Diana yawned as she opened her heavy eyes. The video should be over by now?
With the few Thyran Vessels on site, she'd been overworked.
Diana knew that she should've been watching Flint, but she really needed a nap. It didn't matter anyway, where would he go? With how Lord Norvall had described him, he was probably dozing off.
She walked out of the back room, furnished with some soft leather couches and a small TV – which made it a favorite place for her to hide and waste time.
"Flint?"
No response. Maybe he really was asleep.
"I can't hear his breathing though," mused Diana.
She walked over to the exit and opened the door, which had a male servant situated in front of it.
"Jacob, have you seen a kid come out here?"
Jacob grimaced. "Yes, Lady Diana. He asked me to point him towards the bathroom, and briefly mentioned having constipation."
Diana raised an eyebrow. "How could he be constipated? For the past three days, the boy was hooked up to an IV drip. You did follow him to the bathroom, correct?"
"N-no I didn't. But when he was sprinting to the toilets, I stopped hearing his footsteps around the time he should've entered the bathroom."
Diana groaned. "Go check if he's inside the toilets."
The servant nodded and broke into a sprint – well, more like a jog – to the toilets.
As she watched Jacob head to the toilets, Diana began to feel slightly worried. If anything happened to Flint, the blame would fall to her.
—
To hell with anyone who thought Flint would allow his soul to be tampered with.
The implications of why the Thyrans had been studying how to artificially Hollow someone were something Flint really didn't want to think about.
Shaking his head, he crept slowly through the hallways, using his fragmented knowledge of the routes Rorie and Diana had taken him to make his way through.
To avoid the few Thyrans he sensed along his path, Flint ducked into any nearby doorway. Of course, this wasn't enough to avoid detection, so he deliberately stifled his breathing and dimmed the circulation of his soul Essence. Even if he wasn't able to control it, with his close proximity to Vessels all his life, this was something even he could do.
Flint was much more lenient around servants, and thus he was stopped by them several times. Fortunately, all he had to do was say he was on an errand from Diana, causing all of them to back off.
Taking a moment to catch his breath, Flint had finally reached the lobby area. He took a deep breath, looking into his mind's eye and imagining a leather dagger in his hand. A full minute passed before it appeared, the expensive dagger his brother had given to him as a present. Flint wasn't quite sure how it worked, but the fact that he could summon it without yet being a Vessel attested to its value.
It was beautifully balanced, feeling like an extension of his body. Before confirming that the lobby was empty he dashed through, making his way outside onto the gravel path.
He eyed the gate, before turning his attention to the two gardeners sitting under the shade of the spruce tree.
They eyed Flint's dagger with caution as the older one approached him.
"Might I ask what you're doing out here?"
"Open the gate."
They looked at each other, confused. "Sir, I need a reason–"
"I won't tell you for a third time."
This probably wasn't the best way to go about it, but Flint was running low on time. Who knew when Diana would catch wind of his lie.
A raven descended, landing on the spruce tree, as if wanting to watch the corresponding scene.
The gardener glanced at the raven momentarily, before nodding to the younger one to open the gate.
Flint sighed in relief. In truth, he wasn't sure if the gardeners had the soul clearance Norvall mentioned. Now, his escape was almost guaranteed. All he'd have to do would be find and commandeer a nearby vehicle. He'd have to lie low for a couple years – since the Thyrans wouldn't want him to spill their little secret prematurely.
He grinned. How much could he sell that tidbit of information for?
As the gardener youth moved towards the gate, Flint barked at him to speed up, before hearing a dreadful voice.
"Are you threatening our staff?"
Next to where the raven was perched on the spruce tree now sat a furious-looking Diana.