Rylie was really bored. Sure, there was something mildly interesting about the trinkets and gadgets strewn around Kai’s workplace but as he droned on and on about how each of them worked, she couldn’t help but yawn. She tried her hardest to cover it up but either way, Kai didn't seem to notice. He just continued to yap about how this one tool works to stun a person and as a quill. And how this tool can be an earring and a communication device. So cool.

  Finally, he packed her arms full of gadgets and trinkets she was supposed to bring to the mission. Jordan was no help, lounging on an old, moth-eaten couch and looking at his flashcards again.

  After an annoyed minute, Jordan finally deigned to realize that Rylie was standing over him, waiting for him to lead the way. He shrugged and hopped up from the couch, leading her through the halls. She didn’t think she would ever be able to understand how the maze of tunnels looped around each other.

  “You’ll get used to it,” Jordan said, and Rylie wondered if he could read minds. “Kai’s a little much but… he’s a lot of help.” Well, he was, in fact, not reading her mind.

  “Oh, yeah. It was just a bit overwhelming for me.” Jordan gave Rylie a sympathetic smile and she felt herself like him just a little bit more, instead of him being some annoying partner she had to deal with. “Have you done missions like this before?” She asked him.

  “Three, I think. This will be my fourth.”

  “How are they?”

  Jordan’s eyes went distant and he spun a flash card between his forefinger and thumb. “It’s honestly a lot of fun. But it’s also really terrifying and stressful. But I’d rather be out in the field undercover than to be a warrior or be stuck in these caves forever or something.”

  Rylie nodded. “I don’t think I’d be any good at fighting. Cave work, maybe.” Jordan gave a light chuckle and Rylie let herself smile a bit. Maybe this wouldn’t be too hard?

  Already, Rylie regretted saying anything too soon. It’s not like she didn’t like wearing fine clothes and looking particularly nice. What she didn’t like, however, was how it seemed like five different people were telling her everything she should do. On one hand, it was meant to be helpful because she really didn’t want to mess up. On the other hand, all the words that people were shouting at her jumbled up into an alphabet soup. She gave up on listening and instead stared at the floor, nodding every few seconds.

  Rylie didn’t want to mess up but listening to their anxious rambling wasn’t going to help her succeed. So when Amori waved the five strangers out of the room so it was only her, Josephine, and Jordan, Rylie let out a breath of relief. She barely noticed when Cindy-Mae slipped through the door before it closed and stuck to Amori’s leg.

  Ignoring the little mute girl, Amori grabbed his hands behind his back and smiled, saying, “Are you ready for your first mission, Rylie?”

  “I mean sure but I don’t really know why I’m getting ready now. The mission isn’t until next week, right?”

  Josephine nodded and explained, “It is next week but there’s no connection between your house and Jordan’s house and since we don’t want people to get suspicious, we’ll start with you guys spending time together now.”

  “Oh. How are we gonna build that connection? I already know his brother.”

  Jordan nodded along and Amori tapped his fingers on a chair beside him. “How did you meet his brother?”

  “At an internship,” Rylie said.

  “I see. Maybe we can use that to our advantage.”

  “Is Aaron part of the rebellion, too?” Rylie asked.

  Jordan snorted and shook his head. “My suck-up brother? No, never.”

  “Oh, sorry.”

  Josephine tugged on her hair, thinking. Cindy-Mae signed in her face but Josephine waved her away. The little mute girl stamped to the edge of the room. Her face went red, redder than Rylie thought faces were supposed to go and she was momentarily distracted by the girl.

  “Do your guyses families have any other connection?” Amori asked. It took Rylie a moment to get back into the present. She looked at Jordan and they shook their heads, though a little unsure.

  “I don’t think so. My parents are professors. What’s your last name, Rylie?” Jordan asked, stroking his chin in what Rylie thought was a very comical way.

  “My last name is Geum. And my parents are bankers.” She didn’t care enough to go into the specific details of what they exactly did for the bank. She didn’t think it particularly mattered. “But my step-father really wants me to get into a good college. So perhaps we can create a connection like that?”

  “That could work,” said Josephine, tucking her hair behind her ear. “You could be getting closer to Jordan and try to, like, weasel into a scholarship or endorsement or something.”

  Rylie shrugged and looked at Jordan who shrugged back. “Yeah, could work,” Jordan said.

  “Great,” Amori exhaled with a quiet clap. “Rylie, you’ll have to try to make it real so ask your dad about it, make it known, whatever. Jordan you gotta act your part, too. I’m no actor so I’m not really sure what all of this entails. But I hope I can trust you guys. Now,” he turned to Josephine and glanced at the watch lying on his wrist. “I have to be back in the palace in a few minutes. Josephine, will you go down and talk to Kai? He sent some papers to me but I have no idea what they mean.”

  After nods from everyone, Amori swept out of the room.

  Josephine stared at the door for a moment and everyone stood in silence. Finally, Amori’s second in command turned to Rylie and Jordan and blinked at them still being there. “What are you guys doing?” she demanded. “Get to work!”

  They said their yes ma’ams and rushed out of the room. Jordan led Rylie to the exit of the rebels' hideout. “Do you think you can find your way home from here?”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “Oh yeah, I’m great with direction,” Rylie answered.

  “Great. Start spreading the word that you're educationally inclined or whatever.” Jordan waved his hand vaguely in the air then promptly walked off to do his own “whatever”.

  Rylie seemed frozen in her spot staring after the idiot. She had been sarcastic. She was awful with directions and had only managed to make it to the Black Market earlier because of a drawn map on her hand. Which, conveniently, had been smeared away from her excessive hand perspiration. She itched her hair and shoved it out of her face, turning to look at the exit.

  Who knew that being a banker's daughter would make people so willing to help you?

  Rylie hadn’t been walking for long through the streets trying to pretend she knew where she was going when she really did not know where she was going when a man asked if she needed help. She had sighed with relief. Finally, someone willing to help! And despite the smell of stale alcohol coming off of the fat man with a stomach to spare, Rylie told him she couldn’t find her way home. She had suddenly realized this was a stupid thing to say to some stranger who was obviously used to being drunk. But, when she mentioned her mother’s name, the man almost immediately took her to her house. Ryllie was only glad that he hadn’t had the sense to think that he could have gotten a great ransom had he kidnapped her.

  Nonetheless, she did feel obligated to part with a silver coin and the man grinned at her, bowing excessively as he left. She rolled her eyes and walked inside.

  Her mother lay on the couch, her heeled feet up on the cushions and Rylie inwardly sighed. Shoes do not belong on couches.

  Mrs. Geum was pale with slanted eyes and a sheet of dark, almost blue-looking, hair. She had a second chin under her already voluminous first one. Wings of skin flapped beneath her upper arms as she flipped a page in a book. Wet stains could be seen along Mrs. Geum’s armpits and neck even in her beautiful blue gown. And even though her waist up was a great show of how much she loved her food, her legs were skinny and disproportionate to the rest of her.

  Mrs. Geum glanced up from her book before returning to her romance novel, uninterested that her daughter was home way late.

  But then Mr. Call, Rylie’s stepfather, walked in. He gently pulled his wife’s feet off the couch and Rylie was surprised again at the way her mother blushed and smiled at the old man instead of getting angry.

  After her mother and her real father got a divorce, her mom had changed her last name back to Geum, her maiden name. Then when she met her new husband, it was too much of a hassle to change it again.

  Frankly, Rylie didn’t know what possessed her stepfather to marry Mrs. Geum. She was fat, lazy, and greedy. She cared little for her three children and even less for anything that didn’t have to do with money. When Rylie had said that her parents worked with the banks, that was a very low term. Her mother ran the banks.

  Mr. Call was not similar to Mrs. Geum at all. He had blond hair that was beginning to go a vibrant white because apparently, blonde hair doesn’t go grey. A beard and mustache covered his chin and mouth but he kept his cheeks clean shaven. He had a bit of a gut but one that comes with old age and body dysmorphia rather than being a glutton like Mrs. Geum. Rylie honestly didn’t know how much older this man was than her mom but it was somewhere between five and fifteen years.

  Mr. Call was a rich man with more money than even Rylie’s mother had hidden away in different banks around the world. He was the sweetest person, though. He had a soft smile and was very silent most of the time. Humility was something he truly had and didn’t realize he had. He was good at singing but rarely did it because Mrs. Geum hates music more than she hates tax evaders, for whatever reason.

  So, compared to her real father who was in jail for drowning a couple of kittens (which actually isn’t that bad a crime. Everyone does it in the kingdom. It’s just that he got caught. He also just did it while drunk and accidentally drowned some other drunk guy too), this guy was a saint. And actually, he was a saint. That was his literal job. No wonder he was so rich. People loved to hear him talk and he really did tell some great things.

  “Rylie! How are you doing today? What were you up to?” Mr. Call gave his stepdaughter a kindly smile through his white goatee. At least someone had noticed she was gone.

  The perfect opportunity, though. “I was looking at the university in town. I… think I might want to go to college…” She trailed off and Mr. Call’s smile only seemed to grow

  Mrs. Geum snapped her novel closed and sat up straight on the couch. She looked extra droopy today. “You’re going to be a bank woman, just like me,” Mrs. Geum said. “You don’t need to go to college for that, you just have to become refined, like me.”

  Rylie inwardly rolled her eyes then said, “Mother, college is important even if I don’t necessarily need it to be a banker.”

  “I’m not wasting money for you to go to college, Rylie. It’s a waste and you don’t need it. Money is tight right now, anyways.”

  Rylie could hardly hold in her snort. If ‘tight’ meant that they barely had enough to buy three golden toilets, then money was really tight. Not to mention all that her mother spent every weekend at gambling sites.

  Rylie racked her brain for ideas. This was not going well so far. Then she got an idea. “What if I can get a scholarship? Then I could go for free,” she fudged a bit. “And then I’ll probably get paid more since I have a degree in the things I do.”

  It was a smart move to mention earning more money. Mrs. Geum immediately perked up and her ears turned a pleasant red color. If Rylie could count on anything in her life, it was her mother’s greed.

  “A scholarship… Hmm…” Mrs. Geum touched her fat chin with a fat finger with a painted lob of fingernail.

  “I think it’s the Hoffman family that owns the college near here… I heard his son was my age or something…” Rylie prodded slightly.

  “I have it!” Exclaimed Mrs. Geum with a look of superiority on her pudgy face. “I’m close with Mr. Hoffman who owns that college ‘round here. I don’t think I could right out ask him for a scholarship but perhaps if you get close to his youngest son and become an important asset to the family, they’ll offer you one anyway!” Mr. Call winked at Rylie, seeing what she’d done there. Rylie grinned back.

  “Great, Mother! That’s such a splendid idea!” Rylie said this with no sarcasm at all since it was, in fact, her own idea.

  Her mother blushed again with pride before staring at Rylie with a steely look. “What are you doing, young lady? Go get ready. We’ll have dinner with them tonight.”

  “Sorry- what?” This, Rylie was not expecting.

  Mrs. Geum waved her hand in the air and rolled her eyes. “We must start the friendship sooner rather than later. I’ll go call and set it up now.”

  “Oh, mother that’s not-that’s not…” It was too late though. Mrs. Geum spread out her skirt and stood up with as much dignity as such a fat, ugly woman could do. She hobbled out of the room and in a minute, Rylie and Mr. Call could hear her laughing wildly and extroverting on the telephone. “What have I gotten myself into?”

  “You’ve gotten yourself into a full ride of college, that’s what. And perhaps also a night of embarrassment,” answered Mr. Call.

  Dinner wasn’t as awful as Rylie expected. She didn't know how she would act around Jordan when they met at the fancy restaurant but he was a better actor than she had given him credit for.

  When she arrived, Jordan grinned at her and held out his hand. “Good evening! I’m Jordan Hoffman. You’re… Tylee?”

  “Rylie,” Rylie corrected, smiling and shaking Jordan's hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Nice to meet you, too.”

  The rest of the night went well enough, considering Mrs. Geum decided not to get drunk. They laughed and Rylie’s mother threw not-so-subtle hints about a free ride at college. Jordan and his parents were gracious and courteous. They seemed to not care for Mrs. Geum very much but they did care enough for their wallets.

  It ended with Jordan saying that he and Rylie would have to meet up at the college sometime so he could show her around. She was genuinely excited.

  So far, the plan is going well.