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One after the other, her breakfast companions begin to depart, hurried and purposeful. The air swirls the last plumes of smoke from the ashes in the tray on the table, and for a moment HĂ©lĂšne contemplates the visual as she grapples with her mounting fear. The heavy weight of panic presses in on her, unseen danger coming from all sides, and for a moment she almost canât breathe.
But just as quickly as her dread overwhelms her, it lifts again, problems and plots successfully shoved into a dark corner to contemplate later. There are enemies on all sides, now. I longer have the luxury of indulging my distress. Failure is not an option. The manta helps to settle her, the familiar thought a double-edged sword. She had almost forgotten, in her preoccupation with the games of the House. To lose three agents in a single night alone meant the deck was no longer stacked in their favor, that the Kazetaniâs accusations held far more weight than she initially thought. If they were compromised now, among enemies seen and unseen, it would do well to keep together where they could, out of fray where they couldnât, and unmask their enemies when possible. They were, as her countrymen say, in des Teufels KĂŒche sein.
Looking up, HĂ©lĂšne regards the American across from her, his red hair fiery and his eyes bright. He would need to follow in a moment, and she had the dubious pleasure of covertly interviewing as many officers as she could find, in hopes of running into her proverbial needle in the haystack.
âBefore you leave, if you could tell me more details on your encounter with the red-eyed man? You mentioned seeing him late last night,â she interrupts the slight lull with a business-like focus she did not show the night before.
âI told you everythinâ I had to say. He had red eyes, white haiâ,â Claire stops before clearing his throat, ââscuse me. Red eyes, white hair, and this powerful aura like nothing a normal guy would have. I was taking a smoke break in the hallway of our car before heading back to me and Mouseâs room when he was just standing there. I offered him a match and he just stared at me, not saying a damn thing.â
He shakes his head.
âI didnât want any trouble so I just let him be,â he finishes with a sigh.
âAch,â she says softly, âI see. Thank you for the detail, Herr Stanfield. I will do my utmost to uncover him.â
HĂ©lĂšneâs mind spins with new information, the rising panic that this unknown Saniwa was just outside the door while she slept last night all together too daunting to fully contemplate. Her thoughts stutter with fear for a moment, and she lets the redhead go with an absent minded farewell, still turning over the facts in her mind. The singer rises from the table, mindful of the censure she might receive at seating herself at the officerâs table even as she worries at this new issue.
He was dressed in an officerâs uniform, appearing at dinnertime in this dining car; It follows he should be taking his meals from here. He left immediately after seeing Frau Austerlitz and I, but he left the way he came. Did he he wait us out in the passenger car? He must have⊠and ran into Herr Stanfield on his way back. She snorts, a little incredulous as a plan coalescences into shape. It seems I will have to smoke him out of the passenger car at very least, and besiege this car too. She smiles wryly to herself, I havenât yet had the opportunity to starve out an officer before, this is a mission of firsts.
Plans made, her thoughts turn darker and closer to home. She had lightly thought Amelia a gamesmaster, but to hear second hand such vital information⊠perhaps to be in the grace of a Frenchwoman was a poor place indeed. With how precarious the womanâs position had become in just a night, Frau Renard and her vague promises of alliance the evening before cast a more sinister light on her offerings of friendship, and her tight-lipped hoarding of intelligence even more still. Paranoia rearing, HĂ©lĂšne wanders with purpose out of the dining car, through and pointedly past her shared sleeping space and out into the whipping air between cars.
With a firm tug she opens the door to the passenger car, steely purpose filling her as bolsters herself for the charming mask she doesnât quite feel, and a naivete she can no longer cosset.
Some interminable hours later, having faithly made small talk and covertly attempting to poke at various officersâ backgrounds while seeming to invite flirtation without quite encouraging it, HĂ©lĂšneâs resolve feels less like steel and more like badly made ersatz meat, watery and bland where it should be supple and flavorful. For a moment she thinks mournfully of the dayâs meals, while not quite awful even with the company she had had to endure, disappointing all the same.
The day had past more slowly than sheâd hoped but more quickly than she had been prepared for, and now here she sat, leaning against the wall of the dining car at the same table she had started at, an odd sense of symmetry. She plays at leisure, resting her head against palm and idly watching the night fly by through the window. Her inattention is, of course, only a ruse to discourage any other enterprising individuals from joining her at the her now empty table. It had been full and lively only a couple hours before, her company at dinner a popular commodity, but as it had grown later and later the car had emptied out again as the men had left for their duties or their beds. HĂ©lĂšne leans a little harder into the wall, and sighs quietly, the vision of the sweeping darkness outside blurring as she eyes the lightly rattling door at the end of the car through her lashes. None of the men she had meet today had matched Herr Stanfieldâs description or her memories even remotely, and blurring of her thoughts made it clear that her need for sleep was a looming threat she could no longer ignore.
The impotent frustration of her failed hunt mixed quietly into the dread of returning to sleep, creating a muddy anxiety that crawled through her bones. Discovering what would be waiting for her in her sleeping quarters was a double-edged sword she was not ready to catch. The truth of her roommateâs fate was an ultimatum she was too exhausted to receive, but time waited for no man and certainly never any women. Achingly she admitted defeat and strolled out into the bitter night as fear and adrenaline wound through her guts.
Stepping in from cold, HĂ©lĂšne softly shut the train door behind her, blinking into the deeper shadows of the sleeping car. Movement out of the corner of her eye jolts her, and she spins to face it in surprise.
Red eyes blink back at her from pale, handsome face, and before she can stop herself, she blurts out in astonishment,
âAch! Itâs you! â