The Eccentric Entomologist is Now a Queen's Consort
Chapter 617 617: The Wolf's Determination (1)

Ashwyre had just begun to stir, the city yawning awake with a groan of wooden wheels and a shiver of shop-sign chains. Vendors pushed their carts over dew-slick cobbles, the wheels squealing like gulls. A fishmonger's wagon rolled past Cerys, leaving a briny wake that mixed with the sweeter aroma of honey cakes from the next stall over. Bolts of dyed linen unfurled in slow banners of indigo and saffron, catching the faint breeze that drifted up from the river. Every sound seemed louder in the thin morning light, yet none of it clung to Cerys. She moved like a shade—head down, shoulders rounded, gait uneven, the practiced shuffle of an old sailor whose knees never healed right. The faded cloak she wore had been rubbed with peat until the wool smelled of smoke and algae; it hid the red of her hair so completely that even she nearly forgot its color.

Rodion flickered inside her vision, his text crisp and clinical.

<Guard rotations sync every 12 minutes. South wall patrol delayed by 90 seconds. Now optimal.>

Cerys allowed herself one small breath. Timing had always been the part she respected most in drills: the rhythm of muscle and clock gears working together. She counted her steps—seven to the perfumery's row, three more to the narrow alley that lay in permanent twilight between two leaning brick facades.

The alley behind the perfumery smelled of crushed golden cypress and stale lamp oil. Ghost-thin memories tugged at her: walking here as a girl with her mother, who would press a sprig of the scented needles to little-Cerys's wrist and say, One day you'll carry your own perfume, not steel. The thought made her throat tighten, but she pushed it aside. Skitter scurried ahead, an obsidian dart no larger than her little finger. The ant's antennae brushed brick, reading vibrations in the mortar. Cerys knelt by the delivery hatch hinged at the base of the wall; rust pitted the latch, but the bar sat crooked, proof some apprentice had forgotten to secure it after the last shipment of rose attar.

She glanced once more at the alley mouth. Two porters joked as they hoisted crates onto a cart, voices bouncing up to the rooflines where pigeons puffed their feathers. No eyes on her. She lifted the hatch just high enough for Skitter to slip inside. A faint click came from beyond the threshold—the ant marking the floor tile he now occupied—and then, nothing. Good.

Cerys followed, rolling through the opening with the silent confidence of a cat, cloak folding tight around her armor so no buckle scraped stone. Inside, darkness hugged the storeroom like a second skin, broken only by thin, dusty shafts falling through high lattice windows. Shelves stacked with amphorae and wooden scent boxes created a miniature maze. She inhaled, sorting notes: citrus peel, fern, and under it all, a heart of warm, burned cedar. Somewhere a cracked oil lamp must have snuffed out in the night, leaving its final breath behind.

A thin archway led to the archive proper. Here the smell shifted—old vellum, melted sealing wax, the iron tang of extinguished braziers. Brass lamps, each enchanted to burn low during off hours, cast sleepy halos across long reading tables. The silence was profound enough that Cerys heard her own pulse in her ears, but she also heard Rodion's cool hum sliding into her thoughts.

<Trip-wire rune two paces. Height: ankle.>

She raised her left hand and opened two fingers in a silent signal. Skitter darted forward, mandibles snipping a narrow thread of liquid light that pulsed across the hallway floor; the rune's glow winked out like a candlepinched. A faint hiss of displaced air followed as the ant disabled the ignition crystal seated in the nearest sconce. Cerys moved past, boot soles kissing the flagstone with barely a whisper.

Row after row of tall shelves rose around her, the top tiers disappearing into shadow. Near the center hearth she saw the brazier—still warm, lazy coils of gray smoke slipping up the chimney. Black scraps of folio drifted through the air like dark snowflakes. Calderon's steward had done thorough work. She crossed to the broad archivist desk where a larger shape waited: volume 317-B, half-charred, its leather scorched to a brittle shell along one edge, but still intact enough that the title glyph flickered when her fingers brushed it. She slipped the tome into her satchel, careful to keep burned pages from cracking apart.

"Quill," she whispered. The second ant hustled from a fold of her cloak, abdomen already swelling with ink synthesized from Rodion's instructions. Under the violet glow of its rune etchings, Quill unfolded razor-thin wings that acted like blotter paper. It began skimming each salvageable page, leaving behind faint ultraviolet script only Rodion could later enhance.

A slow creak groaned somewhere above. Cerys's head snapped up—it wasn't Skitter or Quill; she had counted both shapes. Another presence. She slipped between two shelves, shoulders fitting the narrow gap. The door at the far end of the hall inched inward. A night-duty clerk shuffled through, coat half-buttoned, hair a flop of straw over bloodshot eyes. He muttered complaints about drafty corridors. His foot caught on a loose plank; he cursed and plodded toward the brazier, no doubt wishing for a last flicker of warmth before shift change.

Cerys tracked his progress by sound: the tap of boot to stone, the soft rasp of a bored sigh. When he neared Quill's copying station she acted. One step from cover, another to close distance; her arm hooked round his neck while her free hand clamped a velvet bookmark across his mouth. The silk muffled the startled yelp. She applied a twist taught by barracks masters—enough to cut breath, not enough to break bone—and eased him down behind the desk. His eyes fluttered in doped surprise. She whispered against his ear, "Sleep." The word carried a weight she did not fully understand, but people obeyed when she used it like that. Perhaps tone mattered more than magic.

Quill finished its work, wings folding back.

<Ledger copy: 82 percent complete.> Rodion's text glowed in the lower field of her sight.

But before relief settled, a new ping appeared, bright orange—danger color.

<Signature sheet missing. Authenticity now contestable. Registrar vault probable storage.>

Of course Calderon's man would pocket the final sheet; without the official scribe's mark, any court could claim forgery. Irritation slid across her sternum but found no place to anchor; she expelled it. Mission scope changed—nothing more.

She scanned the perimeter. Two potential exits: the double doors to the main foyer, likely watched, or the pneumatic tube chute designed for transferring sealed folios to the binding workshop below. The chute would be cramped but fast. Decision immediate. She snapped her fingers twice—the silent call for Glim. The smallest ant emerged, sunlight flashing off its faceted eyes. She pointed to the door, then to the fallen clerk. Glim nodded—or the insect equivalent—and climbed the man's coat, positioning itself beneath his collar.

Cerys eased the heavy chute lid up. Stale parchment wind gusted out. She slung her satchel across her back, glanced once toward the door—still closed—then slid feet-first into the metal throat. Cold iron scraped her boots, and static sparked in her cloak. Above, Glim sparked a contained burst of white phosphor, bright enough to wreck any human night vision, quiet enough not to set off flame alarms. The bang echoed like a giant snapping its fingers, and Cerys imagined the clerk blinking back tears while thinking he'd only dozed into a lamp flare.

Gravity tugged. She shot downward, elbows braced against cylindrical walls to keep speed controllable. Rodion dimmed its display to a pinpoint so she wasn't blinded by neon. The chute curved left, then right—her stomach bobbed—finally spat her into a padded catch bin two floors below. She rolled, absorbing the impact, came up in a crouch. A single lantern flickered overhead; no alarm bells clanged. Somewhere water dripped in slow, bored rhythm.

Glim's flash still rang in the pipes above, like distant thunder swallowed by stone. Cerys listened: no running feet, no shouted queries. Just the city's morning heart beating on the other side of the wall. Good.

She dusted ash from her cloak, checked the satchel—ledger safe, Quill latched inside—and signaled Skitter with a soft click of tongue against teeth. The ant re-emerged, antennae humming. Cerys let herself breathe once, twice.

Then she hit the exterior hatch lever. Cool air flooded the chute bay, carrying the faint perfume of crushed mint leaves and broken glass—she had landed in an alley behind the apothecaries' quarter. Over both shoulders she scanned: a cracked greenhouse window caught first sunlight, shards glittering like shards of pale sapphire. No one was there yet, the day too new for idlers. Perfect.

She slipped into the chute shaft. Glim dropped a soft flash-burst behind them. The metal rang, but when she hit the alley outside, no alarm followed.

_____

The alley reeked of herbs and broken windows. Dusty sage bushes had clawed through shattered panes, their silvery leaves bruised by passing carts, and every crushed stem bled a sharp, menthol sting. Someone had spilled camphor oil from an apothecary crate days earlier; now the boards underfoot oozed a sticky glaze that trapped beetle shells and broken glass in equal measure. Cerys pressed her back to a cracked greenhouse wall where ivy fought the metal frame, while the sunrise spilled thin gold spears onto the wreckage.

She dug out the cloth packet Mikhailis had slipped her: still faintly warm, smelling of sugar and soft pear. Peeling one corner, she discovered an almond–honey turnover the size of her palm. A single bite released steam and crumbs together. Flakes crumbled in her glove and stuck to the bandage on her forearm, and she didn't even mind; the burst of sweetness jolted her brain from the archive's shadowed hush to the bright urgency of the street. She chewed slowly, mindful of the silence she must blend into.

Her father's voice curled through memory, as relentless as a marching drum: Family honour above all. He'd said it the day she first donned a recruit's tabard, the words a medal and a shackle all at once. Honour had driven her across swords, over walls, and into an exile of her own choosing. Yet honour was also what kept Lucien's name echoing inside her chest like a bell—she would not let Calderon weld false guilt to the Arundel crest.

Crumbs brushed away, she licked sugar from her glove and straightened. Rodion's crisp interface glimmered in the lower left of her vision, cold and practical.

<Curfew clocks moved forward. City enters lockdown in 54 minutes. Success probability drops 22 percent.>

So Calderon's faction was already tightening nets. Good. Let them believe time favored them.

Cerys drew the cloak's hood deeper, masking the red glow of her hair. "We go for the signature sheet," she muttered, voice barely louder than the hiss of wind sneaking through the broken greenhouse ribs. "Then Merrit."

Skitter clicked agreement from her shoulder seam, antennae quivering. Quill and Glim nestled in separate interior pockets, their rune filaments pulsing as steady as heartbeats.