Leisha had given Shade the authority to enter and leave the study as he pleased, so when Shade found a maid and asked her to open the door, the somewhat frightened maid immediately went to the butler for the key.
Shade's existence was also something of a secret among the servants of Sophia Manor. Only Leisha's Personal Maids knew who he was. A very small number of servants knew that Her Royal Highness the Princess had "kept a man" in the manor during her stay in Coldwater Port, while the others did not even know that "John Watson" existed.
Everyone in the manor had now been gathered by the elderly Old Butler behind the doors on the 1st Floor, preparing to deal with any scattered intruders who might appear. Shade did not want too many people seeing his face, so he remained alone in the study, standing before the floor-to-ceiling window and watching the situation outside.
He had thought the battle would end quickly, but the gunfight continued for twenty minutes and only grew fiercer.
Shade was not anxious, but he sensed that something was wrong. He paced around the study, considering their current predicament, then wondering how many bullets he could take before dying.
Theoretically, as long as he was not killed by a single shot, Shade could use False Immortality to give himself a chance to fight back. But if he suffered another severe injury during the half-hour duration of False Immortality, the curse's effect would immediately vanish. That was its greatest flaw.
The faint yellow light of the brass gas lamp illuminated the Outlander as he counted the lethal spots on his body. Just then, someone actually knocked on the study door.
"Hmm?"
He turned around in surprise. Before he could speak, a burly man with messy