They moved around the side of the manor, but Vincent had no idea where Spencer was trying to take him. The only lights came from the second floor, where Governor Thompson and the few others that lived in the massive house were getting ready to sleep. Despite Spencer’s loud stomping, they should be able to do whatever it was he wanted to do without being heard by anyone. 

After a few minutes of crouching under windows and behind Charlotte’s wilting rose bushes, Spencer pulled him to a stop below an unfamiliar window. After checking that no one was watching or inside the room, Vincent slowly pushed the window open. He gritted his teeth at the noise it made and prayed that no one was nearby to hear it. The guards were surprisingly lax considering Nicholas’s insistence that they were the best out there. 

Spencer climbed in first and Vincent waited below the window for a few tense seconds, waiting for an all clear. “Come on,” came a hushed hiss above him. He pushed himself through the window, and used Spencer as a crutch to get back on his feet. 

The room was dark, but the light from the moon was enough for him to see the desk at the end, surrounded by fully furnished bookshelves. There was a soft rug in the middle, two loveseats on either side of it, but not much else in the room. Little trinkets covered the desk and the shelves, things that could have easily been sold or given to the poor. They were useless little things. 

“Where are we?” he asked, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. 

“I think it’s the Governor’s office, that’s what I was aiming for anyway,” Spencer replied, as he walked over to the desk and picked up a small wooden block. “No, it’s her advisor’s. That’s close enough, I suppose”

“I guess,” Vincent muttered, not paying too much attention. It didn’t surprise him that the Governor’s moody advisor had so many valuable, but useless belongings. People struggled to survive while those at the top held things that could feed them for weeks. 

The sound of papers shuffling and drawers being opened filled the room, far too loud in the silence of the night. Spencer was silent as he flicked through papers, inspecting them as if he was actually able to read them in the dark. When he caught Vincent watching, he gestured for him to come over and handed him a stack of papers. 

“Remember where you take things from,” he said as if he hadn’t just handed him papers without telling him where they came from. 

“What am I even looking for?”

“Anything interesting.”

Even with vireen, it was too hard to read the papers in the dark, but it was easy to tell that they were letters of some kind. They probably held information regarding what was going on in Ilsania, but there was no way they could read them without stealing them and no way of stealing them without alerting Nicholas. Theft had to be smart and safe, they couldn’t get caught. 

He handed the papers back with a shake of his head and Spencer placed them carefully back on the stack at the end of the desk. With pursed lips and far too much curiosity, Vincent pulled open one of the drawers. The top held only more papers that they would have to come back and have a look at during the day. The second was almost the same, except tucked right at the back was a cloth-wrapped lump. 

There was a familiar feeling to it as he pulled it out of the drawer. Spencer stopped flicking through the papers on the desk and watched as he unwrapped the soft cloth. It was a rock or a metal, hard and cold. From what he could see, there was nothing special about it, but it wouldn’t be tucked away in the back of a drawer if it wasn’t important. 

He slipped it from the cloth and was only able to touch the cool lump before a familiar thrill shot through him. His hand clamped tightly to the small rock as his legs shook, struggling to hold him up. It was so familiar, but so much stronger than anything he was used to, strong enough to make him feel like he was flying and falling all at once. 

“Vincent,” Spencer hissed next him, a hand on his shoulder. “Vincent, what is it?”

“Vireen,” he said in a choked breath. It was so much more powerful than anything he had ever smoked or eaten. But it shouldn’t be possible. Vireen was a plant, not a metal or rock, but the feeling was exactly the same, just stronger. There was nothing else it could possibly be, nothing else that could give him the same high, the same power. 

Spencer went to snatch it from him, but noises outside the office door made them both freeze. Even though he was on a high, struggling to get a grip on the magic flowing through his veins at merely a touch, he was lucid enough to wrap the rock back up again. He was tucking it back into the draw when the voices drifted towards them. 

“I’ll be retiring in a few minutes, ma’am,” Nicholas’s gruff voice said. “I forgot about a couple of things. I’m going to sort them now.”

The Governor replied but she was too far away for Vincent to hear. Shutting the drawer as quietly as he could, he grabbed Spencer’s hand and pulled him back over to the window. Internally, he was cursing, but he could still feel the vireen pulsing through him, even though he was no longer touching the rock. He couldn’t focus it on anything, not like he could when he smoked it. There was too much. 

He was through the window in an instant, Nicholas’s voice following him. Spencer stared at him with wide eyes, looking far younger than he ever had before and Vincent helped him climb out, pulling him close as they ducked below the windowsill once again. He reached up to close the window, but light spilling into the room made him duck back down. 

Footsteps thudded towards them and Vincent held tight to Spencer’s arm, anxiety mixing with adrenaline and his overwhelmed senses. Everything was heightened, like when he had smoked vireen, but so much worse. He could hear every creak in the wood as Nicholas walked through his office, feel the itchy material of Spencer’s jacket tormenting his fingers, he could see better in the dark, see just how wilted to roses before him were. 

It also meant that he could hear where the guards were. The way back to the gate was clear, their only issue was leaving the bushes without being heard by Nicholas. If they waited until he was gone, then the guards would see them huddling in the bushes. The Governor may appear nice when he was working with her, but he had the feeling she wouldn’t take too kindly to known criminals sneaking around her house. 

He didn’t want to take any chances. He placed a finger to his lips and pulled Spencer by the hand once again. Every brush against the bushes was loud in his ears, but it was a windy night and the noise could easily be passed off as the breeze. Within seconds, they were back against the brick wall and heading towards the gate, feet pounding against the dirt. 

There was no shadow at the window as they ran, no one came to close it, but the light bathed the garden ominously, as if even the air itself was waiting for someone to find them. Somehow, they had gotten away without issue, but there was still a tense rock in Vincent’s stomach. 

Spencer pulled away from him to open the gate, panting hard. Trying to push through all the noises around him and the sound of the waves in the distance, it wasn’t until the last second that he heard the footsteps on the other side of the wall. “Spencer, wait,” he hissed, but it was too late. 

The woman on the other side of the wall let out a gasp when Spencer nearly crashed into her. “What the-” she yelled, a hand reaching for her gun. Her eyes widened when she caught sight of Vincent behind him and she let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, you’re guards. Are you coming off patrol?”

“We are,” Spencer said, glancing back at Vincent in concern. “Sorry for scaring you, it wasn’t our intention.”

The woman said something, waving at them dismissively, but Vincent struggled to hear it over everything else. He mumbled a half-assed apology and walked off towards the dormitory building again, hoping Spencer would follow him. Footsteps pounded after him all the way to his window, where he climbed in and collapsed onto his bed. 

“Vincent,” Spencer whispered, but it sounded like a yell. “Are you alright?”

He shook his head. “I have never been this high before,” he answered. 

“Are you sure that was vireen?” Spencer asked, but all Vincent could do was shrug. He had no idea what it was, but it felt terrible and amazing all at once. One touch and he had never felt so powerful but also so overwhelmed. 

He glanced over at Spencer, who was leaning against his windowsill and watching him in concern. A smile pulled at Vincent’s lips, but he didn’t know why. Maybe it was the thrill of the vireen, the thrill of almost being caught, the questions racing through his mind. Then his vision began to swim and there wasn’t enough time to warn Spencer before everything fell to darkness.