Chapter 75: Helen
Chapter 74: Helen
Lyria’s POV
The streets of the capital were never truly quiet at night.
The palace had its own night sounds, its own specific dark, but out here the dark was a different thing entirely. It was warmer, more inhabited. Full of itself in a way that the palace’s careful, managed silence never was.
I kept my head low and my steps quick and moved through it the way I always did — like someone with somewhere to be who was not particularly interested in being seen getting there.
I turned, quickly moving through the narrow passages that ran between the wider roads, barely wide enough for two people to pass each other comfortably, the buildings on either side leaning close overhead as though conducting a private conversation across the gap.
Lanterns hung from iron hooks and doorways, casting warm pools of gold across cobblestones worn smooth by years of traffic.
From somewhere above me, behind a closed shutter, someone was playing a stringed instrument. The sound drifted down into the passageway. From somewhere ahead, laughter rang out.
I turned at the end of the narrow passage and the street opened up.
Mercer’s Row.
It was, by any reasonable assessment, the busiest street in this part of the capital, especially at this hour. The buildings here were older and very close to each other.
Their facades were worn to a pleasant, lived-in shabbiness that suggested decades of actual use rather than careful preservation. Shopfronts that had closed for the night sat with their shutters drawn beside establishments that had no intention of closing for several more hours — their windows bright, their doors opening and shutting with the steady rhythm of people going in and coming out.
The street itself was full.
Groups moved along the cobblestones in loose clusters. A vendor near the corner was selling something warm from a cart, the steam rising from it in pale ribbons that caught the lamplight. Two men leaned against the wall of a building, arguing about something with the passionate investment of people for whom the argument was at least as enjoyable as any resolution of it would be.
And everywhere, threading through it all, the particular undercurrent of conversation that I had expected.
The competition.
I caught fragments as I moved.
"—bloody royals. Did they really think we’d watch that?"
"—keep your voice down, soldiers walk—"
"—it was quite interesting, though I wouldn’t bother—"
I kept my head down and my pace steady, and contrary to what I thought, it seemed people were not particularly interested in the Selection.
If I had the opportunity to linger, I would have. I would have liked to hear their thoughts after all, but I did not have that opportunity, so I continued until I got to my destination.
The tavern was halfway down Mercer’s Row on the left side, tucked between a cooperage that had closed for the night and a narrow building whose function I had never been entirely certain of. It was called the Tallow and Tide, a name that had always struck me as slightly more nautical than the location warranted, given that the nearest body of water of any significance was a considerable distance away.
It was not, from the outside, a remarkable building. Well, that was not surprising. Most buildings in the capital were not remarkable, especially when looking from the outside, except one moved to the part where nobles resided.
We normally called it the stuffy part of the capital. Well... not me—those who stayed here. And they hated it too.
The Tallow and Tide was two storeys, the lower windows frosted at the edges in a way that suggested warmth within rather than concealment. A painted sign above the main entrance, which had been repainted at least twice over its original, showed a candle beside a wave in colours that had softened over time into something more impressionistic than specific. The main door was solid oak, worn smooth at the handle from years of use, and from behind it came the muffled sound of the establishment’s customers—voices layered over voices, the clink of glasses, something being dragged across a wooden floor.
It seemed it was a busy night.
I moved along the side of the building to the corner entrance — a narrower door, set slightly back from the street, that most people walked past without noticing because most people were not looking for it.
I touched my mask once, making sure it was secure, and then I pushed the door open.
Helen always left it unlocked for me due to the fact that I could arrive at any time.
The noise softened when I walked in—muted by walls and distance. I could still hear the calls for more ale, the low hum of conversation, the occasional burst of laughter.
I went up the stairs.
They were narrow and steep and creaked on the fourth step no matter how carefully you placed your foot, which I had learned to simply accept rather than attempt to avoid. The landing at the top was small, lit by a single lantern that burned low at this hour, and ahead of it was a door.
I knocked three times in succession.
Then I waited.
The sounds from below drifted up faintly. Someone was making a case for something with considerable volume and passion. Someone else appeared to be disagreeing.
The door opened immediately, and a woman no taller than five feet two stood there.
Her brown hair was pulled back in two thick braids that fell over her shoulders, the ends secured with plain dark ribbon. Brown eyes focused on me. A scar ran along her left forearm from just below the elbow to the wrist—old and pale and worn smooth at the edges.
She was wearing a plain dark dress with the sleeves rolled to the elbow, an apron tied firmly at her waist, and an expression that managed to convey, entirely without words, that she had been waiting for this visit for longer than she considered reasonable.
"Where have you been?" she asked, her voice carrying its usual rough edge.
Her accent was thick, and for anyone who was just hearing her speak for the first time, they would have difficulty understanding her words.
I opened my mouth to speak when she stepped back from the door.
"Come in," she said, before I could answer. "Come in, then we talk."
I nodded and then walked into the room.
The room was small and thoroughly occupied. A desk sat near the far wall, its surface covered with ledgers, loose sheets of paper, and a half-empty bottle that had been set aside in favour of work. Shelves lined one side of the room, holding various items—some neatly arranged, others clearly placed there with the intention of being sorted later and never quite reaching that point.
Two chairs sat across from the desk, their wood dark and worn with use.
A single window overlooked the street below, though the curtain had been drawn halfway, allowing only a sliver of light to enter.
It smelled of ink and paper and, to no one’s surprise, ale.
Helen closed the door behind me.
The sounds from below became a murmur.
She folded her arms across her chest and then fixed me with a look.
"Ye better have a good explanation for showing up now," she said to me.
