“Suitors?” She took the cue from Tora, and followed suit: stuffing food into her mouth and purse. She had a feeling this would be her last chance for that.
“Yeah, I’ve got like seven or eight duels I don’t plan on doing. That Mina is well-liked!” He ate a couple mini cheesecakes and continued moving rapidly down the buffet. “There’s also a guy who’s mad at me because I’m Cleandro? Or he’s Cleandro? I’m unclear. Anyway, people want me dead is the point.”
“Oh dear.” Ariscille grabbed a silver tray of devilled eggs and poured it into her purse as she followed Tora. A fellow guest at the buffet watched them dumbfounded, holding his glass of champagne numbly in front of him. Tora grabbed the glass as he passed, drained it in a gulp, and handed it back before the man could even blink.
Voices from the crowd bellowed behind them.
“LORD AMBROCIO! YOU WILL DUEL ME!”
“COME BACK, YOU FIEND! SIR XANDER!”
“WHERE HAVE YOU GONE, EREL?!”
“Right. Think thas’ as much as we’re gettin’.” Tora said as he shoved a few more cured meats into his jacket.
“Well at least we didn’t set anything on fire this time.” Ariscille shrugged as she grabbed a handful of olives.
“BY THE GODS! WHO SET THE HEDGES ON FIRE?!” A voice cried in the distance.
Tora and Ariscille paused in the midst of their looting and exchanged looks.
“Does it count if I don’t remember how that happened?” Tora tried.
“Let’s just say no,” Ariscille said decisively.
The two nodded in agreement; Ariscille grabbed one more tray of food; Tora snatched a bottle of champagne; and the two scampered off giggling like teenagers, accidentally knocking over a garden statue of some old man as they went.
*
Tora stood in the dim light of his shoddily made thief den: a single mattress for a bed surrounded by junk, hidden in the depths of some ruins just outside a human village. Shrouded on all sides by crumbling stone with only the moonlight to guide him, he deftly shuffled through the mess towards his bed and started emptying his pockets onto it.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
A variety of small colorful glass bottles dropped one after the other onto the bed into a small pile. He reached over and spread them out so he could see them better.
Perfume bottles. Lots of them.
He pulled one last bottle from his pocket: a seashell shaped cologne he’d swiped
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