In her shimmering dark blue dress and treacherously high platform heels, she strode across the ballroom. Her confidence increased with every successful step. While she knew she made it look easy, falling was certainly a risk. Because her dress was so tight, it limited her movement, which was especially dangerous because of her tall shoes. Though she wouldn’t fall because of how much practice she had, she still feared slipping up. Making a mistake on a job so important was a great fear of hers. The more she thought of it, the more her hands twitched. Hale could have screwed up the job entirely on his own. The thought of that enraged her, and her hands shook in anger.

This wasn’t the time to think about him. The king waved to her and motioned for her to visit his table. She smiled brightly through her consuming anger and walked over to the king and the queen.

Zaya bowed to both of them. She tried to maintain eye contact as she stood in front of them, but whenever an opportunity presented itself, her eyes searched for a chain around the king’s neck. She thought she almost saw a hint of one from a tiny reflection of light peeking from beneath the neckline of his robes.

“Duchess, how are you enjoying the food?” The queen asked her.

“Quite wonderful. It is one of the many highlights of the evening,” Zaya replied with yet another false smile. Her eyes remained on the queen for a moment. Her face looked as though she was born to be royalty. Her features were mature from age, but her eyes retained a youthful innocence. Her daughter had looked nearly just like her. Zaya wouldn’t have believed it if she wasn’t seeing the queen with her own eyes.

The queen covered her heart with her hand. “That is so kind of you to say. I selected the menu myself.”

Zaya continued to engage in small talk with the king and queen, while she continued to see if the king really wore a necklace with a key. The live music shifted from quiet with a slow tempo to bright and upbeat. Hearing the change in the music, the king immediately looked to his wife, and offered his arm to her.

“Come dance with me!” He announced to her.

She grabbed both his hands. “You know I want to, but I am too tired to dance anymore. This is my first chance to rest and enjoy the evening. Why don’t you dance with Duchess Kaai?”

Zaya’s eyes widened. “Oh, I couldn’t.”

“I insist,” the queen assured her.

The king offered his arm to Zaya. Her arm twitched at the touch of the king’s hand purely because of nervousness. She didn’t know that it was socially acceptable to dance with another woman’s husband on K’aldi. But as they took to the dance floor, no one seemed to be concerned that someone as insignificant as she, was dancing with the king. Zaya followed his lead mindlessly, directing her attention completely to figuring out how to grasp the gold chain around his neck. The lighting was brighter on the dance floor, and she could clearly see that he did, in fact, wear a necklace. His daughter had no reason to lie. Zaya was about to risk her very life on the assumption that it was the key he wore around his neck. Hesitating wasn’t an option for her with a task such as this. She needed to wait for the perfect moment. And with a careful, imperceptible touch, unclasp the chain from around his neck and take it for herself… with no one noticing.

All she could do was hope it was the dungeon key.

Hale had it so easy. Did he really deserve half the total payment? Considering how he failed to end the princess’s life, she didn’t believe so any longer. But she still planned on giving him half if he found the dungeon like he promised he would. Hale needed the money much more than she did. The fact that he hadn’t yet been swallowed up by his debt was an amazing feat… and everything always came back to him. Her own mind betrayed her will. She couldn’t escape him.

“You are a splendid dancer,” the king mentioned. His compliment meant so much to her, not because he complimented her but because he brought her out of her daydream of Hale.

“My mother taught me.” That wasn’t a lie actually.

“You’ve caught on to our dances extremely quickly. Can your husband keep up with you?” He added with a laugh.

As soon as he said the word husband, there was only one person in her mind again. “Barely, but he manages.”

From the slow fall of the music after the highest crescendo, Zaya knew the dance would be over soon. She had to swipe his necklace now, regardless of her hesitation. The dance was nearly over. And the king probably didn’t have much time left. How fast the poison would act wasn’t an exact science. It was a compound made from her very own venom. If the king collapsed in her arms, she would look too suspicious.

Zaya placed a single arm around his neck. She made it look as though it was an intentional part of her dancing. The king thought nothing of it. With the fingertip of her pointer finger, she found the clasp of his necklace. The clasp would be simple to unhook in a moment. Removing the chain from around his neck was the difficult part. Although for her, it certainly wasn’t impossible. She had an idea of how to distract him, and it was embarrassing, especially because he just complimented her dancing.

Zaya stepped on the king’s foot, and they almost fell on top of each other. She had taken advantage of that moment to quickly pull the necklace from his neck. He managed to regain his posture quickly. To her surprise, he began to laugh.

“I guess we both need some practice still.”

“It was completely my fault.” She held his necklace tightly in her fist. He hadn’t noticed it was gone yet. Was she in the clear? “I’m going to take this as a sign that I need a break. I don’t want to embarrass myself further.”

The king bowed. “I understand. Thank you for entertaining me. Hopefully, I will get to speak with both you and your husband before the party’s over.”

“Yes, of course.” She had no intention of fulfilling that promise. When he died, she needed to be far away from him.

Zaya walked across the ballroom, back to her designated seat at the table. Most of the guests had finished their meal and were up and talking to others. She didn’t mind sitting alone. Finally, she had a chance to breathe. Zaya opened her hand with the necklace and looked at the pendant it held. It was a white crystal, conical in shape. She tilted it upwards and found it hollow inside. It could definitely be a key. In all her days, she had yet to see a key so intricately designed. As a pendant, the key was a beautiful sight to behold.

She looked around to see if anyone was paying her attention. No one was. So, she stuffed the key in her dress and secured it under her bust. It wasn’t the perfect hiding spot, but at least she wouldn’t lose it accidentally. And even if someone was deliberately looking at her in an inappropriate manner, they wouldn’t find it.

Zaya had been waiting for a few minutes at the table when one of her many bracelets vibrated: Hale’s signal.

* * * *

Hale couldn’t stop his heart from racing. Involuntarily, his body shivered. His hands were shaking, and he could barely grip the liquor bottle in his hands. Fearful that he might drop it and shatter it, he decided to place the bottle to his side once he was pretty sure Zaya wouldn’t come back, though his eyes watched the door. He crossed his arms around his torso tightly in hopes that his hands would become still. His muscles still twitched despite the pressure from his arms. He forced his eyes to stay open as long as his body would allow. A bright flash of Pandora’s face— lifeless— followed every single blink. Someone else had died, but Hale only saw Pandora. Talia died because she was associated with him. The conclusions his mind raced to, regarding Pandora’s life, now were his greatest fear. He ran away from the one whom he wanted most of all. But his actions had only been based on knowing what the future held for him and Pandora, and she had been too optimistic. If Pandora died because of him…

He needed to get up and stop feeling…. But he was frozen in fear. He had watched Zaya kill an innocent girl, who reminded him of Pandora, easily. He held no judgement against Zaya, for he was exactly like her. If Zaya could murder someone like Talia, he had it within him to do the same. He had strangled Talia close to death more than once and sliced through her flesh. He didn’t enjoy it whatsoever, but he could do it. And if he hadn’t seen Pandora in her, he would have killed her. Talia’s life had almost been taken by his hands. How many people like her, and like Pandora, had he killed?

Now was the worst time for him to be thinking about guilt. Zaya was depending on him. Yet, like always, he was letting her down. He could change that for once. He could… but that would require him to give in to the liquor sitting beside him. He laughed because Zaya actually wanted him to drink on the job. He decided to drink only for the purposes of finishing the job like he promised he would. Dealing with this pain could wait. It would always be waiting for him.

Sitting on the floor and leaning against the bed, Hale gulped down half the bottle. He stopped there because he didn’t want to feel sick. He had forgotten to check the alcohol content. Evidently, it was very high. As he looked around the room, the furniture, the walls, and the floor were hazy and tinted with gold from the warm lighting. His mind wasn’t tortured constantly by the thought of Talia, though she lay dead on the bed his back rested against. The longer he sat there, the less he thought of her and how she died. And the less he thought about Pandora. The moment his lips had met the bottle, he understood how short his relief would be and how the confusion, that awaited him after the positive effects of alcohol passed, would multiply his suffering. But it was his own fault. Zaya had handed him one of the two ways he knew how to cope.

He was glad he had the strength to stop drinking halfway. Pushing himself off the floor, he stood and left the princess’s room. Zaya was finding the key, he needed to find the dungeon that the princess had spoken of. Hale pulled up his sleeve and he wore a thick silver cuff. By his command, a holograph of the castle blueprints came from the silver cuff. These blueprints had been provided by their client and had proved mostly accurate, although the current king, soon to be former, added on a great deal to the castle. Hale directed his device to perform a cursory scan of the first floor of the addition. The king’s room had to be on the first floor if a dungeon could be discovered beneath it.

A room near the center of the first floor was mapped out to be the largest of all rooms on the first floor. Wrong or right, Hale believed that room was the king’s. He picked the lock and quietly sneaked inside. He closed the door behind him, and in seconds, he scanned over his surroundings. In the center of the room was the king’s massive bed with a wooden headboard and tall posts holding up a velvet canopy.

Though considerably intoxicated, Hale didn’t doubt his strength. He gripped the foot of the bed and pulled the bed away from the wall. There was only one thing under the bed: a metal hatch.

* * * *

Zaya raced to Hale’s location as soon as he sent his signal. She didn’t want to think much about the situation they were in. All that mattered was that the job was moving forward because Hale wasn’t letting her down for a second time tonight. She swung the doors of the king’s room. In a moment, she took in her surroundings. Hale had moved the bed away. She stepped over to the other side of the room and saw the hatch that he had uncovered.

She looked up at Hale who was laying on the bed staring at the canopy. His eyes were distant, telling her that his mind was elsewhere. A part of her wanted to scold him and pull him to his feet herself, but she knew better. Trying to kill the princess had been traumatic for him. She didn’t understand, and there wasn’t time for her to.

“Hale,” she called.

Pretty quickly, he sat up. “Sorry, I didn’t notice you were here.”

Zaya stared at him purposefully blankly. She was holding back her rage, not to protect him but to keep things as professional as possible. He could pay later when they were done with work. She really should have hired someone else. But nothing could have prepared her for the reality of how far he had fallen from his former self.

“Whatever,” she said. “I see you found the entrance to the dungeon.”

“I hope it is.” Hale shifted off the bed and walked towards her. He pointed to the bottom left corner of the hatch. “I think that’s the keyhole.”

Zaya kneeled on the ground and reached for the key hidden under her chest. Once she had pulled the key out, she compared the size of the key to the slot. They appeared to match. Zaya inserted the key in the hatch, and a clicking sound followed. Seconds later, the hatch slowly fell to reveal an opening in the floor.

“You’re going first,” Zaya said, smirking. After he had failed her completely, making up for that deficiency would be a long road.