Mouse flew up the steps of the keep and down the hall of the golden tower, her legs trembling with the effort, until she came to the tall wooden door that led to the old man's offices. She raised a hand and knocked, waiting, breathless, for an answer. At last, three knocks later, one came in the form of a page boy who poked his head out through a crack in the door.

"Where is the old man?" Mouse asked through breaths still strained, though more now from anxiety than exertion. "Where is Ludger?"

The page boy looked at her, a garish fringe dangling above his eyes as he surveyed her disheveled appearance.

"He is at banquet, my lady," he said. "Erm, that is, he is asleep."

"No, I'm not," an irritated, rasping voice called out from somewhere in the room behind him. "Let her in, you gaping tadpole."

With an apprising look of her own, Mouse pushed past the page and into the room, waiting for no further invitation before entering. Her body was tense with anticipation as she waited for the boy to make his exit, and no sooner had he disappeared through the door in the wall than she began her interrogation of the old man who sat behind his large acacia desk in the predictable occupation of studying a text by candlelight.

"Who have you told?" Mouse asked, standing before him. "Who have you told about—about me?"

"Has anyone ever told you that you make a better shade than a window?" The old man drew one of the candles on his desk closer to hand, ignoring the question.

Mouse pressed her lips together in indignation.

"Who have you told?" she repeated.

The old man's eyes flashed up at her, reflecting the candlelight.

"Apart from yourself?" he said. "No one."

Mouse gave a stubborn shake of her head.

"You must have told someone," she said, "because someone knows."

"Oh?" murmured the old man, having returned to his text in apparent disinterest. "And does someone have a name?"

Mouse bit her lip in hesitation, trying to decide whether she would be giving anything up in telling the old man. There were secrets yet she kept from him, things she kept all but hidden even from herself.

"Johannes," she said at last. "Johannes Havener."

"Hmm," the old man grunted, leafing to the next page of his manuscript.

Mouse looked down at him, at the knobby finger that traced along the page as he read.

"Are you not worried," she asked, "that he might tell someone? I mean, could not one or both of us be arrested or imprisoned or—"

"Imprisoned?" interrupted Ludger. "On what charges?" He looked up at her complacently. "So far as I know, it is hardly a crime for a young lady to entertain delusions of being something grander than herself."

Mouse blinked at him in disbelief.

"Delusions?" she said, recoiling at the word. "But—"

"You are Maudeleine Toth. Mouse. Lady-in-waiting to the Empress, nothing and no one more. You have told me as much yourself many times over, and I have no reason to believe otherwise. Nor, do I think, has anyone else."

Mouse knit her brow together in confusion. She could not make out whether the old man was trying to reassure her or belittle her.

"You are truly not concerned?" she asked.

The old man gave a shrug of his hunched shoulders.

"No," he said. "Not particularly."

Mouse scoffed and turned her face away from the old man. Whatever Ludger said, she could not accept that her fears were unfounded, unjustified.

"Very well then," she said, her words acquiescent but her tone contrarian, "I suppose I have fretted over nothing."

"Yes, I suppose you have," the old man replied.

Mouse ground her teeth in annoyance. Why did he not care?

"It is late," she said, "and you are busy. I am sorry to have bothered you with my," she paused, emphasizing her next words, "needless apprehensions."

She went to the door, but the old man stopped her just before she could leave.

"Did our Lord Johannes have anything else to say, I wonder?" he peered at Mouse from beneath bushy white brows.

Mouse hesitated. Why should I tell you? she wanted to say. You will only dismiss it, like you have everything else I have just told you. But in the end, she bent to the old man, as she always did.

"He said that he was watching me," she said, "and that he knows who I am." She paused, suddenly recalling to mind a phrase of the nobleman's that she had nearly forgotten. "And he said that the best way to catch a mouse is with a trap."

"Hmm," the old man grunted. "What do you suppose he meant by that?"

Mouse shook her head, her hand already on the door handle.

"I have no idea."

Mouse came into her rooms, still wondering over why the old man had acted the way he had, burning with frustration that he had not shared in her concerns. Was she really such a fool to believe that Johannes had meant something sinister in his threats, or was it simply that Ludger was cross with her about something? She had been on uneasy terms with the Master of Tomes before, but she thought that had already been mended.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

She crossed to her basin, where she splashed her face with water, attempting to wash away her unease, before going to the chair that stood in front of her table.

She sat down and pulled the shoe from her foot, turning over the nobleman's words in her mind.

The best way to catch a mouse is with a trap.

Why would Johannes insist on threatening her if those threats were empty? she asked herself. Why go to the trouble? She leaned over, rubbing her aching foot.

The best way to catch a mouse is with a trap. It had been more than a threat this time, more than a warning; it was a truth from which Mouse could no longer hide.

She looked at the face in the glass, the dark hair that framed it. Would she believe she was the daughter of the Emperor if someone other than Ludger had been the one to tell her? She studied the curve of her jaw, her round, dark eyes. She did possess those characteristics which lent credibility to her station; she was undoubtedly a Toth by blood and resembled the Empress at least enough to act as her decoy. But the differences between them were equally as stark in Mouse's estimation, so long as you knew where to look.

She tucked the strand of hair that the nobleman had pulled loose behind her ear, shuddering at the thought of how he wound it around his finger. He always did that, she thought, always touched her in a way that made her shudder, touched her like he knew her in a way that he did not.

The best way to catch a mouse is with a trap.

What did it mean? It was bothering her in a way it had not done before. Perhaps, Mouse thought, she had been looking at things from the wrong angle, focusing on the wrong part. Up until now, her primary concern had been the fact that Johannes knew who she was, but perhaps, she realized, she should be more concerned with how he knew who she was.

She reached down and pulled the shoe from her other foot, beginning to ponder the story that Ludger had told her, the one about the girl who spent nineteen years thinking she was one thing only to one day find out that she was something else entirely. She mused over every hint she might have left, every brushstroke that painted her as something different, but in the end, she came up with very little. As far as she could see, she had painted the herself as the dutiful lady-in-waiting, the girl who began with nothing and somehow now had even less, the little mouse running and hiding in corners as giants stomped around her.

Something was stuck to her foot, she realized, something tickling her sole. She leaned over and reached down, pulling the something away and holding it to the light. It was a mallow.

That night, Mouse dreamt of mice and mallows. More specifically, she dreamt that she was a little mouse in a great field of mallows, climbing up the stalk of a particularly pink and lovely one. She climbed all the way to the very top, sitting among the petals and looked out to admire the endless expanse of colorful flowers around her. But all that she could see, she realized as she looked out from her perch, was darkness, black swirling clouds as far as the eye could see, hanging heavy in the sky, crowding the horizon. Fear gripped her heart, and she hurriedly climbed back down the flower stalk. She was afraid, afraid that if the clouds opened up and the rain began to fall, she would be carried away in the torrent.

She ran through the field, ran and ran without stopping. Past the marshlands and the mountains she ran, past the forests and the Faunus, until she at last she had run so far that she found herself on Kingfishers' Bridge, crossing the mighty Manau. Across the bridge she ran toward the great stone house in the desperate hope that she would get there before the rain washed her away.

But the further she ran, the more tired she became, and mystifyingly, the longer the bridge became, until somehow or other, she was further from the house than she had been to begin with. Her legs were trembling, and her heart was weak, but still she ran, until she could no longer, and she collapsed upon the bridge. She tried to get up, time and again, finally, but all she could do was sit and cry.

"Lost, little Mouse?" she suddenly heard a voice say.

Mouse's heart started in her chest, and she leapt to her feet. There, on the bridge behind her, stood a man. He looked at her with an ugly grin, snarling to show his malice. Mouse recognized him; it was the man from Silver Lake, the one who had shot an arrow at her.

"I'm not a mouse," she said, sniffling back her tears, trying, as she could, to appear brave.

"Oh no?" sneered the man. "Then why such a long tail?"

Mouse reached behind herself, to prove the man wrong, to show him that she had no tail. But much to her horror, there it was, long and slippery, sliding through her fingers.

The man laughed, his mouth twisting into a grotesque smile, one that sent a shudder down Mouse's spine.

"I'm not a mouse!" she shouted as the man continued to laugh and jeer. "I'll show you!" And with that, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a knife, reaching around behind her cutting off her tail.

Mouse woke with a racing heart, damp with perspiration, and a pain somewhere in her body, a pain she could not place, her lost tail perhaps.

She lay there in her feathers a few moments, recovering herself from her horrible dream, staring up into the dim grey light of morning. She wondered whether she might not simply pull the covers up over her head and remain there all the day, but she dared not risk returning to such a fitful sleep. But then again, if she did go back to sleep, she may well risk another nightmarish dream. With a stretch of her arms and a rub of her eyes, she climbed from her bed and padded across to her basin, splashing her face with water and shivering in the cool morning breeze.

She took up a shawl to wrap around her shoulders, crossing now to her wardrobe, and it was then, that she saw it. There, sitting on her desk, was a small wooden box.

Mouse froze. No, she thought, no more boxes, and walked past the thing without so much as a second glance at it, grumbling to herself, as she did, about the usefulness of maids who did not listen.

She threw off the shawl at her wardrobe, unwrapping her head and donning a clean shift, peeking over her shoulder at the box as she did. She pulled out a white linen tunic and green surcoat with silk trim, fitting each on in turn and tying a belt about her waist. Next, she crossed to her table to comb out her hair, stealing a glance at the box as she passed. It was becoming more and more difficult to ignore, as though it was taunting her, teasing her, waiting for the moment she would give in. She plaited her hair with quick, deft movements, pinning it across from temple to temple, and all the while, spared only a single glance in the direction of the box. She rose from her chair, having done with her washing and dressing and combing and pinning, and went to the door.

But the box called to her. Mouse dropped her hand away from the door handle.

Just a peek, she told herself, just one little peek, and if it is something awful, I shall throw it into the fire.

She went to her desk and looked down at the box. It was etched with a motif of ivy, like the box the necklace had come in, but much simpler. This time, Mouse did not bother to trace a finger over the engravings. Instead, she quickly hooked a thumb beneath the latch, and with one eye closed, lifted the lid. Her heart was pounding in anticipation of something dreadful. But what was inside wasn't awful; it was marvelous.

In a purple silk interior lay a dagger in its sheath, gilded and with a single jewel fitted into the handle. Mouse gaped at it, looking over her shoulder, before carefully lifting it from the box and removing the sheath to better study the blade itself. The dagger was longer than her hand and narrow, though not so narrow as some, two thumb widths rather than one. And more than that, it was sharp. The blade caught the morning sun, gleaming. This was not just some show piece, some ornament, it was a weapon. Mouse turned it over in her hand. This was a dagger with a purpose, with a bite.

On the back side was an inscription, two words etched delicately into the flat of the blade. It was written in the old tongue, Mouse realized. She whispered the words quietly to herself as she read: "sinister drepana." It is the left hand that kills.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.