Chapter 108: Standing in silence

Stefan's POV

I sat with the information for a long moment after Jonquil finished speaking.

An entire clan held sick. A condition the Queen refused. Belladonna ordered to fix it by any means necessary. That kind of pressure was the kind that created openings if a man knew how to look for them. It also created the kind of mood that got people killed for speaking at the wrong time.

I knew very well...

I looked at Jonquil.

"I can help the General solve her problem. If she lets me." I said with every bit of charisma in me. All of it.

Jonquil turned her head and stared at me the way she might stare at a training partner who had just suggested they fight blindfolded. The disbelief on her face was plain and unguarded.

I didn't need the beast insight to know how Jonquil was feeling currently.

"You want to help General Belladonna solve a problem that even she didn't know how to handle yet?" she repeated slowly.

"Yes." I replied, firmly. Then as an afterthought, more to myself, I added;

"I want her to stop looking at me like she is choosing which blade to use," I answered. "Helping her with this is the cleanest way to change that. She's under pressure. People under pressure sometimes accept tools they would normally throw away." I explained gently to Jonquil as if It was me who was training her now.

Jonquil was quiet for a few seconds. Her eyes moved over my face as if she were checking whether I actually believed what I was saying.

"I trust you," she said at last.

"But the General will not accept that idea easily. She does not accept help from people she has already decided are problems. And you are still a problem to her." she added. I nodded sharply. Of course I didn't need to be told that.

"I know." I leaned forward slightly, resting my forearms on my knees. "That's why I need you."

Her gaze sharpened. "How?"

"I need to know when she is alone. Properly alone. No Flowers at the door, no messengers, no one coming in and out with reports. If I walk up in front of an audience she will shut me down before I finish the first sentence. Maybe worse."

Jonquil shook her head once. "That will be difficult. She ordered that no one is to disturb her until she comes out on her own. The order was clear. Even the ranked ones are staying away."

I exhaled through my nose and sat back. Waiting for Belladonna to decide she felt like company could take the rest of the day or longer. Three days was already too short. Spending the first one standing outside a closed door would be the same as wasting it.

"Is there any opening at all?" I asked. "Anything routine that still happens even when she is like this? Meal breaks? Reports? Laundry? I will take whatever still moves."

Jonquil thought for a moment, her gaze turning inward the way it did when she was sorting practical details instead of feelings.

"She told the meal bearers not to bring food today," she said briefly then went back to her thinking.

I raised my eyebrows. "She is skipping meals. That is not a good sign. That means she is either planning something aggressive or she is too angry to care about the body."

"Yes." Jonquil paused, then added, "The ones who collect dirty clothing still go. They take the basket, knock, and enter the outer room. They wait there until they are told to come further in. That part of the routine has not been cancelled."

"Or maybe she forgot about it. She hasn't cancelled it."

I felt the shape of a plan settle into place, rough but usable.

"That works. I can work with it... Actually, we can work with it." I told her with a small smile, letting her know we were going to be in it together.

Jonquil studied me with a longer look than usual. There was something careful in it, not doubt exactly, but the weight of someone who had already stood for me once and was now watching me walk toward another risk.

"Whatever happens after you go in is not something I can control, you should know that." she said.

"Her mood is bad. She has been given a task with no clean solution. You should move carefully. If she decides you are wasting her time, she will not be gentle about removing you."

"I will be careful." I met her eyes and held them. "Thank you. For the information. And for not telling me this is a stupid idea even though you are thinking it."

A faint shift touched the corner of her mouth, gone almost as soon as it appeared.

"I am thinking it," she said. "But I still told you the opening."

A dry chuckle escaped me. I was knowing this woman and now that I was, I was finding her interesting.

That landed harder than the words themselves. Jonquil did not waste trust. She also did not hand people tools to get themselves hurt unless she had already decided the risk was worth it. The fact that she was helping me walk into Belladonna's space said more about how far we had come than any System notification ever had.

I stood up. "Then let's use the opening before she changes the routine."

Jonquil rose with me.

"You stay back first. I will go and check if the washers are ready then stop them." she said. I nodded in understanding and instead of sitting back, I rested by the wall and watched her leave the room.

~~~~~~~~~~

One hour later we stood a short distance from Belladonna's cottage. It sat apart from the others, larger and more solid, the kind of place that made its rank obvious without needing decoration or banners.

Two Bounds waited nearby with an empty basket, clearly unsure why a ranked Flower had interrupted their normal route and even less sure about the Alien standing beside her.

Jonquil spoke to them in short, firm sentences. Whatever she said removed any idea of argument. They handed the basket over and stepped back without looking at me directly. She turned and held it out.

"Enter the way they do," she said and before I asked how they did it, she began explaining;

"No words. Knock twice. Go in. Stand in the outer room and stay silent until she calls for the basket to be brought further. After that, you are on your own. I cannot follow you in, and I cannot fix it if she decides to make an example of you."

I took the basket. The woven handles sat rough against my palms. The weight of it was nothing; the weight of what it represented was heavier.

"Understood." I nodded sharply.

Jonquil remained where she was for a moment longer than necessary. Her eyes moved over my face once more, steady and unreadable to anyone who did not know her. In the end she only gave a small nod.

"Do not let your head be severed from your neck in there," she said simply.

Then she turned and walked back toward her own cottage without waiting for an answer. I watched her go until she was far enough that turning back would have looked like hesitation.

She cared for me enough to not want me to die? I blinked at the realization. Well, this wasn't the time to start analysing that.

I faced the General's door.

The cottage looked quiet. The kind of quiet that belonged to someone who had ordered the world to leave her alone and expected the order to be obeyed.

I adjusted my grip on the basket, drew a slow breath, and walked up to the entrance. Two knocks, firm and evenly spaced. I waited one full second - long enough to be correct, short enough not to seem uncertain, then pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The outer room was larger than I expected and completely without softness.Dark wood. Clean lines. Weapons on wall mounts within easy reach. A low table held a stack of reports or maps, the edges slightly disordered as if someone had been going through them more than once. Everything about the space said function, rank, and a complete lack of interest in comfort. It suited her.

I stood where a Bound was supposed to stand, or so I believe, not too far from the entrance. I had the basket held in both my hands, and kept my mouth shut.

My eyes moved across the room while I waited, cataloguing exits, angles, and anything that might become useful in the next few minutes.

The plan was simple on the surface: get her attention, offer something she actually needed, and survive long enough for her to consider it instead of removing me. The reality would depend entirely on how close she was to deciding that violence was cleaner than conversation.

I was still turning the first line of the approach over in my head when movement at the entrance to the inner room caught my eye.

I stopped.

Whatever I saw there pulled the half-formed words straight out of my mind and left me standing in silence, staring.