The Eccentric Entomologist is Now a Queen's Consort
Chapter 618 618: The Wolf's Determination (2)

The Registrar building rose across the plaza like a wedding cake—tiered, immaculate, and too sugary for its own good. Marble pillars fluted with pinkish veins formed a colonnade that caught the last notes of the setting sun, giving the place a theatrical blush. Sentinel statues of owls and lions perched at each corner, their quartz eyes judging every passer-by. At ground level, a pair of gates latticed with copper vines stood open just wide enough to admit air—and suspicion.

Guards in green-trimmed tabards paced the front walk with the bored restlessness of lions that had been fed but not yet allowed to sleep. Their halberds clacked on flagstones in uneven duets. One yawned so wide his helmet creaked. Another bothered a bluejay feather caught in a breastplate rivet. They were watchful, but morning sloth made their patterns loose.

Cerys limped toward the gates, adopting the gait of a tired archivist apprentice: weight favoring one hip, shoulders curved under imaginary scroll crates. Thin spectacles pinched her nose, and a goose-quill stuck behind one ear in scholarly disarray. The disguise smelled faintly of cinnamon ink courtesy of Serelith's herb pouch.

Skitter slipped ahead, vanishing into a vent no wider than a coin. Rodion sprang a new overlay: ankles of the columns glowed red where silent alarm glyphs waited. She adjusted her stride to pass between them.

Inside, marble echoed every footfall. An officious clerk behind an oak podium squinted at her over parchment spectacles. "Name and division?"

"Apprentice Feldren, sir. Scribe annex," she rasped, pitching her voice into the cracked register of someone used to long nights bending over ledgers. She wagged the quill for emphasis. A wad of wax stuck to its feathered tip.

The clerk exhaled boredom. "Annex three corridors left, documentation wing, floor two. Don't breathe on the calibration crystals."

"I wouldn't dare," she said, adding a tiny cough for authenticity.

Once beyond his sight line she ducked beneath a hanging tapestry depicting the founding charter. Rodion painted a path of pulsing red dots—glyph trip lines, pressure plates, faint mana threads sewn into runner rugs. It resembled a constellation only she could see, and she wove through it, the cloak skimming inches above slate floors.

Corridors of deeds spread like the petrified roots of some bureaucratic tree. Shelves towered, honey-oak drawers labeled with estate names in looping calligraphy: Birchstrand Holdings… Cloudbridge Dairy Rights… Feather-Harbor Toll Stubs. Dust motes danced in the thin beams slicing through clerestory windows.

Vault 7-Delta hid behind a plain iron door hammered with a single ward rune. Skitter's mandibles probed the hinge and tapped three times. Clear. Cerys slid a finger-thin pick into the tumbler; it yielded without argument—neglected by complacent record keepers. She slipped inside and shut the door at her back.

The vault smelled of wax sealant and copper polish. Scroll tubes stood in neat hexagonal honeycombs. Rodion highlighted one tube in bright amber: 317-B Certifying Signature Sheet. There it was, capped with an alarm rune glowing mild blue.

Cerys knelt, steadying her breath. Quill darted from her pocket, abdomen exuding a thin ribbon of shimmering mimic ink. With surgeon patience Quill traced the alarm rune's perimeter, building a hollow duplicate onto a second copper tube from a lower shelf. Cerys counted heartbeats—thirty-five until the ink dried and stiffened. Then, with the flick of two fingers, she lifted the real tube free while Quill pressed the counterfeit into its place. Magic sigils accepted the weight, pulse unfaltering. Swap clean.

She examined the prize: copper warm, rune intact, label etched in official script. Into the satchel.

But her peripheral caught another scroll, edges tagged crimson: Arundel Orchard – To Be Incinerated. Rage pricked beneath her ribs. If they meant to erase Lucien's stewardship deeds, they'd find the ledgers missing. Fine. She slid that tube beside the first.

At that moment the vault door slammed, echo bursting down the corridor. "I told them to fix the damn vents!" a nasal voice bellowed. The High-Clerk's silhouette staggered inside, robe pockets stuffed with quills, ink droplet on his chin.

Cerys hunched over a cabinet, pulling the cloak up to mask her face. She forced a violent cough, rough as gravel. "Fumes—acidic," she wheezed, clutching her throat.

The High-Clerk's eyes bulged. "Saints alive! Again? Where's the hazard bell?" He ran a circle in panic, then bolted out, shouting, "Mask! Fumigation!"

Cerys straightened, lips quirking despite tension. She slipped the tubes into her inner pocket and signaled Skitter with two fingernail taps on the shelf wood. Retreat pattern.

Skitter scurried up a beam, antennae flicking eddies of dust into a mini cloud. Quill folded wings and skated back into her cloak hem. Glim lingered near the doorframe, ready.

She retraced steps through the corridor. A pair of junior clerks sprinted past, faces half-wrapped in perfumed handkerchiefs, wails of "Hold your breaths!" echoing. In the confusion she hugged the wall, cloak blending with shadow. Rodion marked new guard vectors in yellow: security drifting toward the main foyer, not the archives—exactly as she'd hoped.

A tapestry fluttered as she brushed behind it. Beyond, the side vent Skitter had entered earlier yawned open, a dull rectangle overlooking the alley's inner courtyard. She crawled through, shoulders scraping, dropped three feet into a rosemary hedge that masked her from the courtyard path. Someone yelled about faulty ventilation; another cursed conduits.

Cerys hugged the wall, sprint-limp returning. She didn't stop until the massive building shrank behind topiary statues. Only then did she press a gloved thumb against the copper tubes—real, cold, and hers.

Rodion chimed, voice low satin.

<Alarm rune integrity unchanged. Substitution not detected. Commendation: 97 percent precision.>

"Four percent shy of perfect," she whispered. "We'll aim higher next time."

She left the way she came, ant trail in tow.

_____

Twilight settled like bruised silk over Ashwyre, the sky bleeding from orange to violet while lanterns along the canals bloomed one by one in amethyst halos. Their witch-light reflected off rain-slick water, turning slow ripples into rivers of purple glass. Somewhere a bell tolled sixth hour, its echo rolling through the narrow streets and rattling shutters already closed against the promised storm.

The Copper Eel crouched at the end of a crooked quay, windows grime-dimmed, eaves dripping gutter sludge into the canal below. Inside, the tavern's ceiling beams bowed under decades of smoke, and every floorboard had memorized the weight of sailors who asked no questions. The air smelled of stale ale, frying lard, and the metallic tang of spilled lantern oil. Grease shimmered on the long bar like a thin pond after rain; flies thrummed over puddles of yesterday's stew.

Rodion pinged a token in Cerys's vision—an orange icon hovering over one darkened booth. She pulled her hood lower and threaded through a haze of pipe smoke, boots sinking into sticky planks. At a table near the hearth, Merrit slumped, shoulders rounded as if trying to fold himself small. A cracked tankard sweated weak ale between his hands. He muttered to it like it might answer.

"Glyph oil… he said no harm, just smoothing edges…"

Cerys slid onto the bench across from him. Skitter crawled to her wrist, mandibles poised. A single puff of citrus-sharp mist hit Merrit's face—Rodion-approved sobering compound. He gagged, choking, but tears cleared the blear from his eyes.

"Easy," Cerys murmured. She tugged her glove off and set three folded pages on the splintered table. The ledger copies glimmered faintly under the purple lamps. "Look at the clerk's seal. Unbroken."

Merrit squinted, blinking hard. Recognition flickered. "You're… you're the knight. From the arena." His voice rasped, unused to honesty.

"Yes. And you swore no tampering. Help me prove that."

He raked a hand through matted hair. "They… threatened to break my mother's legs if I talked. Said accidents happen in the dye vats." His breath hiccupped. "I just load wagons. I never wanted—"

"We can protect her," Cerys said, tone level as a blade laid flat. "But I need you sober enough to testify. Will you try?"

Merrit's gaze slid to his tankard, then back. He nodded once, slow as thaw.

Cerys gathered the ledger pages and tucked them away. "Come. Back door."

They slipped from the sour warmth of the tavern into a side alley that reeked of wet rope and rat dung. Fog had crept up from the canal, twisting around crates and iron moorings. Rain began as a fine mist, turning every lantern halo into a soft prism.

Cerys scanned the passage—brick walls hemming them in, one oil lamp sputtering above a barrel. She guided Merrit toward a wrought-iron gate. Halfway there, steel hissed. Blades glinted, catching lamplight in quicksilver flashes.

Two enforcers melted from shadow, faces hidden behind half-masks etched with Calderon's thorn crest. Their short swords were ugly things: single-edged, rune-lines pulsing a queasy blue.

Merrit froze, breath fogging. Cerys shoved him behind her and drew the compact saber at her hip. Skitter leapt first, a black streak onto the closer enforcer's belt. Sparks popped—runes shorted, power stone cracked. The man swore, sword jerking as the enchantment died.

Cerys met the second attacker, ducking under a slash meant for her throat. The blade carved air close enough that she felt the cold of it. She twisted, hammered her pommel into his temple. He staggered sideways, shoulder crashing into wet brick.

First enforcer recovered, switching to brute force. He lunged. Cerys parried, but the clash numbed her arm. She retreated a step, boots skidding on alley slime. He pressed, rune-dead blade still sharp enough to gut. She waited—timing, breath. He overextended; she pivoted, kicked the side of his knee. Bone cracked like snapping kindling. He howled, folded. She threw an elbow into his jaw for good measure.

Second man shook off dizziness, hatred bright in his eyes. He slashed again—too wide. She caught his wrist, drove her knee into his ribcage, heard wind wheeze out. Glim dropped from her cloak, unleashing a burst of white phosphor. Alley walls flashed blank. The man screamed, blinded, sword clattering.

Silence crashed down, broken only by Merrit's ragged cough. He stared at the fallen enforcers, chest hitching. "You… you saved me."

Cerys wiped a bead of blood—from whose cut, she wasn't sure—off her sleeve. "You're not done yet."

<Skitter injury: left wing torn. Functionality seventy-one percent.> Rodion's report flashed. She spared the ant a glance; the tiny creature held its damaged wing aloft, still alert.

Merrit clutched the wall for support. "Where to now?"

"Safe boathouse," she said. Rodion projected a path—a ribbon of pale blue arrows arching over rooftops to an abandoned quay. They hurried, Cerys's limp returning as adrenaline ebbed.

Cobblestones glistened, canals whispering below wooden planks. Yet before they reached the turn, the path narrowed onto a stone bridge older than the city's charter. On its midpoint burned a lone lantern—a single eye in the rain. Beneath it stood a man whose tailored coat repelled water as if disdain itself formed a shield.

Aldric Calderon. Every hair in place, pale gloves spotless, rapier hilt peeking like a polished fang at his side. The lantern's violet light gilded him saintly, though Cerys tasted ashes.

He smiled, the expression smooth as lacquer. "You've been busy, wolf-girl."

She said nothing. Merrit halted behind a crate half-collapsed under tarp; Skitter and Quill melted into cracks between stones, silent scouts.

Calderon gestured to the empty air around him. "I let you run. I wanted to see how far." Somewhere beyond the bridge arches Cerys sensed officers—shadows with crossbows, waiting for a sign.

Rain thickened, drawing silver threads from sky to river. Calderon produced a scroll tube from inside his coat, its seal flashing royal crimson. "This clears Lucien's name. If…" He extended his hand, immaculate glove palm-up. "Marry me, Cerys. Publicly mend what your father bent. Alliance restored. Tomorrow your brother walks free."

Water drummed on Cerys's cloak, pooled at the bridge crown. She could smell the lavender soap Calderon favored, cloying in wet air. She could feel Merrit's hope quiver behind her like a trapped bird.

She didn't move. Didn't blink.

Calderon's voice softened, coaxing. "Or he hangs at dawn. With or without your proof. And dear Merrit there? A tragic witness drowning in the canal." He took a step closer, close enough for the lantern to catch a fleck of rain on his lashes. With deliberate care he opened her fist and set a signet ring on her palm—silver band, black onyx bearing the Calderon thorn. Rainwater ran over it, tinting the stone.

"Midnight," he said. "Ivy Tower." A polite nod, as though concluding a dance, and he turned. His officers melted into deeper shadow, boots leaving barely a splash.

Rodion buzzed low, tone uncharacteristically hesitant. <Decision tree undefined. Eleven paths project less than twenty percent victory without alliance shift.>

Cerys remained in the lantern glow, world narrowing to heartbeat and rain. Blood from a knuckle cut—she'd never noticed—mixed with water, beading on the signet like crimson jewels. Around her boots, the ants emerged, tens of them, tracing lines across wet stone. They formed two arrows: one pointing downriver toward the marsh hideout, safe and known; the other toward the city's spine where Ivy Tower speared the clouds.

She stared at the signet, then at the distant tower spire glinting in lightning's first flicker. Inside her chest, honour warred with rage, duty tangled with the raw need to keep Lucien breathing.

She didn't move.

Not yet.