“Okay,” Wren says, pacing the length of the garden with the focused energy of a director who has just been handed an impossible shoot and forty minutes to fix it.
“We need a story.
Something boring enough that nobody looks twice, official enough that it survives scrutiny, and simple enough that all three of us can repeat it without contradicting each other.”
“I have several ideas,” Mei offers, entirely too eager.
“I’m almost afraid to ask.”
“He could be secretly courting you under a false identity as a merchant’s son.”
“Absolutely not.”
“He could be investigating you as a suspected spy, and the visits are interrogations.”
“That one has some legs, actually, but no, too dramatic, someone would ask to see a report.”
“He could be cursed to visit this specific garden every evening or he turns into a toad.”
“Mei.”
“I’m just saying, nobody would ask follow up questions about a curse.”
Casimir, sitting on an overturned crate with the specific stillness of a man watching his own fate get debated by two people who are enjoying it far more than the situation warrants, clears his throat.
“Might I suggest something slightly more grounded in reality,” he says.
“Fine, ruin the fun,” Wren says, though she’s grinning, the earlier panic settling into something more manageable now that they’re actually working the problem instead of just reacting to it.
“What’s your boring, sensible, prince-brained solution.”
“An informal assignment,” he says.
“The crown occasionally tasks members of the royal family with quietly monitoring individuals of interest.
It wouldn’t be unusual for me to be assigned to observe whether the disgraced empress poses any ongoing risk, particularly given the recent reports of her thriving.”
Wren considers this, turning it over.
“That’s actually not bad.
Boring enough nobody wants to ask follow up questions.
Official enough to survive a light scratch.”
“It also has the benefit of being partially true,” Casimir adds.
“Which makes it easier to maintain under questioning.”
“Look at you, thinking like a liar.
I’m so proud.”
“I prefer to think of it as strategic honesty.”
“We’ll workshop the label later.” Wren claps her hands together, already slotting into planning mode.
“Okay.
Nothing suspicious about a prince doing his due diligence.”
“And the evening timing?”
“Discretion.
You wouldn’t want to be seen giving me special attention during the day, might look like favoritism.” She says this briskly, professionally, the way she’d deliver a plan for reinforcing a fence line, and if there’s a flicker of something warmer underneath it, she’s not about to let it show.
“Evening visits are subtle.
Responsible, even.”
“That’s surprisingly good.”
“I contain multitudes.
We’ve established this.” She turns to Mei.
“And you, if anyone asks, are simply my servant, and you’ve noticed the prince visiting on official business, and you think nothing of it.”
Mei nods solemnly, then immediately ruins it.
“Should I also mention how he stares at the back of her head when she’s not looking?”
“No.”
“I could work it in naturally.”
“Mei, I swear—”
“Fine, fine.
Boring cover story.
Got it.”
They test it on Tan first, since he’s already half in on the situation and represents, in Wren’s professional estimation, the exact right level of low stakes rehearsal before facing anyone who might actually report back.
“So,” Wren says, arranging herself and Casimir at a careful, entirely reasonable distance apart, “if anyone were to ask why the prince has been visiting this wing so often, what would you say?”
Tan blinks, glancing between them.
“That he’s checking on you.
On behalf of the crown?”
“Perfect delivery.
See, natural, believable, exactly like that.”
“I mean, that’s basically what I already figured was going on,” Tan says, entirely too honest for someone supposed to be helping maintain a fiction.
“Whatever the real story is.”
“There is no real story,” Wren says, a beat too fast.
Very boring crown business.”
“Sure,” Tan says, in the tone of a man who has decided it is not his job to argue with his sources of free scallions.
“Crown business.
That’s what I’ll say.”
He heads off a few minutes later, leaving the cover story tested and reasonably secure, and Mei announces, with the subtlety of a foghorn, that she’s going to go “practice” the excuse on a kitchen maid she trades with, and vanishes through the gate at a speed that makes it very clear she is doing this on purpose.
Which leaves Wren and Casimir alone in the fading light, both of them abruptly finding a great deal of interest in the fence post neither has looked at in several minutes.
“She’s not subtle,” Casimir says.
“She’s sixteen and bored.
Cut her some slack.” Wren busies her hands retying a bit of rope that does not, strictly, need retying.
“Anyway.
Story’s solid.
We should be fine as long as nobody looks too closely.”
“Agreed.” A pause.
“The, ah.
Fence post from yesterday.
It’s holding.”
“Good.
Great.
That’s good.”
Neither of them mentions the part where their hands overlapped on that rope, or the sentence he started and didn’t finish before Tan came sprinting in.
It sits there anyway, unspoken, taking up more space in the quiet than either of them is willing to admit.
“I should get back before someone notices I’m gone longer than a report requires,” Casimir says eventually, standing, brushing dirt off his sleeves with more focus than the task requires.
“Right.
Wouldn’t want to blow our very boring cover story.”
“Wouldn’t want that,” he agrees, and lingers a second too long at the gate before actually going, glancing back once like he’s about to say something else, then apparently deciding against it.
Wren watches him disappear over the wall, out of old habit even with a perfectly good gate right there, and stands in the quiet yard for a while after he’s gone, arms crossed, telling herself very firmly that the warm, unsettled feeling in her chest is leftover adrenaline from the sabotage and absolutely nothing else.
She almost believes it.
Somewhere behind her, Duchess lets out a low, judgmental cluck, and honestly, Wren thinks, that chicken has seen entirely too much lately.