The manor was quiet when they reached it, Mira still walking ahead of them. From the front entrance, he was unable to see where they had been hiding the night before, but he could see the stables. Sparks was still in there, probably thinking that he wasn’t coming back for her. He would have to go and visit her during his break. 

If only he could take her and gallop through the fields between towns like he used to. It hadn’t even been a week since he started working for the Governor, but there was a longing deep within him to leave and go back to what he loved. At the same time, he wanted to know more about the rock he’d found the night before. Nothing about it made sense. 

Governor Thompson was eating a bowl of fruit in the dining room when he and Spencer walked in, Mira already standing behind her. She gave them a smile, dark bags under her eyes and her greying hair tied up in a tight bun. “Good morning, boys,” she said, but even her voice sounded tired. “We’re not going to be doing much today. I have a lot of paperwork to get through. I figured the two of you could at least keep me entertained.”

He wasn’t there for her entertainment, but he wasn’t going to say as much. He nodded and took a spot at the end of the long dining table. Spencer moved to one of the windows that lined the back wall, making it far too obvious that he was trying to figure out where they were in the house. 

Nicholas’s office was probably tucked somewhere in the hallway behind the stairs, but he had no idea where Charlotte’s would be. That had been Spencer’s original goal, but he had the feeling that her advisor might have more answers than either of them expected. As well as plenty of questions. 

As he had the first time they had watched over the Governor, Spencer pestered her with plenty of questions, while Vincent stayed silent. The questions were meaningless, how had she slept, what else did she have planned for the day, all to keep up a friendly front. Of course, she answered them politely, but it was hard for Vincent to tell if Spencer’s attempts were working. 

Mira watched in curiosity, trying to figure them both out as much as Spencer was trying to figure the Governor out. She didn’t say a word to stop them, the polite smile always on her face. It was somewhat unnerving, but Vincent tried to chalk it down to her being far too friendly. 

Charlotte took them up the stairs when she was done eating, to a room across the hall from her bedroom. Her office was decorated in much the same way as her advisors, but with a lot less useless trinkets and far too many flowers. The smell was overwhelming to someone on vireen and it made his eyes water. 

Just like Nicholas, Charlotte’s desk was littered with stacks of papers. With a sigh, she sat and grabbed her quill from its inkwell. “Make yourself comfortable, or whatever it is you need to do. I’m going to be here a while,” she said. 

Vincent stood with Mira next to the door, looking around as discreetly as he could, while Spencer, the idiot that he was, made it all too obvious. The first place he moved to was the window, but it wasn’t as if he would be able to climb up there from the outside, not when they were on the second floor. That didn’t stop him though. 

“Is that normal for him?” Mira whispered in his ear, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. 

“Unfortunately.”

She chuckled. “You two seem close.”

“Unfortunately,” he said again. 

He also had a look through her books until Vincent cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows at him. “Would you stop snooping for two seconds and get over here,” he hissed, keeping his voice down even though Charlotte would easily hear him. 

She laughed and waved him away. “It’s alright, if there’s a book you want to read, I might let you borrow it,” she said. She was far too nice to them, but also completely oblivious to what Spencer was trying to do. 

“Thank you,” Spencer said, grinning cheekily at Vincent, who rolled his eyes in response. “What’s all your paperwork for?”

“Just things I need to pass and give my approval on. New towns, new buildings, I think a mine somewhere,” she explained, gesturing to the stack of papers. “I’ve left them for far too long. They’re starting to build up. But it’s not as if many people can afford to be building anything new, but I can at least sign them for when the time comes.”

Even she sounded confused by it, as if she had no idea what was going on in her own province. Spencer glanced over to him, a frown on his dark face, but he said nothing. Charlotte sighed and flicked through the set of papers, her eyes darting across words Vincent could never hope to read. The quill scratched against the paper, loud and grating. 

She barely got a few done before there was a knock at the door. “Come in,” she said in a tired voice and dropped the page she was reading through. 

The door opened wide and Vincent came face to face with Nicholas, who gave him a confused once over. He didn’t see the advisor that often, but when he did, he wondered what someone like him was doing in Ilsania. Someone a part of the royal family should have been the Governor, not an advisor. Even Vincent knew that. 

“I thought we were letting the criminals patrol the perimeter, ma’am, nothing more,” Nicholas said, scoffing when he saw Spencer behind the desk. 

“I like them,” Charlotte replied with a shrug. “Besides, what better way to learn the problems of my province then to ask those I have failed? You were the one who suggested hiring them and I even have Miss Mira here to keep an eye on them like you asked.”

“I hired them to be extra help, not your personal bodyguards,” Nicholas replied, glaring at the both of them. Mira gave him a polite wave as if she didn’t notice his hatred of the two bushrangers in the room with them. He sighed and ran a hand through his back hair. “This is not what I came in here to talk about.”

“What did you want? I have a lot to go through,” Charlotte said, flicking the corner of the stack with a long nail. 

Nicholas moved to the other side of the desk, shooing Spencer away with a quick wave of his hand. “This will be quick,” he said as Spencer moved to stand on the other side of Vincent shooting him an irritated look. “I’d rather do this in private however, ma’am.”

“And what are you going to do if someone chose to attack me now, Nicholas?” Charlotte asked with a laugh. “They can stay.”

Nicholas didn’t look to be in the mood to argue with her and placed his hands against the dark wood of her desk. “I just received word from Milworth up north, their population recently had a boom and they’re struggling to feed everyone. They have sent a request for new farmland, but there’s a problem,” he explained, handing her yet another piece of paper. “The land they need is currently occupied by a tribe and they are requesting permission to move them or take more extreme measures where necessary.”

The silence that filled the room was suffocating. Vincent’s fists clenched tightly at his sides as he watched the Governor and her advisor read over the request. Was that one of the papers that had been on his desk the night before? Was that what they all were? It was disgusting. 

“Surely there’s other land?” Charlotte asked, her face pale. 

“Unfortunately not, ma’am. You know how hard it is to find fertile land here,” Nicholas answered with a shake of his head. “I can sign it and have it sent back today, I just need your approval.”

Charlotte frowned and in the silence that followed, Vincent took a second to check on Spencer. He stood stock still, his jaw clenched and anger in his eyes, but he wouldn’t look Vincent’s way. 

“But what about the natives? It’s their land, isn’t it? They live there,” Charlotte said. 

For a second, Vincent stupidly believed that she wasn’t going to sign the paper, but then he remembered who he was working for. “We’ve been over this, ma’am, they are not like us. They are savages with no sense of society, that’s why they attack us, attack you,” Nicholas said, his voice laced with contempt. “We need this so we can survive in this damned country my aunt sent us to. The natives will either run, surrender, or die. We can only hope that they will at least attempt to learn how to be civil.”

The worst part of it all was the look he shot Spencer, the utter contempt he had for him based on the colour of his skin, something Spencer had fought to keep a secret for years. Before he could think, Vincent took a step forward, but a hand on his wrist stopped him. There was a pleading look in Spencer’s eyes and the shock of it made him take a step back again. 

The sigh Charlotte let out pulled his attention back to her. “You’re right, I know you’re right. You always are,” she mumbled and within a second, she had signed the request, letting the quill scratch loudy against the paper. 

How many times had she signed such requests? How many times had she given people permission to murder? Everyone knew that Ilsania was supposed to help expand the Nuran Empire, but that shouldn’t have meant killing people who didn’t deserve it. Disgust raged through him at the thought. 

He knew of the massacres, and had heard whispers of them across towns. Who knew how many of them were done with permission, but he wanted to think that it was the majority. Done for land, for fun, for disgusting reasons. They were everywhere, had been for forty years and there seemed to be no stopping them. 

“Thank you, ma’am,” Nicholas said, a cruel smile on his face. “Good luck with the rest of those requests, they’re not as urgent as the ones we went through yesterday.” He strode towards the door and slowed for a second when he reached Spencer and Vincent. There was a disgusted look in his eyes as he passed them, mixed with a terrible pride. The door slammed shut after him, leaving them alone with the sound of the quill against paper. 

Mira, now standing by the window, watched them both in silence. Gone was the polite smile, replaced by something like pity. No one said a word and Charlotte wouldn’t look up from her desk, her cheeks flushed with what Vincent hoped was shame. At least she had enough sense in her to not try and make it out like it wasn’t a big deal. 

Finally, Spencer met his eyes and instead of the sadness Vincent expected to see there was pure anger. It was the kind of anger Vincent felt whenever someone called him a woman, only so much worse. All he could do was nod and tap Spencer’s wrist in a way that he hoped conveyed his message. As soon as they could, they’d sneak back into the manor and find out what they could of the Governor’s plans and the Queen’s nephew.