her name on it in almost perfect font. If this was a forgery, it was a good one.”

Orian cursed, spelling words that I would never have thought such a proper man would say. “This damn thief is making a fool out of us all, and she always slips through our fingertips without a trace. She's mocking us with these blasted things she leaves behind, I know it.”

It was good to confirm my suspicions that this wasn't the first caper this thief had pulled off. She was just too good, convincing enough that no one suspected a thing until she slipped. I would have likely been stuck eternally proclaiming her innocence if it weren't for her voluntarily removing her metaphorical mask like a cliche storybook.

A sigh and a slight scraping noise regained my attention after my mind wandered from the situation at hand, followed by a curt dismissal. I was crossing my fingers that that would be the last of his visitors and he would finally get over here and get the interrogation I knew was coming over with. His door opened and closed with a light thud, leaving me holding my breath in anticipation as I waited to see what would happen next. I was ready to get this all over with, get a late dinner or early breakfast, and sleep for at least twelve hours. It had been an exhausting night and I was more than ready for it to end.