We found a spot that was mostly covered by shadows from the trees, and there the skeletons climbed up onto each other’s shoulders. Rami reluctantly climbed onto the top skeleton’s shoulders and formed the highest rung of the ladder. I climbed up the skeletal ladder, then Rami gave me a boost, whereby my fingertips were able to find purchase on the stone. And that was all I needed; I pulled myself up by my fingertips and was on top of the wall.
A building that looked like a stable was just below me, and there were a bunch of hay bales piled up next to it. Getting out would be easy enough, then. All I’d need to do was climb up the hay bales onto the stable roof, then hop from the roof to the top of the wall, and voila, I was out.
I jumped down onto the hay, landing agilely and silently. Using my enhanced night vision, I scanned the grounds of the villa. The gardens were beautifully landscaped and filled with elegant marble statues and ornamental fountains; Millicent had obviously done very well with her business. At least, she had before Anna had come along and yanked that juicy monopoly out from under her feet. No wonder the old hag hated Anna so much.
There were torches scattered throughout the garden, and I spotted two guards, also in full plate armor, patrolling, but they didn’t seem particularly alert, and it would be a simple enough task to sneak past them.
The main building of the villa was just as beautiful as the ground surrounding it. Constructed in the style of many villas of the Isles of the Sun, it featured large pillars and rows of columns out front, with plenty of gleaming white marble. Another guard was stationed at the front door, but it wasn’t as if I was planning on going in that way anyway.
A tall, sprawling apple tree stood next to the right of the house, and I noticed that one of its boughs was pressed up against the building right where one of the upper story windows was. That would make an ideal entry point.
I darted with swift silence through the shadows, then scrambled up the apple tree. Hidden among the foliage of the bough, I peered through the window into the room, which was brightly lit with hundreds of candles. The inside of the villa was as even more opulent than the rest of it. Gorgeous paintings and tapestries adorned the walls, and there were a number of ornamental plinths with small statues and carvings. And there, sprawled out on a sofa, reading a book, was Millicent herself. I knew it was her from her red hair, which Anna had mentioned a few times.
She was also much younger than Anna had made her out to be. Sure, she was older, but she wasn’t a shriveled hag by any means. She looked, rather, as if she was in her mid 40s. Her hair was quite literally blood-red, not ginger. It was obviously dyed, and the job was pretty well done. Her dark eyebrows, though, indicated that she was probably a natural brunette.
For a woman of her age, she was in damn good shape. She was curvy, but not fat, and the low-cut purple velvet gown she wore revealed ample cleavage and almost unbelievably large breasts. While time had made them drop a little, they were still incredible. The makeup she wore enhanced her strong cheekbones, large brown eyes, and full red lips. From what I could see, there was barely a wrinkle or line on her face. She certainly had aged well.
And there, on the sofa next to her, was the object I’d come for: Lucielle’s Beauty Mirror. I knew it was the magic mirror right away because I could sense the item’s potency radiating from it, like a glowing coal in the darkness.
There were two ways I could do this: one, I could wait for her to go to bed and fall asleep, and then sneak in and steal the mirror. Or, two, I could jump right in, gag her before she had the chance to scream, tie her up, and take the mirror that way.
I chose the second way.
I needed a distraction. The wrist crossbow would do nicely.
I didn’t want the shot to startle her to the point of screaming out in fright, though, so I picked a target in the room that wouldn’t make too much of a noise when the crossbow bolt hit it: a large, ornate pillow with a beautiful Yengish silk pillowcase at the far end of the room.
I took aim and let a crossbow bolt fly. It disappeared into the pillow with a muffled thump— just enough of a sound to make Millicent look up from her book but not enough to frighten her into screaming—and the tree magic began to do its work, turning the pillow into an object of solid wood.
“What was that?” Milliecent murmured, glancing up from her book, which she set down next to her on the sofa.
She looked at the pillow and saw that the shimmering black and red silk was turning into dull brown wood.
“What?” she gasped, getting up from the sofa and hurrying over to the pillow. “By the gods, what on earth is happening to my beautiful pillow?”
I had already slipped through the window, and now, Grave Oath was in my right hand as I tiptoed silently over to her.
“My, my Yengish silk is turning to, wood? What the—?”
I clamped my left hand tightly over her mouth and pressed Grave Oath’s razor sharp edge against her throat. I left a bit of distance between the steel and her skin, though.
