Sneaking through a palace at night was, Yuan had decided somewhere around his third near-collision with a lantern stand, significantly harder than it looked in the novel.
The book had made it sound elegant. Shadows, silence, a hero moving like water between the pillars, every step calculated and soundless. In reality, Yuan's robes kept catching on things, his shoes squeaked on the polished floor no matter how carefully he stepped, and he'd already stubbed his toe twice on the same decorative urn near the east corridor, which he was now fairly sure was cursed and personally out to get him. He'd considered, at one point, simply apologizing to the urn out loud, and had only stopped himself because talking to furniture felt like a new low even for him.
He reached the storage hall a little past the second watch, when the corridors thinned out to the occasional bored guard and the sound of his own heartbeat, which was doing an excellent impression of a war drum.
