After confirming that no one had seen him, Nick slid in the water and let the quick stream carry him towards the castle. When he got closer, he dived in the shallow water after taking a deep breath and, while holding on to stones on the riverbed, moved towards the castle’s isle sideways while his legs drifted around in the stream.

Few minutes later Nick was crouching on the rocks below the castle walls. Most likely this was the most dangerous part of the break-in, because he had to change in to dry clothing and cover himself with the ‘stealth powder’ while any careful observer could notice slight movement between the rocks. Of course, the risk was greatly reduced during the dark night, but he still felt uneasy.

Luckily everything went well and Nick prepared to scale the wall somewhere below the window of the room where the girls where in. He glanced at the opposite side of the river and immediately noticed the house Steven described.

‘He had a great idea! Alright, now I just have to wait for the second light to show up.’ Nick was delighted by Steven’s work. Despite being down and often desperate, his friend really did his best to provide help.

Nick calculated the approximate time left, ‘The first night shift was at ten when I infiltrated the castle and the second started when I left, so – at midnight. I was away for more than two hours and the next shift should be in less than an hour. Even though it’s the last safe opportunity to break in, I can not rush things and have to wait for the Steven’s signal.’

It would be simply stupid to fail now on the castle walls because of impatience when he was almost there. Squatting down like he was another rock, Nick waited for more than half an hour until the second light lit up at the Steven’s location.

Without wasting time, Nick immediately started climbing the steep wall and, just before reaching the top, paused for a moment and listened if there was anything suspicious on the top. Then slowly moved up and took a look around. Steven’s research turned out to be priceless as there currently were no guards around and Nick could proceed towards the open window of the room with the girls.

A minute later he already saw their panicked faces. For Nick the time flew by since he was busy arranging things and running around, but for the girls time was crawling so slow it felt like it had almost stopped. Kate was sitting on Isabel’s bed as instructed and the other two were awake as well. Nick realized that it was too much for him to ask them to sleep in this situation. He didn’t try to act compassionately though, later will be plenty of time for that.

“Kate! The dress!” He whispered after coming over to her.

Kate pointed at the neatly folded dress beside her. Nick didn’t linger around and quickly took off his clothes and wore the dress and the shoes that were put near the bed. Dress was more or less fine, but the shoes were a little too small, still, it was not too bad. Then he went over to Isabel and took her in his arms, and then under the astonished eyes of the girls Isabel’s body disappeared.

“Shh!” Nick motioned for them to stay silent and suddenly few stacks of dark hair appeared in his hand. This was the reason Clayton had to guide him around the expensive barber shops – he wanted to find the appropriate wig.

“Kate, which one of these look more like Isabel’s?” Nick whispered.

When she saw Nick wearing Isabel’s dress, Kate already guessed his crazy idea. And now that she realized her guess was correct, it took her few moments to get out of stupor. She took the wigs from Nick’s hands, checked them, then passed one back.

“This one.”

“Alright, you’ll fix me up in a second.” Nick whispered, “Conny, come here!”

The stunned girl noticed him beckoning and calling her and slowly stood up. Nick understood that this whole experience made them ‘a bit’ shocked and that he couldn’t ask the girls to be as quick as himself.

He went over and whispered, “You have to stay calm and silent, alright? Promise me and I’ll show you something.”

Conny instinctively nodded and Nick pulled her over to the window.

“You see that light over there in the window? Steven is giving us signals while …” Nick started to explain, when he had to cover Conny’s mouth to not let her scream out loud.

She struggled a bit, but then calmed down while tears were rolling down her cheeks.

Nick let her go and said, “I just wanted you to know that all of us are working hard and you two sisters have to help as well. Understand?”

This time it looked like Conny really understood.

“Alright, call your sister over – we’ll have a briefing.” Nick whispered and motioned Kate to join him.

They all gathered around YunYun who was still tied up in her bed and Nick started to explain his crazy plan.

“It is vital that you listen to what I say and follow instructions otherwise we all will just die. YunYun, we don’t know each other, but I need you to trust me as well. We will proceed like this: Kate, first you will fix me to look like Isabel to your best ability and later tell me everything you know about her and how she behaved so I can imitate her as closely as possible. Next, all of you will have to keep this in your moth and swallow it as soon as they will try to feed you something in the morning, but only if I cough twice. If not, continue keeping that in your mouths.”

Nick gave each girl small balls of paste which smelled of a strange herb mixture, “This is an antidote to the poison of the spotted jungle spider. If the emperor has the same technique as his brother, he’ll probably will use the same poison as well. I didn’t have time to refine it in a decent pill, but with this neutral paste it shouldn’t melt in moth for few hours. YunYun, I’ll put it in your moth right after we finish here, alright?”

The girl stared at him for few seconds, then nodded and Nick continued, “Only after I cough twice you swallow it and then you have to act like this – look at me now.” He showed the lifeless expression of the paralyzed girls from those years ago and informed the girls about other details of his plan. The more they listened to him, the more shocked they became, but continued to nod and followed his instructions.

After the briefing Nick carefully took out the cloth that was in YunYun’s mouth and asked, “Do you want to drink something? This probably isn’t easy for you.”

YunYun looked at him for a moment and then nodded. Nick hugged her putting his hand around her shoulders, pulled her up in a seating position, then fed a bit of water and after reluctantly packed her up again while apologizing. It was an unpleasant feeling, but he had to act like that.

Then it was time for Kate to shine and make a girl out of Nick. He was young enough and his boyish skin was only a bit dark, but still soft. Therefore all she had to do was to make his chest a bit bigger and dress look more tidy.

Nick thought for a moment, then took out something from his wristband and passed to Kate, “Glue the wig to my skull. If we are being carried, it can’t fall off or we’re screwed.”

This way they were busy until the dawn when people in the castle started to wake up. Nick was surprised by that, because normally rich aristocrats in cities woke up later and only fishermen, hunters and farmers were such early birds. He managed to instruct girls one more time before the old servants entered. These two were probably the same women Nick stumbled upon last night, at least they sounded like them.

“Good morning your highnesses, hahaha!” One one them laughed, “Are you ready for the grand royal feast?”

“Oh, great – this one is still alive. We won’t need to replace her.” The other noticed lifeless look in Nick’s eyes behind the messy hair on his face.

“I told you already yesterday! Where would we find another high-born? That one is the daughter of some important prick from Mainland and there is no way for us to find a quick replacement. Emperor would have been disappointed with just four.” The first one nagged.

“Should we let them walk by themselves?” The second stood in the middle of the room with hands on her hips.

“It’s too much of a drag to carry them upstairs, I’ll just call a couple of guards to keep the little one in check.” The first answered on her way out and after a while came back with two castle guards.

“You two, carry that little beast and be careful, she bites, hahaha!” She commanded and laughed, “The rest of you, come with us, we got a surprise for you!”

The girls unwillingly got up and Kate came over to ‘Isabel’ to help her and the procession slowly moved out.

Last night Nick guessed correctly, the nearby big door led inside the tower.

‘Don’t tell me we have to climb all the way up? It’s like fifteen storey height!’ He thought while slowly moving along.

Fortunately it wasn’t that bad. Behind the door was a dimly lit wide room with a staircase on the other side. This looked like a storage room of a sorts with shelves and chests on the sides. There were a couple of chairs and a table as well, probably for the guards or servants. It had a high ceiling and therefore they had to climb longer to the next floor that had a room of a similar style. The only difference was that it was filled with bookshelves and looked like a library. They had to cross it and behind closed doors was the next stairway.

At first Nick was surprised, but soon understood that this was intentional plan by the owner to make it feel more reclusive upstairs after going through few small labyrinths on his way up. The old servants were already panting and Nick pretended to have a harder time climbing as well. After all each floor they climbed was almost as two regular ones.

The next floor was obviously a training room with several simple, but elegant weapon racks and chests at the sides, but unlike the two previous, this one had three small windows – one on each wall while the fourth wall was supporting the stairs along with several sturdy beams.

They proceeded one more storey higher and, as Nick expected, finally entered the emperor’s bedroom.

‘The brothers even have similar taste.’ Nick was inwardly shocked.

Despite the room being spacious, it only had a big bed, a wardrobe nearby and a writing desk. At the writing desk was a shelf, filled with scrolls and books just like in the grand elder’s bedroom. More notable was the bed and wardrobe that were carved with demons on them and the bed had a big carved demon on each of it’s corners holding a lighting rune formation in its hands.

‘It’s almost like the same person!’ Nick’s shock grew and he visualized emperor in black robe and understood that the two old freaks might as well have been twins. It was like when parents bought similar beds for their boys, only these two particular boys were almost three hundred year old mass murderers on different continents.

The only thing that set this room apart from the grand elder’s bedroom was a big bath tub filled with water near one of the three windows. Apparently emperor loved to relax in there while looking at the beautiful view over Olava city.