CHAPTER 153: NIGHT UNDER COVERS

He finally left the bath reluctantly, like someone leaving a dream too short, his body trembling with heat, his mind still numb.

Water slid slowly down his skin, tracing paths through the defeated grime. He grabbed the rough towel left on a rickety stool, rubbed himself dry like a cat without much motivation, then slipped into the shirt Jonas had lent him — something too big, too soft, that smelled faintly of dried leaves and pipe tobacco.

He glanced at himself in the cracked mirror on the wall. His brown skin glowed with a soft warmth under the oil lamp, and the lingering steam made him look like a wandering spirit in search of a body.

"Not bad..." he murmured, tucking a damp curl behind his ear.

He returned to his room, his bare feet tapping quietly against the wood. Once inside, he opened his suitcase — that old, battered thing as worn as he was — and started sorting through it.

His old clothes — the ones worn during the crossing, during survival, during those endless days of walking — were in pitiful shape. Torn fabrics, soaked, burnt, clumsily patched with bits of string and pride.

But they were still military outfits.

Tough, technical, made to survive extreme climates, falls, battles — or lukewarm baths in a world without soap.

He unfolded them, studied them for a moment.

Here, they would stand out.

In a world stuck somewhere between the age of blades and the first powders, wearing those kinds of clothes was like shouting "I’m either a fallen noble or a spy." And in both cases... not great.

He set them aside. Maybe they could be washed. Maybe a tailor — a brave one — could do something with these modern relics.

But not now.

Not while all eyes weren’t yet on him. Not until he’d figured out who he was supposed to be here.

That’s why he’d made a small deal with Jonas. A clothing loan in exchange for... something else. A silent contract, struck between two slightly twisted minds made to understand each other.

It wasn’t free, of course.

Nothing was here. Not even the baths.

He adjusted the shirt again, smoothed the sleeves with a bit too much care, as if he were heading to a ball. Then he stretched deeply, arms reaching for the ceiling, and let out a yawn that could have woken the dead.

"It’s not time yet to think about all the important stuff," he thought, as he let himself fall onto the edge of the bed.

Tomorrow, maybe, he’d return to the calculations, the strategies, the masks.

But for now?

Just silence. Just a borrowed shirt. And his skin, warm and clean.

Almost happy.

The word echoed in his mind, fragile as a soap bubble. Almost.

There was still the throbbing pain in his rebellious toe, the lingering memory of that breath on his neck in the bath, the scratchiness of the fabric against his skin, and that dull tension, always present, like a wire stretched in the dark, ready to snap at the slightest pull.

Total happiness? Complete peace? A long-lost commodity.

But this almost...

This almost was already a treasure. A small miracle wrung from fatigue, dried blood in the seams, and nightmares lying in wait.

He slid back, lying flat on the too-thin mattress. His arms wrapped around the pillow, which he pressed against his face. It smelled of dry hay, old linens, and something undefinable — a little sweet, a little forgotten. The scent of a place that had known other bodies, other aches.

A final sigh left his lips. One of those sighs that doesn’t come from the nose or throat, but from the gut — from that deep place where you bury the things you don’t want to face.

Beneath him, the wood creaked like an old secret.

Outside, nothing.

No voices. No hoofbeats. Just the oil lamp in the hallway, whose warm, flickering light filtered under the door, drawing a thin, glowing line across the dusty floor.

Dylan closed his eyes, letting that sliver of light cross his mind like a threshold he wasn’t ready to cross.

He clung to the feeling of cleanliness.

To the soft warmth of his skin.

To the illusion of shelter.

The ceiling, loyal and mute, still watched him.

No judgments. No questions.

For a few hours, maybe, the world could wait.

The rest — the monsters, the memories, the alliances, the secrets, the debts, his companions — all of it could stay outside, just beyond that line of light.

Here and now, there was only this:

A steady breath.

A borrowed shirt.

And that almost happiness glowing faintly in his chest, like a campfire kept alive with whatever one can find.

⸻

Morning did not come with fanfare.

It crept in gently, like a dusting of pale gold slipping under the door, a shy light threading its way between the floorboards, between his eyelids. No bells to rouse the town. No strange alarm. And above all, no danger.

Just a soft knock on the wood. Two taps. Then silence, followed by a voice as disinterested as possible rising behind the door.

"Sir... the soup is ready."

Dylan surfaced slowly, like rising from a well too deep. His mouth was dry, his eyelids stuck, and every part of his body protested at the idea of moving. He rolled onto his side, forehead against the cold wall, trying to cling to sleep for just a few more seconds.

But the voice insisted. A little clearer now. A little closer.

"Sir, can you hear me? It’s going to get cold."

It was her. The red-haired servant. The one from yesterday. The one from the hallway, with the flat green eyes and measured gestures. He thought he could hear, in her voice today, a different tone. Less mechanical. More... human.

He groaned.

"I’m coming..."

Light had now settled into the room. Fluffy. Dusty. It danced over the corners of furniture, revealing without mercy the wrinkles in the shirt he still wore. He sat up slowly, blinked, and ran a hand over his face.

His hair had dried into a mess, sticking in places. His mouth held that strange taste — half failed soap, half leftover dream.

He stood.

His feet met the cold floor.

His wounded toe protested instantly, dragging a quiet curse from his lips.

"Still there, huh..."

He stretched. Long. Lazy. Then grabbed Jonas’s jacket, still hanging on one of the wall’s old nails, and slipped it on without a thought. It was a little big, a little coarse, but it carried the scent of a morning without threats.

He opened his suitcase. Gave it a distracted glance. The military clothes still lay there, stacked with the false innocence of things too valuable to throw away.

But not today.

Not for breakfast.

He opened the door.

The hallway was bathed in soft light. The oil lamp had been blown out. In its place: daylight. The real kind.

And there she was — standing straight like a tired arrow, the red-haired servant, hands clasped, eyes just as green. She looked him up and down, wordlessly.

Then, simply:

"Follow me."