He gazed out into the night. Distant lantern lights bobbed along the walls that surrounded the castle grounds as guards went about their patrols. Others walked the paths below. Fortunately their light would not reach him.

It wasn’t just the desire to restore his lands that drove him to take such risks. No, something about his secret work, about climbing one of the most secure walls in all of Sacoridia thrilled him, made his pulse rush, made him feel alive. It was like stepping on death’s threshold, but cheating it. He guessed his grandsire must have felt much the same in his youth, and maybe there was something of a gambler in him, too, like there was in his father.

He was about to begin his descent when light grew in Lady Estora’s chamber. He stopped himself and peered into the window again, careful to edge away from view. Lady Estora entered the room, her maidservant behind her bearing a lamp. So she hadn’t been in bed at all. He surmised the lady had been wandering the corridors again, which he observed her doing several times. He wondered what she thought about as she walked at night. What had she to concern herself with? Her father and clan were prosperous, and she was about to make the best marriage match in the land.

The servant took away Lady Estora’s shawl, folding it and storing it in a wardrobe, then returned to start unfastening the hooks on the back of the lady’s dress. At first he watched transfixed as the dress began to fall, revealing pale skin and the corset, then he averted his eyes, blinking in confusion.

He was a gentleman, not a voyeur, he reminded himself. A gentleman who crept into the sleeping chambers of ladies and sometimes bedded them. How different was this? Was it not less invasive? Who would know if he watched?

I would.

He glanced through the window. The maidservant was now untying the bonds of the corset. He swallowed, taking in the curve of Lady Estora’s bare shoulders and arms, the plumpness of partially revealed, creamy breasts that had never known harsh sunlight. And again, he forcefully averted his gaze, feeling overheated.

This was his future queen, his cousin’s wife-to-be, not some courtesan to toy with. He had gazed in like a hungry animal and it was difficult to withdraw his gaze; it was equally difficult not to peer in again. Most considered her the greatest beauty of the land, and he could not argue, but it made him feel base, a beast unrefined, wild.

He struggled within himself for an unmeasurable time, but his will held out and he did not look in again until he deemed the danger well past. When he did so, he saw that the maidservant had left. Lady Estora sat at her vanity gazing into her mirror without expression. Her white nightgown flowed from her shoulders in elegant folds, pooling at her feet. Her golden hair, now unbound, tumbled down her back in waves that shone in the lamplight. If possible, he found her more lovely than ever, the heat rising in him again.

She then placed her face in her hands, her shoulders trembling as though she wept. This was somehow even more embarrassing to view than her undressing. What sadness afflicted her? Certainly it could not be his cousin, could it? Zachary was a just king and treated her with kindness. It would be beyond the best dreams of most ladies to be marrying one such as he.

He found himself pitying her for whatever sadness assailed her, but in his guise as the Raven Mask, he could not allow himself to get caught up in it. To do so would endanger his task. He drew away from the window and began his descent.

Amberhill crept through the window and into the house as stealthily as he would any he was intent upon stealing from, but his aim wasn’t to pilfer jewels. Rather, this was his own house he rented in the noble quarter, and his object was to not rouse Morry.

The house was, by necessity, the smallest in the neighborhood. He could not afford one of the larger, ostentatious manses that dwarfed this one, though by some standards his rental was perfectly spacious and elegant. It also served his purposes well. Tucked back from the street and shrouded by shrubbery and trees planted by an overzealous gardener, it offered the Raven Mask concealment for his comings and goings. Since he often hunted the noble quarter for his trinkets, the location was perfect.

He closed the window behind him and latched it shut. He peeled off his mask and stood there in the library releasing a long, tired sigh and flexing his sore arm. It would be fine in a few days. He just wouldn’t scale any more walls in the meantime.

He’d left himself a lamp at low glow and now he turned it up, only to find, to his surprise, his manservant sitting in the shadows by the unlit fireplace.

“Morry!” Amberhill exclaimed. “What are you doing up?”

The older gentleman was in his sleeping clothes and a robe, but quite awake.

“You did not tell me you were going out tonight.”

Amberhill ran the silk mask between his fingers. Usually he told Morry precisely what he was up to when he went out as the Raven Mask, but even so, it rankled that Morry should need to know his every move as if he were still a boy.

“It is not necessary for you to wait up every time I go out,” he replied.

“The idea is that I be included in the plan in case there is trouble,” Morry said.

“I wasn’t anticipating trouble.” There easily could have been, but Amberhill wasn’t about to admit it.

“Well, then, what treasures did you bring home?”

“Er, none.” Amberhill hadn’t expected to be interrogated upon his return, and he found himself grasping for an explanation that would not reveal what he’d really been up to. He didn’t care to imagine Morry’s rebuke if he found out the Raven Mask had been scaling castle walls and peering into Lady Estora’s window. “I was out practicing my skills. More of a walk in the shadows, really.”