The Night Hawk

I was carrying the red folder to Crown Prince Julian when the palace alarm began to pulse. The sound was low and deliberate, a note designed not to startle the guests at the Winter Assembly. It still made every person in the west gallery stop talking. I felt the vibration through the folder in my hands. "Keep walking," Julian said. He stood beside the tall windows, half turned toward a knot of ministers. His black dinner jacket fit like it had been made around him. I knew the small tension in his jaw meant he had heard the alarm, too. I kept walking. I was meant to look like a junior records clerk delivering documents, not the only member of the Crown Protection Service in the room who knew which exits had been sealed. "Your Highness," I said, placing the folder on the table. Julian glanced at me. The look lasted less than a second, but I caught the question in it. I shifted my grip on the folder. Two taps against the leather. The west stairwell was clear. One tap: not clear. I gave him two. "Thank you, Miss Ellis," he said, loud enough for the ministers to hear. I stepped away. His chief of staff, Martin Rusk, had already turned toward the entrance. Rusk wore his uniform with the neat, severe polish of a man who thought every wrinkle was a personal insult. He smiled at the assembly. "Routine sensor fault," he said. "Please remain where you are." I kept moving. No sensor fault caused the security panels to lock. I crossed the gallery toward the records corridor. Every step was measured, my shoes quiet on the stone. Behind me, a minister asked if he should call the police. Rusk replied that the Royal Guard had it under control. My mother was working in the old archive on the floor below. I had told her I would meet her after the assembly. I had not told her the alarm system had a second sequence, one reserved for a breach. I reached the corridor and pulled a small key from my sleeve. It opened the panel behind the portrait of King Edric, a dour man who had been dead for two hundred years. I slipped inside and drew the door shut behind me. The service passage smelled of dust and hot wiring. I took off my clerk's shoes and set them in the narrow cabinet. Under my skirt, a fitted holster held a compact pistol. I checked the magazine, then pressed the throat mic beneath my collar. "Ellis to Control." Static answered. I tried the backup frequency. Nothing. The alarm changed. Three rapid pulses, a pause, then three more. A breach had been confirmed. I took the narrow stairs two at a time. The old passage opened behind the gallery's service screen. Through a gap in the wood, I could see Julian beside the red folder. Rusk had moved close to him, speaking with his hand resting on the back of Julian's chair. I could not hear the words. Julian lifted the folder. Rusk reached for it. Julian held on. The ministers watched, uncertain. No one else in that room knew the folder contained the proposed emergency decree. If Julian signed it, Rusk would receive authority over the national police, the broadcasting service, and the temporary detention of anyone labeled a security threat. Julian had told me, two nights earlier, that he would never sign it. Now Rusk leaned toward him and murmured something. Julian's expression hardened. Then the lights went out. I shoved through the service screen and heard a woman scream. Emergency lights painted the gallery red. Guests surged toward the doors, but the doors stayed shut. Rusk was no longer beside Julian. I saw him at the far end of the room, speaking into a radio. A man in a security uniform slipped through a side entrance behind him. Not a palace guard. The boots were wrong. The belt was wrong. The rifle was real. "Julian!" I shouted. He turned as the false guard raised the weapon. I ran. The first shot shattered a window. The second hit the wall beside Julian's head. I crashed into him, forcing him behind the heavy table. My shoulder struck the stone floor, and pain flashed through my arm. The folder slid away. "Who are you?" Julian demanded. I drew my pistol. "Someone who needs you to stay down."