Kitai put down her rope, stared at him for a second. Then she turned to Isana. There was another moment of silence, and both of them burst out into...
Into giggles.
Kitai and Isana-his mother-were giggling.
He blinked at them for a moment. Then scowled more deeply, and demanded, "What?"
Their giggles became a regular gale of bubbling laughter, and Isana actually had to sit down on the bed.
Tavi felt his scowl deepen. "Tonight is hardly a laughing matter."
They laughed themselves breathless, and as Tavi grew more frustrated, a single glance at him was enough to send them into fresh bursts of merriment. It wasn't until Isana sat with her hands pressed against her stomach and tears in her eyes that it finally began to die down.
"I'm glad someone's enjoying themselves tonight," Tavi said. "Is everything ready?"
"I believe so," Isana said, her voice still quavering slightly.
"All the pieces of your plan are ready to go, Aleran," Kitai said, nodding. "Not that there is much point in all this preparation."
"Oh?" Tavi asked. "Why not?"
"Because it will not work out the way you expect," she said calmly.
Tavi frowned at her. "You've seen the plans, the guards' positions, the defenses. If you thought it wasn't going to work, why didn't you say anything yesterday?"
"The plan is good," Kitai said. "You did not miss anything."
"Then why would you think it's going to go wrong?"
"Because it always does." Kitai smiled at him. "It is the nature of life. Something unexpected happens. Something goes wrong, and the plan must change."
"If that happens," Tavi said, emphasizing the first word very slightly, "then we'll adapt."
"Tell me this," Kitai said. "In your plans, why did you not tell us what Varg was going to do?"
Tavi grimaced at her. "There's no way of knowing," he said. "I think he'll cooperate, but..."
Kitai nodded her head in satisfaction, gathered up her coils of rope and put them in a leather case on her belt. "Just so long as you know that tonight will not go to plan."
"Pessimist," Tavi said.
"Tavi," Isana said, "were the coldstones sufficient?"
He still couldn't believe that his mother had helped Kitai burgle a dozen restaurants in the dead of night. "They should be," he said. "I'm more worried about the armor. It's close, but it isn't perfect."
"One can hardly expect to acquire custom-made, counterfeit suits of armor in two days," Kitai replied. "Not even here in the capital."
"I know, but..." Tavi sighed. "There's no way we're getting inside once the alarm is raised."
"We have made the best preparations we can, Aleran," she told him. "There is no sense in letting it worry you at this point."
"Probably," he said.
"But you will worry anyway." She sighed.
"Perhaps it isn't entirely his fault," Isana murmured. "I'm afraid it's a habit he learned from me." She faced Tavi, and her expression became much more serious. "But she's right, dear. Worry is fear in disguise. And fear will eat you from the inside out if you let it." She gave him a faint smile. "Believe me. I know."
Tavi took a deep breath and exhaled heavily. If anyone in all of Alera had good reason to worry-and fear-surely he was that person. At the same time, though, he recognized good advice when he heard it. He might not be able to follow it, but it would probably be smart to try, at least in the long term. "I'll try," he said drily. "But not tonight. I've got enough on my mind without adding more pressure."
Isana smiled at him and nodded. "We'll be ready to go when it's time," she told him.
Kitai snorted as she rummaged through a second belt case, laying out several tools in a neat row. "Only if there isn't someone here distracting us with foolish conversation about things he cannot change."
Tavi was about to say something about the two of them not liking the way he ran his mouth either but thought better of it. Of all the things he expected to face tonight, paralytic fits of laughter at his expense had been rather low on the list. "We'll go as soon as Ehren's done with the cloaks."
He nodded to both of them and paced back down the hall to his room. When he entered, Araris was standing in the middle of the floor, his body shrouded by a long grey cloak. "Are you sure it isn't going to hang too low?" he asked. "Cloaks look very fine, but they're impractical enough to fight in without making them long enough to trip yourself on, too."
"It'll be another four or five inches higher, once you've got the armor on," Ehren assured him. He glanced up at Tavi and tossed him a second grey cloak, rolled into a bundle. "This seems a little familiar. Try it on."
Tavi unfurled the cloak and donned it. Ehren came over to inspect the hem, which hung halfway down his shins. "Not bad. Not quite uniform length, but it should pass in the dark."
"Right," Tavi said.
Outside, the city's bells struck a single note, as they did for each hour between sunset and dawn.
Midnight.
"All right," Tavi said. He seized his pack. "Let's go."
The first part of the plan was, in some ways, the most dangerous.
The Grey Tower was a nondescript sort of building, utterly lacking in the drama its name-and role in history-implied. It did not look particularly menacing. For that matter, it hardly looked like a tower. It was an unassuming stone building of several stories. There was an institutional look to the square structure, with its even, identical rows of windows that spoke more of regularity and economy than of style or art. There was a wide, green lawn around the building, devoid of any decoration and easily watched.
For centuries, the Grey Tower had served an important role in Aleran society, as the sole prison in the Realm capable of holding the upper strata of the
Citizenry captive against their will. There were furies forged into the very rock of the Tower, fused into each cell by dozens of the most potently gifted furycrafters in the Realm for the sole purpose of neutralizing the crafting of the Tower's prisoners.
In addition to its protective furies, the Tower was also home to the Grey Guard, a half century of Knights Ferrous recruited specifically for the quality of their character and their loyalty to the Realm. Indeed, there was even a Crown Law on the books that required the Crown to pay any Guardsman offered a bribe three times the offered amount when the Guardsman turned in the person responsible for the attempt. In its centuries of duty, not one single Grey Guardsman had ever accepted a bribe.