The Villain Professor's Second Chance

The first thing Lirael noticed was how careful the silk felt against her scalp—no tug, no careless scrape of nails. The masked women treated her hair like spun moonlight instead of mud-clotted strands from a dungeon floor. One worked the comb with a jeweller's patience, gliding through knots her captors had ignored for days; the other followed with a strip of cloth soaked in rosewater, blotting grime from brow and cheek. Warm droplets slid down her temples, carrying the sour tang of old fear with them. The attendants' porcelain half-masks hid mouth and nose, but their eyes flicked once—quick, nervous—to the storm-bright collar sparking at her throat. They wiped faster after that, as if haste could muffle the magic's hiss.

Silver cords braided into her hair next, the strands looped in a crown she hadn't earned from surrender but from survival. Each cord gleamed when lamplight kissed it, scattering shards of luminance across the stone walls. When the taller attendant tied off the braid, she placed a single pearl at the nape of Lirael's neck. A gesture more ceremonial than decorative; pearls were offered to Greenbark brides on their naming day. The irony tightened Lirael's chest. She schooled her breathing, refusing to let grief slip past her ribs.

They lifted a gown over her head—robes of moon-white silk cut to cling at the shoulders, then spill in ripples to a hem just above her shackles. She felt every bruise as the fabric settled, tiny flares of heat blooming beneath the cool weave. Someone had slit open the sides to allow for freer movement; trust was not a gift Valaroth gave lightly, so the modification troubled her far less than it should have. It meant someone expected her to walk, not to be dragged.

A narrow belt followed, filigreed chain links that rested on collarbones where bruises already blossomed lilac. When the clasp snapped, a breath of static crackled, and violet sparks danced across the metal before guttering out like spent fireflies. The suppression wards were waning, threadbare as frayed cloak edges. Lirael inhaled and felt, truly felt, the chill of the corridor beyond her door, the faint bite of iron seeping from the guards' spears. She tasted cedar smoke laced in the torches—sensed salt drying on the attendants' lashes. The collar still stung, yes, but its cage bars now had gaps.

One of the masked women knelt and offered thin leather slippers. Lirael shook her head. The woman hesitated, then retreated without protest. Bare soles would read the palace stones better than any borrowed shoes.

A knock—short, staccato. The door swung wide to reveal six soldiers in polished half-plate. Their discipline amazed her: they neither jangled nor shuffled, spears dipping in perfect unison as they formed a corridor of blades. No barking order, no rough grip beneath her elbow. Instead, the captain of the detail—an older man with crow-dark eyes—inclined his head. Respect, or an imitation of it, but enough to fuel her spine.

She stepped between them. The corridor beyond blazed with torchlight, gilding every inch of the carved walls. Valaroth kings loomed in relief: one drove a pike through the throat of a scaled serpent; another brandished a phoenix's severed wing; a third stood boot-deep in a river of kneeling elves, crowns tossed at his feet like broken goblets. Gold leaf flashed, casting back brilliance meant to awe. Lirael felt only a flicker of contempt. Gold, she mused, still burns.

As she walked, her eyes catalogued details: a crack in the ceiling fresco where damp had leached pigment; a flutter of crimson fabric disappearing behind a service arch—panic among minor servants; the way one guard's gauntlet bore scratches shaped like talon marks. She did not glance at the scratch a second time, but she filed it. Knowledge was tinder too.

When the corridor bent left she caught the first weak pulse of the Storm Crown's heartstone ahead. The aura should have thundered in her ears. Instead it whispered, a dying hearth ember. She allowed herself a single slow breath at the thought: whatever fracture Orvath's arrogance or Helyra's hidden hand had wrought, it was widening.

I am not the sacrifice, she told the cold weight that tried nesting in her stomach. I am the spark.

The escort rounded a final archway. Ahead, broad doors of black ironwood waited, embossed with sunbursts and hydras. Torch sconces framed them like brackets of flame. At the threshold each soldier stopped, spears crossing to form a shimmering X. Lirael stepped through alone—no hand at her back, no chain jerked tight.

–––

Draven slipped through a service arch no wider than his shoulders, the carved lintel brushing the wool of his borrowed tunic. Behind him, the bustle of scullery hands blurred to a dull murmur—pots clanging, orders snapped in five dialects, the slap of cleavers on dripping boards. Inside the narrow passage he met only candle stink and the whisper of his own footfalls. It was a vein between the palace's grand chambers: unseen, easily forgotten, but critical to the body's life.

He wore the uniform of an outer-kitchen runner—dyed brown so stains could hide in plain sight. Wheat-dust peppered the hem, a detail he'd added with a deliberate swipe of a flour sack. A linen cap hid his dark hair; a soot thumbprint smeared one cheek. Three times already the head cook had bellowed "Boy!" across bubbling cauldrons, and Draven had tilted his chin at just the right obsequious angle, nodding so convincingly the cook's memory filled in a name that did not exist.

In the crook of one arm balanced a silver carafe domed in condensation. Plum wine sloshed behind the lid—amber-dark, sweet enough to coat the tongue and lull suspicion. Beneath a folded napkin at the base of the tray glimmered a stiletto, its grip wrapped in black sharkskin. The napkin hid everything but a careful finger's breadth of pommel—exactly enough for Draven to retrieve by touch without looking down.

Every intersection offered data. His eyes flicked to arch supports: four bricks between each column, mortar scored with hairline cracks from last winter's freeze. Ceiling vents: oval mouths large enough for one lean man to crawl but too narrow for two abreast. Smoke stains mapped the thermal draw—good for guiding wraiths through unseen avenues if the corridors clogged. He noted the droop of each tallow wick and guessed how long before the flame would falter. Candles had been trimmed short—someone meant them to gutter and smoke once the torches went dark. He counted wicks anyway: twelve in this hall, eight in the next, three at the final curve. When the room suffocated, twelve plus eight plus three columns of smoke would roll low, just as planned.

He emerged beside the scullery's steam vent, letting a blast of broth-scented heat douse any telltale chill clinging to his borrowed clothes. A sweating page hurried past, arms full of pastry towers, and barked a halfhearted curse when near misstep threatened disaster. Draven caught the page's elbow, steadied the load, murmured, "Vent's slick—slow down." The page grunted thanks, never quite focusing on Draven's face, already thinking about the duke who'd rage if the custard collapsed. The exchange lasted two heartbeats—long enough for Draven to lift the brass master key dangling at the page's belt and slip it into his own cuff.

Another corridor, broader, opened onto a servant stair that spiraled toward the vaulted gallery. Marble floor: cold as betrayal, veined in onyx that drank lamplight. Above, balconies cradled archers in wolf-etched helmets. Draven flowed along the wall's edge, shoulders squared to appear busy yet unthreatening, as if chasing the endless errands that kept lesser staff eternally harried.

He let his gaze roam in practiced laziness. Back-row bowmen: rookies—he could tell by the way their elbows tucked too close to ribs, fists clenched white around bow grips. Their commanders had drilled them on discipline but not on breathing; anxiety fogged the copper nose-guards in quick silver puffs. Nearer the dais, veterans wore polished pauldrons etched with campaign brands, but their footing proved overconfident. They stood where curtains and flagpoles broke their sightlines. Draven mapped every blind wedge, each angle ripe for an arrow to miss its mark.

He paused beside an ornamental brazier whose coals glowed a lazy orange. The heat blurred the air, bending the corridor's spear-straight lines into wavering reeds. Perfect place to alter stride, to vanish from one watcher and appear under the scope of another. He set the carafe onto a table of hammered bronze, its mirrored surface bouncing torchlight into a lattice across the ceiling.

A trio of nobles approached—two men in midnight capes and a woman draped in saffron lace. Their perfume rode before them, heavy with crushed orchid and cinnamon. Words spilled from them in soft conspiratorial currents. "Price of timber's jumped since the raids," one muttered. "The king will stabilize it—after tonight." Another nodded, but the woman's gaze remained fixed on the distant dais where Auric's empty throne awaited spectacle. Draven's shoulder brushed hers as he retreated, leaving the scent of plum to mingle with their expensive oils. If asked later, perhaps she would remember plum more than the runner himself.

Opposite, on the hall's far side, High Priestess Helyra leaned subtly on her moon-stone staff. She never looked at him directly—no need. She turned the crystal head a single hair's breadth, catching a pool of torchlight and splintering it into two sharp diamonds that stabbed the marble at his feet: one, two flashes. Their code: interior wards destabilizing, ritual stage ahead of schedule. Act soon. No third flash—three would mean abort.

Draven's pulse rose one deliberate beat. He acknowledged with the gentlest tilt of the tray, sending a ripple through the wine's surface. Helyra's eyes slipped away, serene. Anyone watching saw a priestess test the weight of her scepter and a servant re-balancing his service.