Page 61 of When Day Breaks

She explains the rules to me but honestly, I'm not really sure if I'm down to playarmy menthrough some foreign territory of another man's kingdom with my long lost sister. I’m not even used to my own castle yet, and I’m expected to trespass another to hunt down a mother who left all of us to live out this crazy life married to a vampire of a brother who supposedly has it out for my royal husband?

“Tell me about it,” Troian chimes in as she reads my mind.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to all this,” I state, looking at her as she continues to assess the grounds.

But I suck in a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds before letting it release.You can do this,I mentally boost myself, feeling a slight more confident already. The tickle on my tongue to tell Troian that her plan better not fail us is getting stronger but I decide to swallow my words and trust that she knows what she's doing.

"I'll follow your lead," I say to her, which has her pushing on the gas in reverse, taking us back down the road a bit before sliding into a little hidden area just out of sight.

We both exit the car and stick to the inner trees, not wanting to be seen on the driveway back up to the gate.

As we approach, birds chirp and the sun gleams off the small mounds of snow. It's still kind of chilly, seeing as it isn't even noon yet, but I grip my jacket tighter across my chest and follow behind Troy's steps.

Once at the gate, she's careful not to make too many noises so that she doesn't alert any guards that might be nearby. She peeksher head over the corner of the bricked column that reaches the gate, most likely to see if she can spot the keypad.

I try to help by thinking where I've seen our gate’s keypad but seeing anything in resemblance doesn't come to mind. I turn my head to my right to try and make it seem like I'm helping, and that's when I accidentally spot a black box tucked into a small alcove of a tree on the other side of the path.

"There," I whisper to her as I point in the direction of the keypad.

"Good job, butfuck," she whispers back. Both of us trying our best to keep the noises to a minimum.

I kind of understand her frustration, but then I give her a pointed look as a thought enters my head. "Why don't you just-" and before I can finish making any kind of suggestion, a gust of wind flies past me, aswooshaccompanying it.

I'm nearly knocked on my ass in shock before I see that Troy hadmanifestedherself over to the box to enter the code. I see her look at her phone to repeat the numbers. As soon as she's done pushing the numbers on the keypad, the gate starts to slowly creak open and just as quickly as she left, she comes right back but this time grabbing me in the midst of her apparitional transportation. Before I can even gasp, I find that we are tucked into the high branches of a tree. The dead leaves fall to the ground as the branch shakes lightly, but she holds us as still as possible.

"What are you-" I attempt to speak, keeping my voice scarce but she just clamps her hands around my mouth.

My eyes go wide and she lets go, moving her index finger to position upright against her lips and using another to point to her ear, signaling me to shut up and listen.

So I do. And when I focus in, closing my eyes and keeping a steady pace of my breathing, I hear . . . everything. Snow falling from the branches as the winds brush past. The whir of enginesthat speed off on the highway nearly two miles back. I hear water running somewhere nearby. A faucet from inside the castle? Maybe a river down the way? And then, the crunch of leaves. And footsteps creating them.

She was right to be cautious. Someone is walking the grounds. As we both peer through the branches and leaves, we can see in the distance that one of the guards approaches the gate from the otherside, now wide open.

He looks at it confused, and signals his counterpart over. I can hear them as they try to figure out how it opened. The wind hits at the right time and budges the gate slightly, causing them to believe it could have unlatched due to the wind.

"When I say go," she whispers against my ear, so low that I almost don't hear her. "Meet me at the left side of the castle." Panic floods me. I don't know if I can gauge that distance. How will I know when to stop? How do I know it'll even work? I haven'tmanifestedby myself willingly just yet. I've only done it when I found myself at my old home, but even then I had no real idea how I did it.

Troian gives me a promising look, one that says she believes in me. It gives me hope, but hope is merely a four letter word. Just likefailandweakanddumbandcan't.

I realize I don't have much time to sit here and continue to berate myself because before I know it, the gate is starting to close. The guard has walked away by now but there's only a few seconds left before the gate is closed and I know we have to work fast.

I close my eyes, hold my breath, and picture the side of castle as I wait for Troy to-

"Go," she whisper-shouts and I open my eyes to watch her disappear but when I go to look for her, I'm met with a wall of deep red bricks instead.

"What the…" I let my words fade as I scale upward, seeing no end to the bricks. I startle at the sound of the gate coming together with a ring of metal and I look to my right to see that I am on the other side of the gate, right next to the castle.

"Not bad, but you were a few seconds late," Troian taunts playfully as she leans casually against the brick building, one foot kicked back behind her to prop her up.

"I didn't know it was that easy." I look back to the building, taking a few steps back to take it all in. It's nearly identical to the one I'm used to seeing every day. The one I damn near burned down.

This castle holds more stained glass windows as opposed to the big bay windows I'm used to. And the coloring is red and black whereas Rivian's castle is dark gray and black. A few matching compound buildings are scattered about just the same but there's no cliff, no gazebo. The trees aren't as tall and the air feels different here.

"It's not home," Troy leans into my ear. I shake her off with my shoulder and she steps back. "By the way, you smell way too good to be out here doing dirty work. Tip number . . . four-thousand,” she jokes as she comes up with a far-fetched number. “Don't wear perfumes while out on mission impossibles. They'll smell you a mile away. I don't know how Lord Farquaad couldn't sense you, but it will happen." She jabs a finger into my upper arm in an attempt to be playful, but it stings against the cold air so I close my hand over the area, making a scene to rub the ache.

"I didn't really plan to be on some kind of scavenger hunt today," I snark and she just rolls her eyes.

Troian is a hunter. I can sense her excitement for danger. The need to lead and find a way to expose light in darkness and vice versa. She enjoys the thrill of the hunt and thrives in the wilderness, the nature of being a nocturnal creature all while searching for more outside of her origin. She's mysteriousbut adventurous and she is the only one in the whole castle of Hollows Trace who terrifies me.

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