Just do the job and get out, Jeth reminded himself. Play it safe. No tricks. No mischief. But the resolution didn’t make him feel any better as Danforth slid the lid into place, sealing Jeth in darkness.
CHAPTER 03
BY THE TIME THEY ARRIVED ON THE PALACE GROUNDS, Jeth had forgotten about his paranoia. The job demanded all his attention and focus. They had made it past the security checkpoints without problems, and Shady and Danforth had let the others out the moment they’d finished unloading the first round of barrels for the party.
Soon after, Celeste assumed her role as servant with remarkable ease, managing to get all the relays for the master control hub and comm into place. The role allowed her to come and go from the palace without passing through the metal detectors. All servants were supposed to have gone through a physical security check at the gate.
Once the unit was up and running, Danforth and Lizzie hacked into the palace’s security system, Lizzie radiating eagerness like some kind of electrical current. Flynn’s and Shady’s parts would come later.
Now it was Jeth’s turn to get into place. He approached the long flight of wide marble steps that led up to the massive pavilion lining the front of the emperor’s palace. A row of white pillars, carved in the likenesses of warrior men and women wearing fitted helmets and armor, held up the pavilion’s roof like priests in a religious ritual. The main doors to the palace stood open, with lines of armed sentries sporting the red uniform of the emperor’s personal guard flanking both sides of the doors.
At the sight of them, Jeth reached up and scratched behind his ear, surreptitiously pressing the communicator patch affixed to his skin. “Heading in. Turning you off,” he whispered.
“Gotcha, Longshot,” Lizzie’s voice echoed inside his ear a second later. The sound of it made him stumble in shock.
“What are you doing on the line?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got it covered. Just call me Little Hawk.”
Jeth grimaced. His little sister, first-time criminal.
Shoving the thought away before one of the guards noticed the grim look on his face, Jeth pressed the patch again, holding it long enough to terminate the connection completely.
He willed a confident smile as he stepped into the line for the security check. When he reached the front, he slid his counterfeit invitation out of his back pocket and handed it to a gray-haired man. The man’s bored expression remained in place as he slid the invitation through the scanner. The red light on the scanner turned green at once with an audible beep.
“ID please,” the man said, still not looking up. Jeth suspected he might start yawning any second.
Jeth considered cracking a joke, but held back, his new resolution to play it safe echoing in his head. He pressed his right thumb to the reader and its light switched from red to green in moments.
“Enjoy your stay,” the gray-haired man said, handing the invitation back.
“Oh, I plan to,” Jeth said, allowing himself a moment’s indulgence of the old cocky attitude. He’d learned early that confidence could take you through any number of sticky situations. He slid the invitation back into his pocket for safekeeping.
He passed through the main doors without hesitating, even though he was well aware that full body scanners had been attached to the doorframes to check his person for metal or anything else suspicious. The only things Jeth had to worry about were the contact lens in his right eye and the communicator patch. But the former was too small to show up on a scan, and with the latter powered off, there was no chance of it registering.
Jeth waited until he entered the grand ballroom at the end of the long main hallway to power the communicator back on. The music, something fast with heavy bass, was loud enough to make the insides of his ears numb. So loud that he couldn’t actually hear himself speak as he said into the comm, “Entry achieved.”
“Good job, Longshot,” Lizzie said. “You’ve got fifty-three minutes until your rendezvous with Tailspin.”
“Roger.” This time he left the connection open.
He slowly swept his gaze over the room, taking in the scene. Hundreds of people filled the center of the dance floor, their bodies writhing and bouncing in and out of rhythm with the music. More people mingled about the buffet tables set around the edges of the room and covered with decadent foods. Jeth was pleased to see that most of the boys his age sported the same kind of ridiculous getup as he did.
The realization bolstered his confidence, and he strode forward, swiping a glass of champagne from a passing server. He took a slow, easy drink. He had to be careful not to overdo it, but a drink was a good prop to help him blend in.
He made his way through the crowd, eying the spots in the room relevant to the plan. There was the eastern wall where he would meet Celeste. Across from it was the hallway that led out onto the terrace. His ultimate destination lay through the second door on the left down that hallway.
Satisfied with his orientation, Jeth headed deeper into the crowd, looking for a way to pass the time. As he moved, he scanned the faces, keeping a lookout for security in plainclothes. In seconds he identified two definites and a third maybe. The maybe was a big dude, the bulge of his thick muscles visible through his long-sleeved shirt. He looked too old to be a contemporary of the princess and too rough around the edges to be a rich relative or other noble. Yet he also didn’t match the other two, a blunt axe in a pile of ceremonial daggers.
For a second Jeth thought the man noticed him, and he turned away, heading for cover among the dancers. He meant to just pass through them, but before he knew it, a girl in a yellow dress grabbed him by the hand and pulled him into a dance. Jeth considered brushing her off, but she was pretty and smelled good.
Even more enticing was the solid gold bracelet hanging loose on her wrist. It would fetch a price back home, and so long as his extracurricular activities didn’t interfere with Hammer’s business or profits, Jeth was free to pinch what he could. Every little bit helped him in his quest to make Avalon his own.
But then he remembered Lizzie’s presence and his vow not to take any unnecessary chances. Dammit.
The girl, tipsy enough to be unsteady in her high heels, didn’t notice his disappointment as she yanked the champagne glass out of his hand, downed the rest of it in one gulp, and tossed the empty glass to a passing waiter, who barely caught it. Then she dragged Jeth forward, pressing her body against his as she began to dance. Shrugging, Jeth went with it. There were less entertaining ways to pass the time.
He stayed on the dance floor more than thirty minutes, dancing with a string of different girls before finally ditching the last and slipping away. He made a beeline for the nearest buffet table, where he’d been intending to go before the girl in the yellow dress had waylaid him. He hadn’t gotten to pilot, and he wasn’t about to pass up the only other decent part of this job. Jeth helped himself to cheese, grapes, some kind of meat on a stick—real meat, not the imitation stuff, which was all he could afford at the spaceport he called home—and a bread roll doused in butter.
Oh, the perks of the job.
Even though he knew he might regret it later, Jeth made a second pass, grazing through the platters he’d skipped the first time. He finished up with a strawberry that he dipped in a fountain of warm liquid chocolate for several seconds before popping it into his mouth.
“One might think you only came for the food.”