“We’re going to make for the door,” she whispered. “We’re not going to run, but we’re going to go straight there and in. If anyone tries to stop us, you hear someone shout or anything, just ignore it. Don’t stop, don’t look at them, just head straight inside, OK?”
Wren nodded, serious and focused.
“I just hope Painter got there first,” Cass added as she stood. One more check, up and down the street. Deep breath. And they moved out. She drew Wren alongside her, held his hand, walked briskly. They crossed the street, more concerned now about speed than discretion. Thirty yards, and a left turn. Still clear. Just another fifty yards. Forty. Thirty. Twenty. The stairs were there on the left, the door closed, its windows darkened. Mister Sun’s Tea House. Surely Painter had gotten here ahead of them and prepared the way.
They made it to the stairs, but as they were climbing them there was a flutter in Cass’s peripheral vision. Someone coming around the corner at the far end of the street maybe. She didn’t look, focusing instead on the door. It was inset slightly, providing a little cover. They gained the top of the stairs. Normally the motion sensor would’ve triggered the door by now. Cass pressed into the door, pulling Wren hard against her. Painter should’ve been here – the door should’ve been unlocked.
There were footsteps coming down the street, faster than a regular patrol would’ve been going. Cass drew Wren in front of her, squeezing him into the corner between the door and its housing, shielding him with her body. Hopefully whoever it was would just walk right on by without noticing them. Unless of course the whoever it was had already noticed them.
The footsteps grew louder, closer. Cass fought the urge to look over her shoulder, fearful that the motion or the glow from her eyes might give them away. But in the end she had no choice. The person was coming up the stairs.
Cass readied herself as she slowly turned her head to identify the approaching figure. “Painter.”
Painter was looking down the street when she said his name, and he gasped and skidded backwards down two steps when she spoke, apparently never having seen them at all. He recovered and quickly made his way to the door.
“I th-th-think my heart stopped,” he said. “Like, really st-stopped for a ssssecond.” He held his palm up in front of a security panel, and the door snicked and started sliding smoothly open. Before it was even fully open, Cass pushed Wren inside and followed right on his heels into the dark main room of Mister Sun’s Tea House.
Not that the room was dark to Cass’s eyes. She could see plainly the various tables arrayed around the room, with the chairs flipped upside down on top as they were when Mister Sun’s was closed. Everything looked like it was bathed in the light of a strong full moon, though she knew that wasn’t how it appeared to Wren. The fountain-stream burbled softly in the otherwise silent room.
“What took you so long?” she asked.
“I th-thought you were g-g-going around,” Painter said as he secured the door. “I waited.”
Cass couldn’t fault him for that. She’d changed plans on the assumption that he’d head straight to the building, an assumption she’d made without even realizing it. Luckily it hadn’t cost them anything more than a few tense seconds. She was just about to respond, to tell Painter he’d done the right thing, or to thank him, when the lights came on.
She hadn’t heard anyone approach, and no one had said anything, but nevertheless there was Mister Sun, standing off to one side of the room, casually leaning against the doorframe of a private room. There was a stimstick between his lips, dangling at a forty-five degree angle like it might drop out of his mouth at any moment. His palsied left hand was curled up and resting on his belly, but Cass noticed he was holding his right arm close along his body and slightly behind his leg, hiding his other hand from view.
“Busy night, my friends?” he said. There was something heavy to his voice; a darker quality, and deeper. Not quite threatening, but Cass felt certain that Mister Sun wasn’t just the easy-going, happy-go-lucky tea merchant he usually seemed to be.
“Mister Sun,” Painter said. “It’s me, Painter.”
The old man squinted slightly and recognition came. He stood up from the doorframe, and his demeanor instantly changed.
“Governor Wren, Lady Cass,” he said, taking a few steps towards them. “Come in, come in.” He motioned for them to come in out of the entryway. “What brings you to Mister Sun’s at so late an hour?”
Cass had chosen to come to Mister Sun’s not because she trusted him, necessarily, but rather because she knew his was a place they could lie low – while they tried to figure out what was going on, and what they had to do next. As long as they weren’t followed, it was unlikely anyone would think to look for them there. And he certainly didn’t seem like the type that anyone would involve in secret plots. But she hadn’t really had a chance to think through just how much she could tell him.