Chapter 113: Arrangements

With two weeks left before the festival, our classroom turned into a maid café, and I turned into a disaster.

Marisol had pinned me back into the same uniform as before, and it still didn’t fit. The top was buttoned so tight across my chest that I couldn’t take a full breath without hearing the thread beg for its life. There still wasn’t a tail hole, so my tail was stuffed down the back of the skirt, which made the whole skirt stick out behind me.

"Hold still!" Marisol knelt behind me with a mouthful of pins. "If you pop another button, I’m charging you for it!"

"I’m not even breathing!"

"Breathe less!"

At that exact moment, the classroom door swung open, and a voice I recognized boomed across the room.

"Excuse me! Has anybody seen my adorable little sister? She’s about this tall, she’s very pretty, and she looks like she wants to stab everyone!"

Hexilia Frostfall stood in the doorway in her full Queen’s Guard uniform, with her silver cape thrown over one shoulder and her sword at her hip. Every girl in the room stopped what she was doing to stare at her. Two of them dropped their trays.

Then, Hex spotted me.

She looked at the bow in my hair. Then, she looked at my chest, at the frilly apron, and finally at the skirt sticking out behind me. Her mouth started twitching.

"Kohaku," she said, with her hand over her mouth. "What a curious sight."

"Hi, Hex!" I waved weakly. "Serena’s in the rehearsal room down the hall! She’s practicing her sword choreography!"

"I’ll get to her in a second." Hex walked all the way around me in a slow circle, grinning ear to ear. "I’m sorry, I just have to take this in. Is your tail stuck down your skirt?"

"T-There’s no hole for it!"

"Poor thing! Serena is going to lose her mind when she sees you like this. Do you know she spent an entire page of her last letter on your tail? An entire page! She said it was the most ridiculous, distracting, pointless thing she’d ever seen, and then she described it in incredible detail."

"S-She did WHAT!?"

"Oh, yes. She knows exactly how fluffy it is." Hex winked. "Don’t tell her I told you, teehee. So!" Hex clapped her hands. "Are you acting in the play? Wait, of course you are! You’re in the class!"

"No, actually. I’m, uh, on the crew now." I forced a smile. "Serena took over my role. I’m just helping out backstage."

"Ah, then we’ll both be working that night. I’ll be up in the royal box, standing right behind the Queen’s chair for the whole performance." Hex sighed. "The Queen loves the Founder’s Play, but she gets very hungry during the third act, and the guards aren’t allowed to leave their posts to fetch her anything."

My attention snapped straight to the royal box.

I had spent the last three days trying to figure out how to get up there. I’d thought about climbing the outer wall, sneaking in with the cleaning staff, and even pretending to be lost. None of my plans had gotten me past the guarded door at the top of the stairs.

"Hex," I said. "What if I brought tea up?"

Hex blinked.

I continued:

"We’re running the maid café the whole festival anyway!" I gestured at my uniform, which creaked as I inhaled. "I could bring up a tea tray during the last act! Tea, lemon cakes, whatever Her Majesty likes! Professional maid service, delivered right to the box!"

Hex’s face lit up.

"Kohaku, you’re a genius! The Queen will adore that!" She grabbed my shoulders and shook me with delight. "I’ll talk to the guards tonight and tell them a fox in a maid dress is coming up during the last act. They’ll let you right through!"

"That would be perfect!"

"Bring the little lemon cakes! She loves the little lemon cakes!" Then Hex paused. "Wait. If you come up during the last act, you’ll miss the end of the play. You’ll miss my sister’s big romantic kiss!"

"I’ll survive."

"Well, I’ll tell you all about it afterward, then." Hex reached up and scratched me right behind my ear, the same way she did with Serena. My knees nearly buckled. "Thank you, Kohaku. Take good care of my sister for me, alright? She likes you a lot more than she lets on."

She waved to the room and marched off down the hall, calling Serena’s name.

I stood there in my too-small maid uniform, with my tail still stuck down my skirt.

In other words, Hexilia Frostfall had just gotten me access to the room she was going to die in. She had done it gladly, and she had thanked me for it. She had no idea at all.

Behind me, Marisol slowly took the pins out of her mouth.

"Lemon cakes," she said thoughtfully. "We could charge triple for royal delivery."

"Yeah, maybe."

---

The next afternoon, I climbed the two flights of stairs at the back of the great hall to scout the royal box.

My excuse was a measuring tape. I’d borrowed it from Marisol, and if anybody asked, I was measuring the doorway for the tea cart. I’d practiced saying it in the mirror four times, and it sounded completely believable.

The door at the top of the stairs was standing open. I poked my head inside.

"Hello! Café delivery, just taking a few measurements, don’t mind me!"

The royal box was full of people. Two guards were checking the window latches, a woman with a clipboard was counting cushions, and a pair of servants were polishing a big gilded chair at the very front. In the middle of all of them, holding a ledger and directing everything with one finger, stood Secretary Anselm Pryce.

He turned around and smiled at me.

[Oh, crap, it’s the serpent guy! Act natural!]

"Miss Sakana," Pryce said warmly. "What a pleasant surprise. I don’t believe we got to finish our conversation at the banquet. You left in quite a hurry."

"The crab!" I said, much too loudly. "It was the crab. I’m very sensitive to crab."

"So I understand." He closed his ledger. "Captain Frostfall told me about your kind offer. Tea for Her Majesty during the final act. I’ve already informed the guards, so they’re expecting you."

"Oh! Great! Thank you so much!"

"I’ll look forward to it." His smile didn’t move at all. "I’m very fond of lemon cakes myself."

I nodded way too many times and got to work with my measuring tape, and while I measured, I looked at everything.

The box was small, maybe fifteen feet across and ten feet deep. There was only one door, and it was the one behind me. A low railing ran along the front, looking down over the whole great hall and the stage below. The Queen’s chair sat in the center, right against that railing. Behind it, there was an empty space where a guard could stand, which had to be where Hex would be.

To the right of the Queen’s chair was a smaller, plainer seat, and the woman with the clipboard had put a little card on it that said SECRETARY.

Next to that, against the right-hand wall, was a narrow side table with a lace runner on it.

"Is that where the tea goes?" I asked.

"It is," Pryce said. "You’ll set the tray down there and serve from the right."

I measured the side table, very slowly. It was about three steps from Pryce’s chair. If I stood beside it, my back would be against the wall, and his right hand would be close enough to grab.

In other words, Pryce had just told me exactly where to stand in order to stop him.

[Sabine said to keep my back to the wall, close the distance, and grab the wrist. I can do this!]

I measured the doorway twice more, wrote down some numbers that meant nothing, and rolled the tape back up.

"All done! Thank you so much for your time, Secretary!" I bowed. "I’ll see you on the night of the play!"

"Of course." Pryce inclined his head. "Oh, and Miss Sakana?"

I stopped in the doorway.

He was turning his silver ring slowly around his finger with his thumb. The little black stone caught the light from the window.

"At the banquet, you watched me for the rest of the evening. You barely looked at your plate." His voice stayed soft and friendly the whole time. "Today, you’ve looked at my hands six times since you walked in, and you haven’t looked at the Queen’s chair at all. Most people who come up here can’t take their eyes off of it."

My tail went stiff down the whole length of my back.

"I-I just think your ring is really pretty!!!"

"How kind." Pryce smiled his serpent smile. "Do be careful on the stairs, Miss Sakana. They’re very steep, and it would be such a shame if you fell carrying all that tea."

I bowed again, so low that my ears nearly brushed the floor, and fled down the stairs without looking back.

I didn’t stop until I was outside the great hall, leaning against the wall with my heart pounding.

I had gotten exactly what I came for. I knew the size of the room, where the door was, where every chair was, and where I’d be standing. I even had the guards expecting me.