“A Concubine?” repeated Verna, glancing at Cassandra. “Mie, what the hell have you gotten yourself into this time?”
“Mind your own business, V. But thanks, you did get everything!”
“Hey, I want my money, Mie. Now! Or I’m ratting you two out to the soldiers. I’m not stupid, you know!”
Missandra sighed, took out the little purse, and threw it to her. Verna caught it and started fanatically counting the money. It was a minute, but then her angry expression slowly returned.
“Are you kidding me!? This isn’t even a fifth of what you promised! I knew I couldn’t trust you!”
“Do you think I’m walking around with gold bars in my purse? You’ll get the rest once you get us inside!”
Verna seemed to hesitate for a moment, glancing at Cassandra and Missandra. Her eyes fell on Kassian too, for a couple of minutes. The baby was awake and quietly laying in the fabric tied around his mother, his mouth making a little O. Verna spent a few more seconds observing his features and his mother’s skin tone before her eyes went back to Missandra’s bag with a suspicious frown.
“A Concubine, you said? You’re not going to get me into more trouble, are you?”
“I promise, as soon as we get to my residence safely, I’ll make sure you get the rest of your money,” said Cassandra.
She was desperate, but if the woman didn’t help them now or decided to sell them out to the soldiers, the situation would take a tragic turn. Cassandra only hoped that the people at the residence still had enough money on hand to pay the difference. They didn’t want to lose any more time. If Kassian cried or Kian got impatient, the soldiers could notice them, and then they’d all easily be captured. At least once they were past the gates and inside the Capital they would be safer.
Verna clicked her tongue.
“Fuck you, Mie, you better have my money or I swear I’m exposing you to the first guard I see!”
Missandra nodded and gathered everything inside the bag again. Then she grabbed Cassandra’s arm, pulling her sister away from the crowd to a spot under some trees where no one would see or disrupt them.
“So, these people are probably going to be looking for girls matching our physical description. Even if we’re disguised as slaves, we still couldn’t just walk in. That’s why I asked Verna to bring all of this.” Missandra motioned over all the little pots of make-up.
“Will this really tan our skin enough to blend in with the locals? Is that even possible?”
“Of course! You have no idea how much make-up the girls inside the brothels used. First, this is to dye our hair black. It’s rather quick and they use it all the time. There was an uproar every time someone spotted a white hair. Oh, and this is for naturally tanning the skin. I’m not sure how much it’ll work on us but at least we won’t look as white. Crap, I hope there’s enough. Well, we don’t need to be completely coated, as long as we keep our arms covered and are careful about our hands.”
Cassandra kept nodding, she was truly impressed. Her sister had really become a master at deceiving people. To even think up such a plan so fast was a little bit scary, but still extremely impressive.
“What about Kian and Kassian? They’re going to search our bags, and if they find us with a baby...”
“We can have Verna carry him. She doesn’t look anything like you and thankfully, he looks more like his dad.”
“Excuse me!” said Verna, looking astonished. “I never agreed to smuggle someone else’s brat in!”
“Stop fussing, think about the money,” retorted Missandra, brushing her aside. “The problem is Kian. It’s not going to be that easy to conceal a dragon, he’s already almost too big for the bag and they are definitely going to check it.”
Cassandra glanced at the sky with a little frown on.
“We can try having him fly over the wall. He probably won’t want to follow me through the crowd and might decide to just fly over the wall himself.”
“Yeah. That would work. We just need to make sure the baby flying lizard could be mistaken for a bird. A very big bird, but still, a bird nonetheless.”
The two sisters spent the next hour dying their hair black and covering their skin with the bronzing powder, making sure nothing was too unnatural. They couldn’t hide the color of their eyes, but this was another advantage of posing as slaves; their eyes would be directed at the ground with no one questioning it. It actually didn’t take them as long to cover Kian with dust, making sure the silver scales weren’t shining anymore and covering its tail with leaves to make them look like feathers. The result was quite strange, leaving Verna, who was still speechless about the Baby Dragon in the first place, with a grin.
“You think people will take that for a bird? Are you insane? He would have a better chance of posing as a cat with wings!”
“Oh, shut up,” retorted Missandra. “We’re not taking him to be examined up close, he just needs to fly above us for less than a minute and come back down. No one will give a second glance at a bird and there are several sizable falcons living in the area. We just need the illusion to last for as long as it takes us to cross that border.”
“You’re crazy,” concluded Verna. “A crazy genius, but crazy. I’m still holding you to what you owe me even if this doesn’t work”
“Stop whining. We just need to set you up with Kassian, cross that stupid checkpoint and you’ll get your money.”
Cassandra frowned. Aside from Missandra, she was very reluctant to let another woman carry her child. However, she didn’t have much of a choice right now, and it would only be for a few minutes. The two girls made sure the baby was comfortably secured against Verna, and Cassandra kissed his forehead gently, making sure he wasn’t too perturbed by the new person. He had been carried by Missandra several times before and rarely cried. Kian was usually the one to get fussy.
