Arienne had fallen asleep on the couch next to him. Bradshaw recalled the many sleepless nights his sister had spent studying in the lead-up to her entrance exam. Bradshaw knew sleep did not come easy for her, at least not during regular hours. He thought about a night four years ago. Most days, when he passed by the great hall, he remembered that night as the night he followed his older sister on an adolescent excursion and wound up bedridden for two months. He still walked with a minor limp. Other times, however, times like this, lying there next to Arienne with every muscle in his body relaxed, Bradshaw remembered his fall in a different light.

She slept with her mouth open, eyes twitching…

Bradshaw withdrew his hand, nearly waking Arienne up. He needed to go for a walk.

His feet guided him out of the library and down the street, toward Monarch’s Keep and toward the late, distant roar of the feast he had forgotten all about. With no reason not to, he passed his home and crossed the sacred plaza, coming around to the keep’s front gate.

A golden guard was patrolling the length of the front portcullis, stopping to lean on his spear as Bradshaw approached.

“What do you want, sproutling? Heard your father finally croaked.” Indeed, it was the same obnoxious watchmen from earlier that morning. 

“Step aside, I am running late for the feast. And you will refer to me as Lord Webber from now on, peasant.”

“I’d sooner have my tongue out, sprout.”

The jester would not step aside, but Bradshaw spotted a shadow in the corner.

Until now, he had never been able to connect the dots in his memory between their bare feet slapping against the stones of the sacred plaza and their arrival at the great hall. Just out of view of the golden guard, however, he discovered the crevasse hidden in plain sight. When he reached out to where the two walls should have met, his hand vanished. It was a tight squeeze as he shimmied through. 

Heading toward the uproar was easy enough, even sneaking past the lazy golden guards was child’s play. As Bradshaw retraced his steps from four years ago, more and more of that night came back into sharp focus.

The kitchen staff were all too frantic and busy to notice him sneak in through the servants’ entrance.  He slid unnoticed into the pantry to climb up the ladder to the balcony.

There was no troupe up there tonight.