Yasmine gave her a big smile and then ducked back into the hallway, hurrying to her room so that no one would ever be the wiser.
Packing her things was pathetically simple. She didn’t have much, and she had barely unpacked any of it anyway.
After a depressingly few minutes, her bag was packed and sitting on her bed, ready to go.
Now it was just a matter of figuring out how to leave.
She hoped that security might willingly at least take her to the village where she could figure out other transport off Ulfgard. She didn’t have many credits. Her signing bonus hadn’t hit her account yet, and she was pretty sure it wasn’t going to, now that she had been unceremoniously fired after only two days of work.
And she hadn’t even tried to think about where she would go once she got back to Terra-17.
Her cheap efficiency unit had been rented out to someone else when she told them she was leaving. And now she didn’t have a job to secure another lease.
She thought about asking her stepdad if she could sleep on his sofa for a night or two and shuddered. Maybe the eldercare would let her sleep on one of the emergency cots until she found something else.
Her heart was thundering and there was a cold sweat at her temples.
Breathe. Find your center. Bring order to your thoughts.
She had to take this one step at a time. Right now, she just had to get out of the palace.
But she really, really didn’t want to call down to the guard station for a ride. And she wasn’t sure they would respond to her anyway.
They let me wander around in his wife’s wedding hat all day. Why would they help me now?
Inspiration struck suddenly. Janice, back at the Alien Nanny Agency, had told her she could call anytime she got stuck or had a question.
She was pretty sure this wasn’t what Janice had in mind, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Surely, the agency could make some sort of arrangement with the palace to get her out of there, since they had gotten her in. They would probably be bringing in the next nanny anyway. Maybe she could leave with that shuttle.
She swiped her comms and tapped on Janice’s contact.
“Alien Nanny Agency, how may I help you?” Janice’s cheerful voice sang out.
Her happy tone was so at odds with Yasmine’s state of mind that she opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
“Hello?” Janice said.
“It’s um, it’s Yasmine Hall,” she muttered miserably. “I’m on assignment at the palace on Ulfgard.”
“Starbursts of Nebulon,” Janice declared. “I wondered when I was going to hear from you. Are you okay?”
“Uh, yes,” Yasmine said. “And no.”
“You know normally our nannies are on the job for at least a week before they hit the news cycles,” Janice teased.
“I’m still not one-hundred percent sure what happened,” Yasmine said. “But that hat I was wearing belonged to his wife?”
“Hang tight,” Janice said. “I’m searching it now. I believe there’s more nuance to it than that.”
“Oh, stars,” Yasmine whispered.
“Oh wow, yeah,” Janice said, sounding almost impressed. “So, a traditional headpiece is worn at Thyphian weddings. Each gem represents something - family members, commitment between the partners. And any additional decorations can be meaningful, too. Mrs. Kreed’s headpiece had a feather from the last living zyrkabird, a special gift from the Hryy Nation.”
“He said something like that about the feather,” Yasmine murmured, the gravity of what she had done coming down even more heavily on her.
“Yes,” Janice went on. “He was already kind of a big deal by then, and her parents are loaded. That headpiece might be one of the most famous fashion accessories on Ulfgard. You really stepped in it, sister. At least you can’t do anything worse than that.”
Yasmine chose not to share that she had sort of slept with the man.