The Veil - Chapter 32 Part 2

Lekan had not come back, and Conya had yet to leave her room. Obi wasn’t going to let himself prowl the house, drawing attention to his anxiety. Though, he figured, smiling wryly at the estate accounts he should be studying, there were many reasons for anxiety in his life right now. His staff would have to have clairvoyance or mind reading skills to know he was hiding a princess. Several came into his office to thank him, and he accepted the appreciation warmly, thanking them for their service in turn. They all apologized for interrupting him, but he could only wave the words away. It wasn’t as if he was actually getting work done anyway.

The day was wasted as far as Lekan and his preparation went. Lekan was a lost cause. If Obi could let the boy go ruin himself, maybe he could breathe again. Maybe he could actually figure out Conya, and what he wanted to do with her.

Mr. Fughi came in, just staring at him, obviously still peeved at his master’s treatment of the princess. “Everyone’s gone. I don’t know when Lady Eshe is going to come out of her room or when Lord Eshe is going to come back from wherever he went. You should start moving now.”

If the butler kept up his terse attitude with him, Obi would have to put his foot down. As it was, he would just ignore him. Standing up, he headed toward the basement. “Find somewhere else to be useful, Mr. Fughi.”

Blinking, the butler frowned. “Excuse me?”

Obi shrugged. “You know how it goes. The less people who know a secret the least likely it is to get out.” He waved his hand as he continued. “You know it’s nothing against you.” Maybe he wouldn’t have to deal with Mr. Fughi’s disdain later after all. He made a point not to turn to see if Mr. Fughi followed his instructions, sending the point that he didn’t question whether his orders would be followed or not.

The basement was silent when he closed the door. Shadows jumped upon the walls with the dance of the flickering candle, and he wondered as he ghosted down the stairs if what was so comforting to an old man like him was frightening to a young girl who’d grown up with the unwavering assurance of electricity.

Not so scary for bold Iheyna, apparently. She was curled up in a blanket, sleeping soundly. He watched her, a little unsure of what to do with a slumbering adolescent he needed to move. Finally, he knelt beside her and shook a shoulder. “Princess, I’ve a room prepared for you.”

Blinking up at him, she took several minutes to wake up. She stretched, squeaking a little, going from half asleep to awake in a moment. “Okay.”

“I need you to be very quiet as we move through the house. There are a few other people around.” He folded the blanket when she stood and picked up the candle as she watched with the frankness of someone used to being worked for. “Follow very close behind me all the way to your room. If we run into someone, I want to have the chance of hiding you.” He started up the stairs, glancing back every third step to make sure she was still behind him as if she were a specter that would disappear.

Upon reaching the door, Obi found that he had to take several breaths to work up the nerve to open it. When he finally did, it was only a bit, allowing him to glance around before letting the princess out and shutting the door. He got a glimpse of her face before hurrying on again. It was tight and determined. She didn’t look afraid, just aware of the necessity to get where she was going. He liked that, he decided.

It had taken him awhile to decide what room he wished to house her in. He didn’t trust her not to make noise, so it couldn’t be too close to anyone else’s living quarters. It couldn’t be strange for him to be in the area, so it couldn’t be too close to the servants. It couldn’t be a room the maids cleaned frequently. At first, he’d thought there couldn’t be a window, but finding a room without a window that met all the other qualifications and wouldn’t be a glorified cell was easier said than done. Towards the back of the house would be better. That way if she was stupid enough to hang by the windows, the most damage done would be a shocked gardener. He put her high on the third floor because most gardeners don’t look up, and the maids didn’t like cleaning the third floor much because the family barely used it. Granted, Lekan’s room was up there, but he was on the other side of the house with a view of the street. Plus, Obi was fairly sure he could house a menagerie up here, and Lekan wouldn’t notice.

Ihenya stayed close to him on the staircase, bumping into his legs from time to time.

Halfway up the stairs to the third floor, he heard footsteps. Freezing, he gripped the rail when the princess ran into him. He heard her take a breath to object and whirled around, covering her mouth with his hand. Her wide, outraged eyes in the context of her delicate face would have been laughable.

Had a servant stayed behind? He released Ihenya, motioning for her to be silent. He bent down and breathed into her ear, “Fourth door on the left.”

“Obi?” Conya’s voice floated down the hall below them as he urged the princess up the stairs.

He straightened his clothes and took a deep breath before going down the stairs, forcing himself not to look behind him. He thought maybe he heard the click of a door closing when he turned to run into Conya with an easy smile.

She glanced up at the stairs. “What were you doing up there?” He couldn’t tell what she’d been doing in her room for so long. Her face was clean of any emotion spent.

“Oh, just seeing if Lekan was back.” He resisted the urge to tap his fingers against his leg but became worried that he looked suspiciously stiff, so his fingers wound up dancing along his leg anyway.

Frowning, Conya looked at the stairs again. “Is he? I didn’t hear him come in.”

“He’s not. I was mistaken.”

The conversation lagged, and they just looked at each other. Unspoken words filled the air between them. She was suspicious, and he was wondering if what Lekan said was true. She wanted to know all of the intrigue that was going on in his life, and he wanted to hear about everything that happened while he was out of the country. She wanted to know the real reason all of the servants were gone, and he wanted to know what she’d been doing in her room. She wanted to throw herself at him and kiss him. He wanted her to tell him what she planned to do after Lekan left. She wanted to find out why he’d missed lunch. He wanted to hold her, press his lips to hers.

They couldn’t breathe, all of the words shouting around them without voices.

She forced something new into the cacophony first. “You need to eat.” The simple statement curled around his body and rested at his feet, silencing everything else.

They still stared at each other.

“I sent the servants out. We don’t have a cook.”

The roar threatened to start again, but Conya shook off the question of why, choosing to grin at him instead. She took his hand on an impulse. “Surely we could find something down there. We’re two intelligent individuals.” She tugged on his hand and started down the stairs to the first floor.

“You’ve never worked a stove in your life.” Obi found his lips twitching up despite himself. He’d check on the princess later after he made sure Conya was in her room for the night. For now, he would let the giddy rush of sneaking into the kitchen overtake everything else.

Their pace had somehow morphed into a jog and was quickly accelerating to a dash. Conya glanced back at him, and the look in her eyes would have stopped him if she wasn’t pulling him forward. She was a fairy, and he was fully under her spell.

“You don’t have to heat everything up to eat it.” They were in the dark of the dining room now, the newborn moonlight floating through the windows, highlighting her blonde hair, making it glow. “Maybe Cook will have been baking recently.” She pushed the door to the servant’s stairs open and led him down, unfaltering in the dark, refusing to slow down when common sense would ask her to.

He ran into her when she stopped in the kitchen. It was dark. There were windows on the other side of the room, so they were bathed in shadow.

She turned to face him, breathing a little hard and fast. For a moment he was sure she was going to kiss him, and he felt like a youth again, unsure of whether to move in or let her do the work.

Putting her hands on his shoulders, she beamed at him. He could just see the glint of her teeth. “Give yourself this time, Obi. Put away all the juggling balls. Just for dinner.” She just stood there, staring into his face until he nodded, and whirled away. She started patting the walls, giggling a little. “We need to find the light switch.”

He ran his fingers along the walls, feeling empty and full at the same time. He knew he should say something soon or risk Conya worrying, but he had no idea what to say. He felt like he could float as he purposefully turned off every whirring part of his brain until his grin wasn’t bewildered but wholehearted. His stomach growled, causing Conya to laugh which made him laugh too.

Finally, the switch was found and flipped on, and they both blinked at each other in the sudden light. After a few moments of dopey grins, they scanned the counters.

“Cook keeps a remarkable kitchen,” Obi remarked as he studied the spotless room, his stomach whining.

Resting her hands on her hips, Conya moved forward and began to open cabinets. “Surely there’s food hidden somewhere. We didn’t eat dinner. I’ll have to have words with the woman if she throws uneaten food out.”

He joined in the search, going high as she went low. Opening and closing the shining wooden doors as they fell into a rhythm. He really was impressed with the chef. The stone floors were spotless. The countertops uncluttered and wiped clean. The heat of a day’s worth of cooking still lingering.

Conya’s squeak of excitement had Obi looking down. She backed up, pulling out a tray of pastries surely meant for tomorrow’s breakfast. She set it on the counter and grinned up mischievously at him.

His stomach demanded he eat at the soonest possible moment. Picking up a pastry, he bit into it and discovered they were filled with jam. “My favorite.” He collected the filling on a finger before it spilled out, sucking on it before taking another bite.

Smiling, Conya wiped at the corner of his mouth. “You missed some.” She grabbed her own pastry and took a generous bite.

Perhaps it was because he hadn’t eaten all day or because the meal was stolen. Or maybe because it reminded him of the guilty childhood days of eating dessert for dinner. Or because Conya’s bright smile was the perfect seasoning, but Obi couldn’t remember a meal so delicious.

After a third of the tray was gone, their fingers and mouths sticky, and their hunger more than satiated, they returned the tray, gleefully guessing what the cook would do when she discovered some of her food was missing. Turning the light off, they meandered through the house again.

“I know,” Conya said through bursts of laughter, “She’ll find the pastries, etcetera. Have a temper tantrum, etcetera, and then she’ll blame Mr. Fughi.” She beamed at Obi’s laugh. “And he’ll give her that terrifying glare of his, and they’ll have a fight to the death. Whoever wins preserves their sense of honor.”

Obi seriously considered this possibility. “I think I’d be very sad to lose Mr. Fughi or our cook.”

“True, true.” Tapping the wall as she went by, Conya thought some more. “Very well. He glares. She faints straight away out of fear. He feels so bad he promises anything that could possibly make it up, and through some strange and incomprehensible set of happenings, they fall desperately in love with one another, get married, and have seven babies.” They both grinned at each other, their faces turning at the same time. The moment of unison was so strange, Conya immediately looked away, blushing a little, and Obi scratched the back of his head, clearing his throat, but their grins remained.

The house was so quiet, they could’ve thought they were the only ones in existence.

As they approached her room, Obi’s brain began to whir again, as if it realized that the woman who demanded peace would soon be silenced. Conya seemed to feel the change, and by the time they reached her door, their grins were shadows.

She didn’t hesitate to open her door and walk into her room, but she faced him as she was closing it. “Keep juggling, jester.” The click of the door closing echoed in the hallway, and Obi stood there for some time.