Cara was exhausted, her limbs were trembling as she pulled herself up the last parts of the wall. The cold stone seemed to suck the warmth from her fingers making them numb, the cold air of the night did nothing to help against the chill running down her spine.

This was the third time tonight she climbed the wall, Cara needed to know every bit of it by hard if she was to have a secure line out of the city.

After she had discovered there was an army over a thousand soldiers strong just two days away she had become more paranoid. Until then the idea of getting away had always been a comforting source to her. Now that Blackriver might not be around for much longer her mind was racing, she needed some way to get out of the city, be it a pointless effort on her part since she had nowhere to go.

With her last strength she pulled herself over the edge and on top of the outer wall. Luckily for her the way down inside the castle walls was way easier as the guard here was never at his post.

The moon was nearly at the edge of the horizon which meant she had to get back if she was to get enough sleep before the festivities tomorrow evening. Bartholomew had managed to get the clothes done soon enough even without her help, the minor changes to the clothing were mostly aesthetic and had less to do with actual tailoring work, still, it was enough to make them seem strangely unusual for them to have the wanted effect on the people attending to ball.

Any real tailor would need about ten seconds to discover the changes were shallow and easily done. Luckily no tailor's other than herself and Bartholomew were invited to the event and the dresses would stay for the remainder of their existence locked up in some part of the large building, after all who would want to wear the same dress twice if you had a tailor that could make you a new one for each occasion?

If they had a bit of luck the next Ball would need a specific dress code Bartholomew could mirror with some slight changes. Cara was surprised to see the spy had an actual knack for tailoring, sketching designs like someone that had done it for ages. However he would need more practice to fool anyone, which was where the dress codes came in, the parties that required them allowed only slight changes to see who came up with the most creative ways of mastering it.

Usually it was done by the wearer herself but since Bartholomew had been hired more and more of the aristocrats did the same. With the only problem the amount of tailors in the city was limited and most of them prefered to stay independant giving them the opportunity to sell to all the families rather than being paid a fixed amount for a year like Bartholomew was.

Cara snuck through the streets, using her magic to make her figure blur slightly, enough to go unnoticed if one was not looking out for her but not enough to raise any alarm bells if a mage was around.

She had become paranoid about it after the incident, the scaled woman did nothing to minder her fears, her apparels had been more frequent as of late. Every time she appeared Cara could feel herself being pulled into a direction, her magic became stronger and she wondered what the true motive of the thing was.

Whatever it wanted it seemed to concentrate on helping her, for whatever reason it wanted her to be alive. Bartholomew had not said anything about the topic, just that she should go to the university with Michael and ask the grand master of the shadow cult there about it.

Which meant she would stay in the dark until the both of them passed the exams and the way it was going Michael would manage to get the seventy points required to pass at the beginning of spring.

The study groups had steadily increased his points and he was now at the fifty he needed to be considered, if he got those up to seventy his acceptance was secured.

On the way back she saw not a single soul out in the streets, Cara was slightly shaking in the cold air, climbing was still something that did not come naturally to her.

At least Angela had been quiet ever since the evening on the balcony with Michael, the girl was about as naive as the boy and Cara was careful not to have her remember anything out of the ordinary.

One of the problems now was that Angela was ashamed of her own body, Cara had been training every day for months now and there was no hiding it. The long sleeves only did so much and Angela avoided anything that let one see her form.

As shallow as the girl was she had a point, as soon as the temperature was on the rise she would have to think of something, girls were expected to be slim but she would need to avoid wearing anything exposing her stomach and her arms… alternatively she could start eating more and hope for a bit of fat to cover the strongest features but if there was something worse than muscles it was fat. She hated the shallow nature of the upper classes, then again things weren't that much better in the village.

All Cara could hope for was that Michael wouldn’t care too much about it, which nearly made her chuckle.

Then again, Michael had proven to be different from what she had expected, he was not the macho she had thought him to be, instead he was kind of adorable, in the same way a puppy was.

Her thoughts circled to Alaric, what he was doing at the moment? For some reason a picture of Alaric with a girl popped into her head, laughing over a meal, it stung for some reason.

She continued another couple of minutes before she thought about Erik, what was he up to? Chasing some soldiers through the winter? Hunting animals with his soldier friends?

Maybe she could get some information about them, she had heard about a small rebel group being ambushed close to the pass facing Blackriver, according to the magistrate about fifty rebels had been slaughtered there but the information she had gotten by listening in on Council meetings had the number closer to twenty and the losses of the mercenaries and Goldhill soldiers had been nearly twice the number.

Now however those numbers seemed to lose meaning when faced with the thousand soldiers waiting for the pass to melt.

She reached the back wall of Michael’s family estate, after climbing the ten meter high wall this was done within seconds. The ground behind the wall had been flattened and she easily slipped past the two guards patrolling the grounds.

Both soldiers had lanterns in front of them leaving them night blind and their field of vision restricted to only a couple of meters.

Once she was back in her room the tiredness washed over her, the moon had set and it would be less than five hours before the first light would reach her room.

The next morning came with a severe ache in Angela’s limbs, she sighed, again. For some reason her arms and legs hurt every now and then. She got up and knew it would be a hard morning, moving was painful, every muscle in her body ached.

Daphne knocked on the door and entered with two more servants, they brought a wooden barrel she could take a quick bath in. When she saw Angela’s tired face she did her best to suppress a smile.

“Lady Angela! You really are not a morning person.” she shook her head, Angela understood her scepticism, after all Daphne had been up for at least an hour and yet the girl barely managed to get out of bed.

“Tell me something new Daphne… or just bring me some sourwood and we ignore my flaws.” Daphne smiled at her and nodded, walking back out putting a pot with hot water on the table opposite of the wooden barrel. The servants were now pouring cold water into the barrel, until it was about half full. Then they mixed hot water into it until the barrel steamed slightly and left without as much of a word.

The servants of aristocrats tended to do that, for whatever reason they barely spoke and if you pressed them for a word or two they did not seem happy about it.

Angela stripped and climbed into the barrel, the water was a shock to her senses and after a couple of minutes she could have just dozed off in it.

Sadly she had things to do today, so she grabbed one of the brushes the servants left and began scrubbing.

She stopped two times when she found a blue patch of skin on her side, she must be the most active sleeper in all the kingdoms. Her hands were messes as well, the nails chipped short and a thick gross patch of skin covered her knuckles.

She sighed, she felt ugly and mismatched, Saulus had always assured her of her beauty but that was what fathers were supposed to do… she needed the opinion of someone with actual knowledge but something told her she should not talk with Daphne about her problem… something in the back of her mind would not trust the caring woman, if only she knew why.

Anyway she had to be pretty tonight! The dance was and she had yet to ask Michael for the joy of his company. The dress her father had made for her to wear was a comfortable adaption of the long sleeved short skirt variation that was very popular at the moment, He had added a large ribbon at the back with long lines of fabric that traced behind her when she walked.

Dancing with it would be marvelous, she got out of the barrel and opened her wardrobe, the dress was at the front, just waiting for her to pick it up and wear it, but that had to wait until later.

A noise behind her woke Cara, someone was outside her window, at first she wanted to cover herself but that would have alerted the intruder to the fact that she knew she was being watched.

She pulled a plain blue dress out of the wardrobe, and searched for her undergarments, during her search she turned to the window in question and noticed something unnerving, whoever was outside had was hiding with magic, a faint feeling of magic was the only thing she noticed.

So she was being watched by more than just Daphne, then she had an idea and called for Daphne to help her choose what to wear. The woman might be a spy but so far Cara did not know what skills she had.

She hid her naked form slightly, just so that most of her muscles were not plainly visible but it remained clear that she was naked behind the curtain.

After a few seconds her helper entered the room, closing the door behind her when she noticed that Angela was undressed.

“Daphne have you seen my undergarments? I could have sworn I put them in the top drawer here.” She pointed to the drawer in front of her, Daphne said nothing but walked over to the window where the spy was hiding and closed the curtains.

“What are you doing? We are in the second floor, there is nobody watching.” Daphne smiled at her.

“Just and old habit, you undergarments are in the drawer right above this one, I would recommend getting dressed quickly and joining us for breakfast.” She nodded at her and walked out of the room.

As expected, the woman had an affinity to magic, Cara waited for a bit until she heard what she was waiting for.

Then she heard it a slight creak when the figure outside of the window shifted weight, normally she wouldn’t have noticed the sound but since she knew what she had to listen for there was no mistaking it.

Then a soft thump sounded from below, the spy was on the run, so not one of Torsten’s people. The family was being spied on, by someone influential enough to hire a mage.

From what she could tell there were not that many around and hiring one would not only cost a lot but also require certain connections to the university.

Cara smiled, she might have just started a war inside of Goldhill. She retreated and let Angela take over.

Angely looked at the plain blue dress on the bed, had she been thinking about wearing it? It had no flair and was certainly not something for a breakfast, no she needed something else.

A few minutes later Angela was ready for breakfast and the question she would ask Michael afterwards.