“Where is he?” Eden signalled again.

Rose gave her an exasperated shrug and signalled, “I told you I don’t know.”

Though she was well hidden in the foliage of the tree above the bench that Rosie was sitting on, Eden climbed down to a lower branch in order to talk to her partner. She did this not without irritation. It had been nearly three hours since the guards had allowed Rose entrance to the palace gardens, but the king was nowhere to be found.

“Are you sure he asked to see you?” Eden pressed. “Or did he just imply—”

“Stop it, Eden,” Rose sighed. “I told you exactly what he said and that he wanted to meet here at dusk. The guards let me in. That should be evidence enough for you.”

“You must have missed something.” She glanced through the jigsaw cracks of the leaves. “The sun is practically gone.”

“I didn’t miss anything. Do you think I can’t keep a two minute conversation straight? I know what he said. He probably stood me up.”

“No, he wouldn’t,” Eden growled, more out of frustration than disbelief. But the circumstances were pointing to the contrary. The sun was setting and they had been waiting for him for much longer than was normal or polite.

Eden looked down at Rose. The tops of her shoulders were reddening with the beginnings of a sunburn. Her hair had lost most of the carefully constructed curls and a few strands were slick against her face. She looked tired. It was a wonder her makeup hadn’t slid off yet.

And when she spoke her voice was drained. “What should we do?”

Glaring at the palace, Eden gritted her teeth and said, “We’ll wait ten more minutes.”

She tried to push it to twenty, but during that time they were interrupted by a guard clad in armor. He walked swiftly across the gardens, cleared his throat and spoke sympathetically to Rose. Eden listened from above, miffed.

“I’m sorry, miss, but I have to escort you from the grounds now. Visitors aren’t permitted to wander the palace at night. If you would please follow me.”

“I understand,” Rose said calmly, “But I was invited here by the king. Do you know if this is a common occurrence – I mean for him to keep his guests waiting?”

“Certainly not. His highness is usually very tactful.”

“Do you know where he is? Could you fetch him?”

“I’m afraid I cannot. His Majesty keeps to himself, especially at night and I have neither the knowledge of his whereabouts nor the authority to abide by such a request.”

‘No knowledge?’ Eden wondered. ‘That’s strange.’

Did that mean they didn’t particularly know where Atlas was at any given time? How did they protect him? The more she thought about it, the more she realized she hadn’t seen any guards inside the palace during the celebration yesterday. At the time it seemed logical – Atlas was supposed to be at the party, so why wouldn’t they be too?

But apparently it was normal for his guards to be elsewhere. To be oblivious. She got a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.

The guard stepped politely aside and swept a hand towards the gated exit. “Please Miss, it’s not safe in the gardens at this time of night. You must return to your home.”

Rose went graciously, but folded a hand behind her back to gesture to Eden. “See you soon.”

Eden remained where she was, perfectly blending in with the shadows. When their voices faded out of earshot and the gates clanged shut behind them, she hopped down to the ground.

‘Not safe in the gardens?’ She looked around suspiciously. It seemed quiet enough.

What a waste this day had been. Perhaps she had given Atlas more credit than he deserved. He seemed outwardly like he was a considerate person, but standing a woman up after personally inviting her on a date was more than rude – it was cruel.

Not that their scheming was any better, of course. Perhaps that was the real irritation surfacing within her – the fact that he had outmaneuvered her completely by accident.

Or maybe it wasn’t an accident. Maybe he really had caught on to their plan somehow. She found that highly unlikely but what other reason could he have for neglecting a woman such as Rose? Rose, of all women, was not easily ignored.

Eden looked up at the towering palace. Just over the wall that sectioned off the garden from the main courtyard where the party had been held, she could see the aerial walkway and then the window she and Atlas had used the night before. She couldn’t be sure from this distance and this darkness, but it looked like it was closed.

Unthinkingly, her feet were carrying her there; over the garden wall with strong ivy and across the courtyard. It was dark now. No twinkling lights were draped from the aerial walkway, and no guards to make the walk hard or interesting. She climbed the quiet, spiraling stairs that led up to the decorative path, clambered up the white fencing again and onto the roof.

Seconds later, she was staring at the window from across the gap with arms crossed. It was kind of funny. If she had eaten the mangradora, she would have no recollection of this window or the layout of the palace. Perhaps that was the real reason Atlas forced his unwitting female victims to eat the treats – so that they wouldn’t be able to remember how to find him.

Strangely enough, she did not blame him if that was his cause.

Because here she was – the one that got away – standing outside his window debating on whether or not to intrude. Granted, her reasons were probably quite different. She merely wanted to glean information.

Mind made up, Eden jumped nimbly to the window, fingers digging into the half-inch of frame running along the top. Her feet, luckily, were small and the boots she wore were made of a soft enough material that she could grip the bottom ledge with her toes.

Pushing against the glass with her knee, she was not surprised when it didn’t open. Withdrawing a knife, she slipped the blade through the gap where the panes of glass met in the middle and shimmied it upward. About halfway up, she felt the blade clink quietly into something on the other side.

She smiled faintly. A latch.

With a quick flip upward, she felt the hooked piece of metal unlatch from its knob and swing loose. This time the panels of glass swung silently open. Eden hopped into the hall, and re-latched the window behind her.

She did nothing at first; merely stood quietly in the hall with fingers pressed together as if in meditation. It didn’t take long in this state of concentration to hear faint noises. Voices. Deep. Distinctly male. Very, very quiet. She headed towards them by slinking along the walls.

Tracking the voices to the far side of the main floor, she slipped into a room that looked like nothing more than a guest suite. Untouched bed. Empty closet. Dusty cabinets and dressers and a table that was no different, except it looked as if the dust had been disturbed along the edge by a sweep of a hand. Careless finger marks.

As she gazed at them, voices dribbled down to her from above. It wasn’t clear what they were saying, so she moved over to the balcony doors to listen. Unlike every other room she had passed, the double-doors in this room were thrown wide open. As if someone had just been passing through and by the looks of it – without permission.

And by the sounds of it, the room above was their destination.

“Are you sure he’s out?”

“’Bout as out as I’ve ever seen him. Fucking finally. Been waiting for this for goddamn years. Goddamn bastard wouldn’t quit.”

“Ain’t that the truth – and look at that – no lady friend this time. Guess he didn’t have even that left in him.”

There was a chorus of hissing chuckles, like they were biting their tongues as they laughed. Eden narrowed her eyes at the underside of the balcony that resided over hers.

‘No lady friend, huh?’ Eden thought. Now things were making sense. Rose would have been the ‘lady friend’ if Atlas hadn’t of stood her up… but by the sounds of it Atlas wasn’t even standing.

“Les’ get this over with. I wanna leave this place.”

“How should I—”

“Jus’ slice ‘is throat and be done with it—”

Eden jumped up from the balcony railing and jammed her knife in between one of the large bricks of the palace wall, effectively creating a makeshift step and a suspicious noise all in one breath. The voices above paused momentarily.

“Did you hear that?”

“Yeah what was—”

“Shh! Go look - quickly.”

Eden climbed swiftly, using the handle of her wedged knife to help her scale the wall and digging her fingertips of her free hand into the mortar between bricks to help as well. When the buried knife was at her hip and she was basically balancing on the blade with one hand and trying not to look down, she shimmied her foot onto the handle and stood up.

Much better.

Eden jumped, catching the edge of the floor of the upper balcony in her hands and easily pulling herself up onto the railing near the wall.

Just in time too. The tip of a sword poked into the drifting, pale curtains and moved slowly onto the balcony. Slow enough, frightened enough, that Eden had time to unconcernedly scratch an itch at the back of her neck.

When the hand that was gripping the sword finally came into view through the curtain, she kicked out – hard. The sword went flying from his grip. A startled cry of pain escaped his lips.

Still standing on the railing, she grabbed the edge of one of the doors that was flung open and swung it as hard as she could. It crashed into the disarmed man’s face, the force shattering the glass panes loudly. He fell backward onto the floor, limp, shards tinkling down around him.

There was silence from inside. While still out of view of the others, Eden stepped down onto the balcony lightly and gathered a few particularly sharp pieces of glass into her hands.

“Cut his throat now! He’s got help!”

Hearing this, Eden burst into the room. Three more men. All in black. Atlas was in the far corner, slumped into a chair. Either asleep or unconscious.

“Wake up!” she yelled, winding her arm back and whipping the glass she held at the one man who dared approach him. One piece missed entirely, but the other piece collided with the side of his head, jamming disgustingly into his ear for a moment before falling loose.

He cursed in surprise, staggering into the wall. The Loon jumped up onto the bed, jumped across it as the other two lunged clumsily for her, and kicked him, her foot slamming into his injured ear and smashing his head against the wall. He went down with a defeated groan.

Now protectively in front of Atlas, she withdrew a knife. The two remaining assailants backed away a little, steadying themselves. They were big. Muscled. In an open area she may have had and advantage, but this room was small and Atlas was a target.

“What, he’s got assassins protecting him now? You gotta be shitting me,” one said roughly.

“This is nothing,” the other sneered. “Take her down. Do it quick.”

The one closest to her came forward, drawing a blade. Eden darted for him with a meager slash and backed off. He laughed at her.

“That all you got, sweetness?”

She did it again, but he followed this time like she wanted, stabbing down at her. Eden rolled onto the bed, tucking in her legs as the knife nearly sliced her shin. Curled on the bed, she shot her legs out as hard as she could, aiming her heels for the man’s ribs.

The blow connected, but the material he wore around his torso was thicker than she imagined, more protective. He stumbled into the wall, but used the momentum to fling himself back at her. She managed to get her knees up in time to create a rudimentary wall between him and her body, but it did not stop his knife hand from surging down at her, barely missing her face as she turned her head aside at the last minute.

She kicked out desperately, trying to bash his thighs or knees or groin. Distracted by her flailing, he took his wild eyes from hers for one precious second and that was when she cried out and slammed the hilt of her blade into his temple as hard as she could.

He roared and fell aside into the bedpost, clutching at his bleeding head. Eden used the moment to grab onto the far bed post and pull herself away from him. Luckily everything seemed to be made of expensive silks, and she slid easily.

But she wasn’t out of the water yet. The second man joined the fight then, grabbing her immediately by the scruff of her cloak and tossing her off the bed with immense strength. She hit the floor and rolled through the glass shards that were scattered everywhere, sucking back a cry of pain as they pierced her hips and shoulders and forearms.

He came forward quickly, but Eden managed to get to her knees. The fact that he didn’t seem to have any other weapon other than his fists somehow cleared her mind. The formulas took over.

He swung his leg back for a punishing kick, but Eden tilted just a little to the right. Vertical kicks were only as powerful as they were accurate, and as his leg swung uselessly by, she swept out a kick too – at the only foot he had planted.

She heard the poor man’s sharp, shocked breath as he flipped backwards – landing heavily on his neck and his own knee bashing into his eye socket. It looked like it hurt a lot. He didn’t move, but Eden didn’t know if he was unconscious or just disoriented for a moment.

Scurrying to her feet, she saw the previous man wasn’t looking at her, but at Atlas again.