Parchment and spilled ink carpeted the small room, books lined the walls as if they held them up and even the unused bed had become a desk, piled high with maps, reports, splayed volumes, and intercepted messages. At the center of the storm was the red haired inquisitor, working at a fevered pace. A dozen pins traversed the wall and floor where she crouched, a spider to the web of thread that looped around the tacks.
Oh the mess it had become. Guilt and guile, rolled in her stomach heavy and hot as molten iron. To whom was she loyal, to what? Glenn had made it quite clear to her that day, years ago now. Large matters of fidelity over small cakes and slight smiles. Glenn was different now. Or had been. And that was a different matter, but not entirely.
Nearly empty spools clattered to the floor in the surprise that followed the unexpected rap at her door. Before she answered the thread was yanked, the pins pulled free to leave a mine field of tangled clutter. The door is opened ever so slightly, room enough for one eye. A letter for her, delivered directly to her room, a place she so rarely left anymore. Within it’s book lined walls she was safe, the teetering tomes her biggest threat. The nightmares still came but the nervous rat eyes of Rhaena’s followers of Agnie’s men wouldn’t peer here. And even if they did, what would they find: a map riddled with the holes of pins pulled free, an unsent and cryptic but hardly incriminating note to her dear friend Mr. River. No, the worst they might find is evidence that she’d harbored the ‘lunatick,’ Catch.
The parchment is snatched with a curt but grateful nod and the door is shut immediately. Much like the state of her room and her sanity, her ability to interact with the world outside of herself had begun to deteriorate. Care is taken with each step as a finger slips under the fold and cracks the wax seal. A small circuit of pacing ensues as it is read once, twice, and a third time before she stops to find herself in the long, misshapen mirror. Red hair like fire, it matches so well now the girl in her head. Though in her mind, there are no bags and bruises under her eyes, there is more girth to her wasting frame, and less anger reflecting back. Who else must she lose. How many more ways would she inevitably fail.
Aside from the fact that most of her Rhaena-sanctioned clothing had been destroyed by some calamity or another, and more than a sheer act of rebellion, it was Giuseppe’s letter that prompted the former pie marker to pull the black shirt and trousers from the shelf. She had been meaning to return them, freshly washed and perfumed in lavender to avoid offending Zilliah and as a common courtesy. Within moments she is redressed, Giuseppe’s black garb, the dagger gifted by Glenn, Zilliah’s eye and the only book in her small library that mattered. Her hair is braided quick and tight, no mind given to the time of day as she departs to find the Marshall, the journal clutched tight under arm.
Careful as instructed she avoided too many prying eyes, rooms with table cloths and tea. If she was stopped in violation of the dress code she could simply explain a laundry-list of prior and entirely believable, coming from her, incidents that had occurred. Incidents that had, in truth, happened at some point, and which had deprived her of Rhaena approved, dirt free, suitable clothing. And surely, she would explain she was just on her away to change.