"What's with you? Ah, I'm so tired!" Letitia slumped unto the dirt.
"Care to, explain, about this, Mitchell?" Laris panted as he leaned on a wall at the back alley of a certain shop.
They could hide in the meantime. Of course, as they are the same race as the Lycan-kind, they had a few tricks up their sleeves to hide their scent from Vaughn's elite hunting pack. In the meantime, the man named Mitchell stretched his waist, giving a big huff and puff before he had restored enough breath to answer the twins' queries.
"Should you have stayed there any longer, you might have never woken up." He shot a serious look at Laris, making the twins unconsciously glance at each other once. "I got two juicy pieces of information during my deep diving this time. One was that an emissary from Salciorne had come to see the Luna."
"Salciorne?" Laris frowned. The Sorcerer-kind's nation could be said to be glorious in all aspects, but at their head was a coward and a selfish ruler.
Mitchell hummed in affirmation. He surveyed around before leading the twins into a narrower alley. He pushed away a large bin filled with garbage to one side, as it hid a small metallic gray door with no knob. He took a small coin, that didn't look too different from the other coins used in the trader's market at first glance, from his pocket and inserted it into the barely visible thin line of a slot on the upper right corner of the door. A series of clicks and soft metallic creaking could be heard until the door budged and opened inwards.
"Get inside first." Mitchell gestured to the door as he looked around to make sure nobody was there to watch.
Just when all three of them went in, and the door closed, the large bin moved back to its original position as if it was magnetized. Everything was as it was, save for the three missing individuals.
"So", Letitia prompted for answers as they traversed the dark passageway that barely fit a humanoid.
"Here should be good", Mitchell said to himself as he pulled out an illumination stone from his magic storage bag. It was a common commodity in the kingdom since they were in an alliance with the Sorcerer-kind.
"An emissary from Salciorne. You know what that means, right?"
"The Prime Minister of Magic." Laris didn't hesitate to answer. He could only think of one person who would send such an emissary to be welcomed directly by their Luna.
Mitchell nodded. "Usually, it's not much every time they come. Same old, same old. But this time, I received news that someone from the Sorcerer-kind side created a certain poison. What's more is that the Alpha King himself had asked the Prime Minister to make it." He breathed in heavily, nervously. "It should be undetectable by scent, and was made in a way that the recipient of the poison doesn't even know they're poisoned."
This made them feel cold.
"That's impossible! How can such an undetectable poison exist?"
"One piece of news I heard was that the poison was grown out of a plant that looked like Juliet roses, but it isn't as potent and long-lasting after extraction. It's some sort of hybrid plant that looks like a Juliet rose but has the characteristics of wolfsbane, but much virulent."
"Have you seen the extracted poison yet?"
"No. The only thing I saw was the glass container of Juliet roses handed to the Luna's maids."
Mitchell sat down a stool. They had exited the small passage through a decrepit-looking pile of brick stone doorway on the floor, which opened into the small backroom of an unpopular store.
"I wasn't sure whether their plan was to exterminate you with poison or maybe they were bluffing about the roses. But then I got the wind of another intel."
Letitia sat down on another stool in front of Mitchell. There weren't enough chairs to go by so Laris remained standing, leaning on the wall while he let his sister sit on the stool instead.
"What about", Laris questioned.
"I know where those half-Satori, half-Wraiths are", Mitchell replied, eyes glistening in excitement.
The twins can't blame him. He has been looking for them for a long time on their request, but Vaughn had a tight leash on people, and uses a lot of smoke screen just to hide their whereabouts. Yet he does not suppress the rumor of their existence, even using it as deterrence for whoever blabbers his secrets and betrays him.
"Are they at the dungeon?"
"They are, but not the one beneath the palace."
"There's another dungeon?" Letitia asked looking confused.
There were a few dungeons throughout the Lycan Kingdom, but they knew of only one dungeon in the Alpha King's territory; Blackshade City's dungeon was directly below the palace.
"There is an older dungeon just outside the borders of Blackshade City in the north. It's one of the dungeons that used to hold Alpha leaders and the like, so it's not as big but the interrogation room and the security is sufficiently tight. There's also a small passage that connects it to the palace dungeons. The siblings you're looking for are there. I'm not quite sure of their location, but I reckon they're near the west side where the interrogation rooms are."
"This really complicates things." Laris scowled.
"It's better if we bring the camp out first. It's not safe here anymore, not even hiding in Evergreen City is a good option anymore."
"Mitchell is right, Laris. We can't drag Grandpa into this mess. It's better if they have no evidence against him."
"Take Theo when you escape", Mitchell reminded.
As if reminded of something, Laris eyes widened as he looked at Mitchell. The other person nodded once.
『 Why are nodding while gazing into each other's eyes? Am I a third party here? Should I leave while you two get a room? 』Letitia rolled her eyes to the side where the boys couldn't see her, but Laris knew her enough to know what's she doing without the need to see.
『 What Mitchell means is that they most likely will go after Theo, if they aren't monitoring him already. As the only Healer-kind in the kingdom, he's basically the only antidote for such a poison. 』
"There's one thing that's bothering me", Laris opened. "Why bring the poison now? Why assassinate us now?"
"Maybe Uncle Vaughn had already given up on trying to use unobedient tools like us", Letitia crossed her arms over chest.
Laris abruptly stood straighter from the wall, making the other two look at him.
"They're smoking us out." He pursed his lips. "What if they meant to release the information about the Juliet roses? If they did, then they'd find out who's leaking intel and informing us-"
"That's impossible-", Mitchell interrupted only to be cut off by Laris again.
"Well they've succeeded with you didn't they?"
Mitchell pressed his lips into a fine line.
"But you can't really disregard it, can you?" Letitia tried thinking in the same way as her brother. "If you really have been poisoned by an unknown undetectable poison, the first thing you'll go to, wouldn't it be to Theo's? Are they targeting Theo? If they do so, there's no way we can get him out." Letitia's eyes grew bigger. "If they frame Theo as a rebel, they'll have an excuse to use him, make him treat people until it kills him. He'll be another tool for Vaughn. It's Theo he wants, isn't it? He's moving now before Theo can leave with us."
Suddenly, Laris couldn't stand still.
"Do you have a map of the continent?"
"I do", Mitchell nodded, taking out a large brown map and pinning it to the dirty wall, as there wasn't any other furniture in the backroom of one of their chosen hideouts.
Laris studied the map and pointed at a location filled with triangular tops that seemed to represent a forest, tapping at it a few times.
"Let's make this our goal."
A sense of apprehension and a bit of fright made Mitchell breathe halt. Even Letitia gave a look of scrutiny at her brother, trying to see if he was still sober. Did all that panic get into his head?
"That's Barred Forest, Laris! You can't be kidding. The Encantado staying there doesn't allow visitors, much less unwanted trespassers. There's already been a rumor that all those who go in become hanging corpses on tree branches." Mitchell worriedly scanned the map. Surely there was another place they could stay? And yet, he couldn't voice any. If it weren't inaccessible or as dangerous as Barred Forest, it would be too far away.
"It's exactly the same reason why Vaughn can't reach us there." Laris patted Mitchell's shoulder. "Mitchell, where's your mate right now?"
"Karen? I told her to hide out in her mother's packhouse. Why?"
"Go get her. Notify the others too. Don't show yourself directly, they'll probably be on the look put for you. Just inform one person in our camp and let them disperse the message to the others. We're leaving an hour before midnight."
"Tonight?" Both Mitchell and Letitia asked.
Laris nodded. "I'm not sure whether Vaughn intentionally started all this at the night of a full moon so he can lure us into action, or if he forgot, but either way, we've already ran away so let's make use of the full moon tonight."
One guarded secret of Lycan-kind was that their strength was significantly weakened every full moon, but not the half-lycans. In this sense, the majority of half-lycans were responsible for guarding the kingdom every end of the month. Half-lycans may be stronger, but their lifespans were shorter than the next pureblood Lycan-kind. Their strength alone made the pureblood, especially the noble blooded, dislike associating with them, while deep inside they envied them.
Now that half-lycans would be guarding tonight, it might be more difficult to escape the kingdom walls.
After understanding this point, Mitchell nodded before he stood up to make preparations. Letitia did the same, folding up the map and handing it back to Mitchell for safe keeping.
"We'll go get Theo when they aren't looking", Letitia said.
When Mitchell left, Letitia slumped back down on the stool.
"If I knew this was gonna happen, I would've ate to my heart's content yesterday." Letitia unhappily complained.
Only Laris knew she had already eaten to her heart's (purse's) content yesterday, but he said nothing. He was busy, trapped within his own thoughts and nervousness.
Laris knew they'd only meet hardship after hardship once the rebellion has been unearthed. He has been prepared for this. And yet when everything was now out in the open, he can barely keep calm.
Was it anticipation? Was it fear? He wasn't sure, but all he could do now was walk forward. He stood upon an endless staircase with nothing but a cliff behind his hind foot. He could no longer head back, no longer step down; dragging everyone including his family, into dangerous heights.