“He’s not stealing from me, Booker.” said a sultry voice behind me.

  Both Avril and I spun around. As if a shadow had coalesced into a living form, Lady Alexandra Vandecasteele, an elf, stepped from the deepest recess of the room, dripping elegant menace. She moved with a deliberate grace that contrasted sickeningly with the deliberate mess that was an office. Her eyes, dark and knowing, held a glint of amusement, as if watching us had been a private show. Perhaps it had been. I let our useless illusions drop.

  “Are you both going to pick your jaws up off the floor or should I get a broom?” Her voice was smooth and low, like velvet over steel, cutting through the silence like a butcher’s knife through venison.

  “Yeah, nah,” I said, resorting to a classic Australian phrase in my shock. “A broom would be good.”

  She fluttered her luscious eyelashes at me.

  “Aren’t you the smart one?” she asked sarcastically.

  She was right. I used Stop And Think to buy time. I existed there in the no-time letting my emotions wash away. I internally sighed. This was certainly unexpected. Also, I seemed to have mentally accepted a new quest without thinking about it. I looked at it now: Really? A Femme Fatale? Well, fair enough. Good name. Basically, listen to Vand and accept the next quest from her. Right. I figured I ought to use that time to ask questions about how the hell she ended up here in this room at this exact time. Time returned.

  “Lady Alexandra Vandecasteele, I presume?,” I faux-inquired, standing up straight and extending my hand in the correct way that Avril had taught me as for a respectable commoner to nobility. “Dave Booker, but it seems you already know that. Lovely to meet you.”

  She slunk towards me like a minx, hips swaying. “The pleasure must be mine, Detective,” she purred. Her bronze rank presence felt cloying, surrounding me, entering my mind as she placed her bronze rank hand in mine and allowed me to bow, brushing my lips against the fingers. She turned to Avril. “And may I presume… Avril Reyer? Am I correct?”

  “Milady,” said Avril, taking Vandecasteele’s hand and shakily curtsying. Meanwhile, I took the opportunity to find the latest entries in the accounts book and let my eyes drift over five pages worth. I’d review them later with Library Of The Mind.

  “Should we walk and talk?” I suggested, gesturing at the door.

  “No, I like it here,” answered Vand the hand with a predatory smile. She seemed to fill the room and all thoughts of another answer fled our minds. She prowled to the door and inspected Avril’s work with the drill. “Innovative.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t know about it already,” I said. “You know an awful lot of my team’s secrets. What’s your favourite?”

  “That death essence runic you have who likes to fertilise people’s gardens and give their children sweet treats.”

  My blood ran cold. I used Stop And Think to look something up.

  “You have a soul magnifier array,” I guessed. “Or something like. And focused it on us?”

  “No,” sighed Vandecasteele smugly. “I felt the aura of that perfectly formed blonde walking righteously down the street.” She bit her bottom lip salaciously. “So, I looked into recruiting him and, oh! Death and Truth, I found the whole team worth investigating. You know, I think I might just snap up the lot of you.” She winked. “For a time.”

  I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. After he’d taken that first and only trip into town when we’d first arrived to get a feel for the place, it’d been very hard explaining to Johan that his existence could offend people and that no, he wasn’t allowed to better the place or change anybodys’ minds.

  “What do you want, Vandecasteele,” snapped Avril. I looked and saw that she’d all but finished applying glue to the door and the sawn off nails that we’d planned to put as dummies over the door we’d drilled through. She was smart, that Avril.

  “Oh, but I want to hire Executive Services, of course,” purred Vandecasteele once more in a low voice. “And the first thing I want you to do for me is look more closely in that safe, Dave. Can I call you Dave? I like to think we’re close, Dave.” Her red lips moved into a dazzling smile. “We’re going to be working together.”

  Centring myself and expelling her cloying presence from my mind, I resorted to nonsense. “Dave was my father, you can call me Booker,” Thankfully, this made her elegant eyebrows knit and the feel of her presence taking up the whole room recede. I exhaled a breath I hadn’t even known I was holding in. “Anyway, our fee in this matter will be looting rights with the usual exclusions for heirlooms and items of a personal or administrative nature.”

  Before she could answer I gestured for Avril to handle the contract paperwork and turned back to the safe. In it I found the mayoral baton of office and messages that were obviously coded between Valks and Van der Heijden. That or he really was getting an ominously worded delivery of loomed rugs.

  “No paper trail,” said Vandecasteele, waving Avril down, “But, don’t worry. You’ll get your fee.”

  “Good, good,” I muttered, returning all the items to the safe. “Well, it’s pretty obvious that Van der Heijden is the ‘weaver’, the ‘buyers’ are the people in the plot – the number of orders have gone up over time by the way – and the delivery date is when whatever they’re conspiring about will happen. Also, there’s a few repeated phrases in the text of each letter that might be significant. Don’t know why.”

  I paced back and forth as I talked quickly. The ruckus was dying down outside and Valk’s men would be back at any moment. My heart hammered in my chest.

  “Think, little Booker, think,” whispered Vandecasteele in a voice of blackmarket velvet. She grinned, enjoying the moment. A cat watching a mouse squirm. “Surely, it’s something they both want and can’t achieve alone?”

  “Yes,” I muttered distractedly and started gabbling. “Could be anything really. A bank robbery? Oh, but there’s not a bank here is there? I don’t suppose there’s a regularly scheduled date when you collect your cut? But nobody would see you coming, would they? Stealth lady!”

  I shot her nervous finger guns and then suddenly interrupted my pacing to shove Avril out of the room, slamming the door behind me in Vandecasteele’s face. The closing of the door pushed it back onto the lock which had never left the doorframe and the magical, fast setting glue sealed the door closed again. I began hammering on the door frame with my fist at the same time as the two toughs on guard duty topped the stairs.

  “You will open this-” I managed to shout before Vand the hand ripped the door off its hinges, her eyes flashing, in full view of two toughs who were supposed to be guarding it.

  “Why would you -” she began and recalibrated at the speed of light upon noticing the situation. Something about it must have appealed to her and she slipped seamlessly into a coy smile. “-be knocking on this door?” She leaned her figure against the door frame, folding her arms under her bosom and shot the two toughs a wry look. “Jantien, Kees? Thought you’d take a break?”

  “We was only –” Kees smacked his head and Jantien stopped his bluster.

  “There was a disturbance, milady,” said Kees, bowing as best she could. “Femke told us to go help. We had to, sorry. It took eight of us hold the pretty one down.”

  “Pretty one?” chirped Vandecasteele. “Oh, where is he now?”

  “Dirk’s putting him in the stocks,” said Jantien, belatedly adding, “Milady.”

  “Oh, that I have to see.”

  She practically swayed down the hallway past Jantien and Kees who watched her the whole way past and then hesitantly stood guard next to the ruined door. After a hypnotic moment of watching ourselves, Avril and I also abandoned the guards and followed Vandecasteele as she breezed through the gambling den and down the street all the way to the stocks.

  And, there was Johan. Artfully bruised, hair mussed but heroically placed and somehow looking like the most authoritative figure there. Like he was the one who’d ordered them to put him in the restraints.

  “Release him to me,” commanded Vandecasteele, stepping on shadows to reach the platform.

  The tough looked dumbly at her, eyes bulging before managing to find his voice.

  “Uhhhhhh, can’t – Milady,” he touched his leonid forelock in a gesture of respect. “We’ve had to use nails to close it.”

  “I can get out, if it helps?” suggested Johan helpfully. One of the toughs smacked him across the mouth to no effect. His dazzling smile reached the predatory grin of Vandecasteele.

  “Please do,” she purred.

  “These stocks are made of good oak!” said Johan brightly, standing up and pulling the entire frame of the stocks up with him. “But the nails are made of low quality tin.” he flexed his arms outwards and the bottom of the stocks separated from the top with bent nails showing. “Mister Gerstner wouldn’t stand for it. Him and my dad always told me, you’ve got to use the right tool for the job, no matter your profession!”

  Vandecasteele bit her lip and drew her finger across her mouth, watching him hungrily. She actually laughed as he reached over to the back of his neck – accidentally forming a pose suitable for the cover of a male modelling magazine – and briefly turned red as he popped the suppression collar off his neck. Beautiful dumbass even handed it back to his captors.

  “Oh, you’re perfect,” cooed Vandecasteele. Her eyes grazed seductively over the entire party including Hugh, who I knew from my minimap was semi-camouflaged in air form, waiting in the leigh of a tall building from the wind. “You all are.”

  Johan grinned beautifully and Avril glared jealousy at her.

  Vandecasteele gathered us up like a bunch of school children and took us to her castle. It loomed over Harrow's Point like a skeletal hand, its grey stone walls a stark contrast to the muddy browns and sickly greens of the surrounding wetlands. The main gate was a maw, a massive iron portcullis that the people of the town would have to give themselves to during a monster surge. The same way we passed through it, obediently following Vandecasteele.

  “So, what level of service can I expect as your client, Detective Booker?” teased Vandecasteele innocently, fluttering her lashes as soon as we were through the gates. “I am oh-so-afraid of what’s going to happen to me.”

  “I solve problems,” I growled, glaring at her. “What you got?”

  “A town full of people and I don’t know who’s out to get me,” she breathed.

  “None would dare attack the rightfully appointed of Dominion in their lands!” declared Johan.

  Even Vandecasteele looked at him funny. Avril shushed him.

  “Okay, then you can start by giving me access to all the paperwork,” I explained. “Consent, it’s how my ability works. If you’re top gob in this town and nobody’s legally allowed to prevent you entering their walls, with your permission, I can see everything they leave out.”

  Vandecasteele sashayed ahead of us, smirking. She entered her keep via a side door, eschewing the glamour and glitz of the entrance hall for the functional servant’s hallways.

  “Then I give it,” said Vandecasteele like a sweet poison. “But not for my personal documents.”

  I immediately went into my UI to begin my search. By the time we reached her unlit study, I had a solid beginning.

  “Okay, there’s not much but we expected that,” I began before the door had closed. “Thankfully, it looks like Valks and his favourite attack dogs feel tough enough to leave bits of paper hanging around in their private quarters.”

  Vandecasteele smouldered her eyes at me and perched herself on a red velvet chair. I ignored the pull in my chest that her eyes drew from me. Her presence was intoxicating.

  “Six conspirators left invoices for rugs out in the open,” I continued determinedly. “And reading the invoices, there’s definitely coded messages in there.” I waved my arm to manifest Tome out of my brain. “Tome, show two of the most different. As you can see, Lady Vandecasteele, same date but different delivery and pickup details. My guess is that these are coded instructions.”

  Vandecasteele languidly moved her eyes from Tome back to me. “Give me the names on those invoices, Dave,” she crooned.

  “Naturally,” I grunted, forcing down a wave of desire. I held out my thumb fingers to manifest a small piece of paper and laid it on the desk where I had three of my pens begin writing.

  “As I said earlier,” I reiterated. “I think we can be pretty sure that the ‘weaver’ is Van der Haijden, the ‘buyers’ are the co-conspirators and the delivery date is the date of the conspiracy to be revealed. About a week from now, by the way.”

  “You’re just in time,” purred Vandecasteele seductively, settling her perfect chin into her hand.

  "Okay," I said, the pens dancing across paper as quickly as I summoned it into existence. "The names are: Valks, of course, Elara de Boer -"

  “She’d dead,” interrupted Vandecasteele with a sigh, her full lips forming a pout. “A month ago. Shame. She was a productive essence farmer."

  I said nothing as I put the invoice away for later.

  "Then moving on,” I ventured, “we have Femke Bakker, Dirk Visser, Lotte Jansen, and Rutger de Vries. Are they all Valks' crew, milady?”

  “Indeed,” she purred.

  “Well, that’s only to be expected,” I muttered. I gestured toward the coded messages in black ink upon Tome’s pages. "'The knightly purple shade dye' and 'shuttle’s last pass' — repeated phrases. They definitely sound like code words. What do they… well, something much more exciting...” I trailed off.

  Vandecasteele leaned forward, her dark eyes sparkling with amusement. "Exciting? Detective, not the words I’d use I’m sure. You're turning rugs into… what? Assassination? Something more dramatic?"

  “Why would you say that?” I ask, drawing a shuddering breath, trying to ignore her scent as she stepped around the desk close to me.

  “Purple is a colour for nobles,” she said, tapping a perfect finger on Tome to emphasise her point. “I’m the only nobel in this town.” She let her gaze linger on Avril. “That they know of.” She turned her smokey gaze back to me. “And ‘shuttle’s last pass’ sounds like a conclusion of the whole business. Perhaps that date is code for when they’ll strike.”

  “I don’t think so,” I groaned, every word grinding against her aura out of my mouth. “It’s the the wrong order. The dye’s been delayed and the last pass of the shuttle is coming early.” I used Stop And Think to get some thinking time beyond the influence of Vandecasteele’s intoxicating presence then dived back into the timestream. “Really, I need more evidence to come to any conclusion and that means investigating.”

  Vandecasteele's smile widened, a flash of pure mischief and the Really? A Femme Fatale quest completed, coins clinking into my inventory. A yellow exclamation mark appeared over her head in my HUD. I clicked it. The Vandecasteele Conspiracy. Solve the case. Easy quest.

  “Then you’d better get on the job, Detective,” whispered Vandecasteele in my face. “Surprise me,” she drew even closer to me, her tantalising face the smallest movement from mine, “and I’ll reward you.”

  “I know,” I whispered back, tilting my head. “I get to live.”

  I turned on my heel and strode away, my team starting as though snapping from a trance made to follow me.

  “Oh, Johan’s staying,” said Vandecasteele in a voice of dark amusement, laying a gentle, pale hand on his arm. “It’s written all over him that his talents just aren’t what you’ll be needing tonight, Dave.”

  Avril turned red as Vandecasteele grinned like the cheshire cat and playfully ran a finger down his chest.

  “Go on, the rest of you,” she breathed dismissively. “Johan and I will have dinner. You can find him here when you’re done.”

  Vandecasteele’s eyes bored gloatingly into Avril’s who, shaking with fear and anger, allowed Hugh to lead her from the room.

  “I’ll be watching,” Vandecasteele called as we walked away down the dark hallway.

  "Well, indeed," sputtered Hugh, trying to collect himself. “I suppose we’ll be starting with the known associates of the names we know? Who was it? Bakker, Visser and…?”

  "But... the names on the invoices?" Hugh asked, his voice a low murmur. "Shouldn't we start with them?"

  "None of them," I replied, more sharply than I intended. I hadn’t expected her to keep Johan as insurance. “You alright, Avril?” she nodded tersely. She wasn’t alright but she could function. Good enough. “All the invoices have the same handwriting. We’re going after the person who wrote it all. We get him, we get the truth."

  Joris Schrijver was the name of the scribe. An unassuming man. Middle aged. Bald. Wife and four kids. With one of Valks’ gangsters playing as au pair at home. So we couldn’t visit him at home.

  “Message from Valks: He’s needed at the office,” I said thickly through two cotton balls I’d stuffed in my mouth to Gerhald Griffe, the au pair. In the overcast light of winter, the glamour I’d cast over my face was convincing enough and the addition of a heavy sniff sold the ruse that I had a cold.

  Griffe just grunted and nodded. Good. He’d been selected for this job for loyalty and a willingness to kill. Not a big thinker. He’d soon brought a confused Schrijver to the door. I grunted and jerked my head to shoo him along. It didn’t work.

  “What’s happening?” he shot in a nervous voice. “Is the weaver done? Is it happening?”

  Griffe looked up in anticipation. Damn, he’d need an answer.

  “That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” wheezed Avril before devolving into a coughing fit.

  She was clever. Griffe turned away, disinterested.

  “Come on,” I grunted and took Schrijver by the arm, leading him from his house on the trek to Valks’ gambling den.

  I changed our faces again with Scribbler’s Instant Image on the way there. Schrijver jumped in fear when it happened but cottoned on fast enough and accepted his situation. As I thought, he’d been taken on spontaneous outings before. We passed the entrance with strange faces, went past the bar and took a booth curtained with privacy charms. Avril gently shoved Schrijver in and ordered three glasses of shimmering jenever gin from the scantily clad celestine server.

  “What’s this all about?” quailed Schrijver.

  “Vandecasteele knows, Schrijver,” I murmured cooly across the table, “And, she just wants to know who else is involved.”

  Schrijver’s fear was palpable. A common enough emotion in the gambling den that it attracted no undue attention. Avril’s borrowed face smirked and she scooted into the seat next to Schrijver. He looked at us both with wide eyes. Avril shrugged with mock helplessness and gestured at me and I let my God-given aura feedback ability increase the tension. I figured, let the fear stew and see what bubbles up.

  “I had to -”

  “Keep your voice down,” I warned, affecting a casual ease. “We know. But, right now we’re talking about business. You’re a businessman, right Schrijver? All those sums in your books? You know how it works. I have something, you have something and you’re a man who knows what a thing’s worth, right?”

  “Right,” confirmed Schrijver in the way of the duressed.

  “Well, Vand the hand knows the players in this little plot against her and she’s poised to make them dance with the spinners but my associate here and I managed to convince her that you, Master Schrijver, you could be the man who makes sure she gets them all.”

  The scantily clad celestine came with our drinks which he placed on the table and I flicked him an iron coin before I, with exaggerated care, put the shimmering gin – the only decent booze in this joint – directly in front of Schrijver.

  “That’s all we want,” cooed Avril, throwing an arm over Schrijver and giving him a quick squeeze. “We just want to be sure. Nobody will ever know it was you who dotted the I’s and crossed the T’s.”

  “And besides,” I chimed in, “change is coming. Vand is going to clean up this town and wouldn’t you rather be someone she knew helped her do it?”

  “Without even getting involved, mind you,” Avril reminded him, giving him a little shake. “When you think about it, it’s practically your civic duty. After all, Vand is the local ruler, isn’t she?”

  “I just don’t want my family to get hurt,” Schrijver choked out into his lap.

  “Why would they be hurt?” I shot with a confidence that I mostly did feel. “Nobody will ever know this conversation happened and if you provide a list of names, surely my associate here and I can just happen to find evidence along the way that implicates the entire list. If you catch my meaning?”

  Schrijver’s eyes looked up, grabbing onto the line of hope I’d tossed him.

  “So, if you were to make sure that we really do have everything we need to know…” Avril left the implications hanging.

  “Have your drink, Schrijver,” I said with a wink and taking a sip of my own gin. “Today is your lucky day.”

  Forty minutes and nine glasses of shimmering jenever gin later, Schrijver had told us everything he knew. We dropped him home with a ‘we were never here’ to Griffe.

  “So, now we know who’s in on the assassination,” mused Avril, once we were away on the road.

  “Yeah, but how’d she know?” I replied, lost in my own thoughts and clicking through my UI.

  “Sorry?”

  “Vandecasteele. How’d she know it was an assassination?”

  “It’s not much of a guess,” muttered Avril dismissively.

  “It was,” I contradicted. “You ever seen Valks punch up?”

  “No, but he’d toady to Rikard Van der Heijden,”

  “Ah, fair enough,” I growled.

  It was plausible but I didn’t like it. Like all petty bullies, Valks wasn’t the type to pick a fight with someone more powerful than him and the treasonous alliance with Rikard Van der Heijden was inexplicable for the same reasons. Crossing Vandecasteele wasn’t his style.

  “Who’s first?” asked Avril.

  “Lotte Jansen,” I said. “History of blackmail. Has a magical safe. Probably kept every letter she ever got in there.”

  “Is Hugh actually up for it?”

  “He’d better be,” I scoffed.

  Hugh was intentionally left behind for the chat with Schrijver. His religious prohibition against lying made him an undesirable companion for such work. Fortunately, he was amazing at stealth. His only real roadblock to being a proper underworld operator was him being religiously opposed to lying but he made a pretty good sneak.

  He teleported himself in air form above her chimney and shimmied down. Avril and I, loitering nearby, didn’t see him turn to fire form halfway to rid himself of the soot but we knew he would. It was part of the process, part of the plan we’d figured out. Hugh, you see, wasn’t just an astral researcher with natural weapons and armour who could turn himself into a classical elemental form. Hugh also liked puzzles and locks were a kind of puzzle. Between that, water form, his quest ability and Intuitive Identification, Hugh could pick most common locks with ease.

  Lotte Jansen did not have a complex lock.

  It wasn’t five minutes before Tome flopped open to a letter from Jansen’s safe. Now that Hugh had access to the safe, the internal logic of Tome’s ability to become a copy of any text it has theoretical access to kicked in. Just like the other letters and invoices the phrases 'shuttle’s last pass' and 'the knightly purple shade dye' were present.

  I made copies of everything with my prestidigitations before Hugh closed the safe, exited the way he came and teleported back beside us.

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  “Anything good?” he asked, switching back to flesh form.

  “The motherload,” I replied, raising my eyebrows. I spun Tome around with my hands to show my companions. “It looks like she was planning to blackmail everyone for her silence the day of the plot. She’s done our job for us.”

  “And what exactly is your job?” barked a sharp voice above us.

  Lord Rikard Van der Heijden was a man of sharp angles and cold ambition with a voice that sounded like a low, winter wind. His gaunt face, pale as drawn steel, held calculating eyes the grey of clouds above. He wore a tailored coat, dark and enchanted to ignore the wind, clung to his lean frame and a blood-red stone pulsed on his ringed hand promising power.

  I used Stop And Think immediately. I stayed in the frozen world for a long time getting my story straight before unfreezing.

  “Milord Van der Heijden,” I said in a bright voice, affecting the best bow Avril had been able to teach me. “I have news of a purple dye and an impending rug delivery.”

  Van der Heijden jumped off the roof he’d been standing on and splashed into the mud beside us. Hugh and Avril were scared stiff. I thanked the gods that Sam was checking on suspected conspirators living outside the town and we wouldn’t all be nabbed. The mud ran off Van der Heijden’s expensive clothes like oil over water.

  “If you’re the delivery boy,” said Van der Heijden coldly, “why are you sneaking around here?”

  “Me and my crew are a premium service, Lord Van der Heijden,” I said, bowing again. “We like to make sure every detail is covered and while carousing around town my companions found out that Lotte Jansen has a history of blackmail. I figured it wouldn’t do much for our reputation to complete a job only for the clients to immediately get screwed so I figured to take a peek at Lotte’s safe and what do you know? It’s all there.

  I used Pauper’s Paper Production and Scribbler's Instant Image to make him another copy and handed it over. His eyes flashed across it and the feeling of the scene changed from dread to tension.

  “Quite the premium service,” hissed Van der Heijden through clenched teeth. “You and your crew got a name?”

  “Executive Services,” I replied quickly.

  “And who sent you?” he demanded, eyes flashing.

  “They said it was better if we didn’t know,” I said, heart fluttering on the gamble I was about to take. “But they said that we should tell you: the shuttle’s last pass on the rugs has been made. All you have to do is apply the knightly purple shade dye as quickly as possible.”

  I finished by handing over a vial of bronze rank deadly nightshade toxin and an experimental injector James James had made with a bronze rank needle. Sam had been harvesting Nightshade for me for a while now when she found it and made sure I could recognise its distinctive purple leaves and berries so that I never ate it by accident. It was purple, the codeword was purple. I figured it was a good enough improvisation in the circumstances. Van der Heijden took it hesitantly, staring at me with thoughtful eyes the whole time.

  “They said that, did they?” he queried. “The shuttle’s last pass? That’s what they said?”

  “Absolutely, milord,” I lied through my teeth.

  “As soon as possible?”

  “Just as I relayed it to you, Milord.”

  He shot me, Avril and Hugh a calculating look.

  “Go to the den,” he ordered flatly before turning to coldly stare down Lotte Jansen’s house.

  We felt the pressure to leave from Van der Heijden and didn’t want to stand out to the bronze rank aristocrat with a reputation for violence. So, we went. We heard the sound of splintering wood as we went.

  I sent a letter to Vandecasteele’s castle while we walked to update her on current events and by the time we’d trudged through the mud back to the den, she was there. We didn’t see her at first. We ordered a round of gins, collapsed into a booth and then there she was, looking demurely at me through her eyelashes. With a golden question mark above her head.

  “How’s Johan?” I asked, giving her an up-nod.

  “He’s been taking some leisure with me,” she purred. “But, I’ve got him packed away for now.” The letter I sent appeared between two of her slender fingers. “Quite a series of events, Detective.”

  “Haven’t seen you helping,” spat Avril acidly.

  “You’re right,” sighed Vandecasteele, pushing out her hands and stretching her back. “I haven’t been getting myself surrounded by the people who are plotting to kill me. Ever so sorry.”

  Avril fumed at the smug smile Vandecasteele gave her. Hugh took over.

  “Perhaps we should all take a breath,” rumbled Hugh in his comfortable baritone, “and ask each other what we’re going to do next.”

  Vandecasteele leaned forward and smiled at me like a fox.

  “Okay, for starters, I think the investigation side of this job is done, yeah?” I raised my eyebrows at Vandecasteele who pouted in affirmation. The golden question mark above her head went away, my coins increased and there was now a golden exclamation mark over her head which I interacted with. Take Out The Garbage was the name of the new quest. A reward for every criminal in the conspiracy arrested or dead before leaving Harrows Point. Nice. I continued.

  “My last interaction with Van der Heijden and all the movement at the door of this establishment since we started talking makes me think there’s about to have a meeting here where the boss might ask Valks about the wisdom of bringing Lotte Jansen into this and he’ll expect us to be here to witness it for our fake employers so we can’t move.”

  “You won’t do anything for me?” pouted Vandecasteele.

  “We,” I stated firmly, “are going to play our role in this and not disrupt the fact that there’s about to be an enormous window of time very soon where everybody that Valks’ trusts is all going to be in one place.”

  Hugh gave a whiskery smile having figured it out but Vandecasteele just put her delicate chin onto her hand, affecting boredom to show she didn’t understand. Avril, as usual, ignored my scheming as best she could.

  “So you, milady,” I explained patiently, “will have a large window of time where you can go through the personal effects of anybody you think might be involved in the plot against you and collect all the evidence you need and make sure you catch everybody involved with no fear of being ambushed.”

  The foxy smile returned.

  “Later boys.”

  She sashayed confidently into a shadow and disappeared.

  And so we waited. I manifested Tome and told it to keep a look out for more letters and invoices coming available. It wasn’t five minutes before Tome flicked its pages to a copy of an incriminating rug invoice from a Mister Rutger de Vries. I used Stop And Think to get through it in a moment. Mostly like the others. The phrase ‘helping with the unloading’ was used twice. Could be something, could be nothing.

  Valks’ gang and sundries trickled into the den over the next half-hour and Vandecasteete – or her people, I had no way to tell – exposed more and more of the papertrail. It seemed that ‘helping with the unloading’ was only written to people outside the town centre. In context I figured it meant they’d be helping to hide someone or something. It was double-checking these ponderings that I noticed a curious thing; documents were going missing. I checked with Library Of The Mind to confirm I wasn’t mistaken. Every document that mentioned Elara de Boer was going missing.

  “Dave,” said Hugh, tapping my arm and drawing me from my thoughts. He nodded towards the entrance where Van der Heijden was striding in, casually carrying Jansen’s safe under one arm. He saw us and jerked his head towards the raised area in the middle of the wide open area full of gambling tables that the bards occupied in the nights. Two of the gang's toughs dragged a gagged Lotte Jansen behind them. She was already lightly bruised, tousled and her eyes were wild. I guessed there was going to be a song and dance about this.

  The team moved towards centre stage with the rest of the gangsters and various sundry townsfolk. I saw the butcher, a few shopkeepers that I recognised and clicked through to identify them – apothecary, weaver and warehouser. A few others were there as well, various adventurers and miscreants like us. None I had notes on.

  Van der Heijden stepped onto the raised platform, the heavy safe thudding onto the worn wooden stage. His gaze swept across the assembled crowd, his angular face a mask of cold that silenced the murmurs and hushed the space normally alive with the sound of gambling.

  "Listen well," he commanded, his voice amplified by a subtle magical resonance from the stage, "because what you hear tonight will be a lesson for your futures."

  He seemed to grow in stature, his aura filling the room and with a flick of his wrist, all the doors – heavy doors, I noted – slammed shut sealing the large room. Some in the crowd gasped. Just as many pretended they weren’t suppressing their own silent shudder.

  "No one leaves," Van der Heijden stated, his eyes flashing, "until a little matter is resolved."

  Swiftly, he turned and punched a dagger through the mechanism of Lotte Jansen's safe, that had been left on the floor beside him, the metallic screech echoed through the tense silence. He reached in and pulled out a sheaf of papers, with the full attention of the crowd. Jansen whimpered on the floor behind him.

  "These," he declared, holding aloft the damning documents, "are Lotte Jansen's insurance policy. She intended to blackmail us. Everyone. Before this was over."

  Lotte Jansen, gagged and restrained by the two toughs, whimpered again and thrashed against her captors. Her eyes, wide with terror, pleaded for mercy. Quick as a snake, Van der Heijden ripped her gag off.

  “What did we say was the punishment for betrayal, Jansen?” shouted Van der Heijden down at his victim.

  "I didn't mean it," she mumbled, her voice desperate. "I was just… habits, you know? Wouldn't have really done it."

  “WHAT IS THE PUNISHMENT?” roared Van der Heijden at the cowering Jansen. He turned, his voice now cold. “What is it, Valks? When one of yours betrays you?”

  “You die,” stated Valks, looking Jansen with fear and disgust.

  “Please… please…” moaned Jansen, trying to get up but being kicked to the floor by one of the toughs holding her.

  Van der Heijden ignored her pleading, beginning to pace. "A lesson must be taught," he hissed, suddenly spinning to take Valks by the shoulder and pushing him towards Jansen.

  Valks looked over his shoulder at Van der Heijden, unsure, but the look on Van der Heijden must have been hard as stone. Valks drew a hidden blade and cut Jansen’s throat. A collective gasp and shudder ran through the crowd. Valks outwardly displayed more bravado than was warranted. He was clearly uncomfortable but too scared of Van der Heijden to do anything else.

  The shock was still settling on the crowd when Tome's pages flickered, displaying a message scrawled in Sam’s hurried handwriting:

  "The knightly purple shade dye. Elara = Empty house. Dust over hearth. No new soot. Letters still come."

  I’d told her to use that phrase if she needed to message me because Tome was already searching for it. Elara De Boer was one of the curiosities I’d sent in the letter to Sam for her to look into. Something about how Vandecasteele brushed her away and all but instructed me to ignore her didn’t sit well with me and here the mystery deepened. It was getting towards the end of winter so dust over the mantle means an unused fireplace. Nobody had been living in De Boer’s house all winter but Vandecasteele insisted she’d only been dead a month. But she’d definitely been getting the letters. They were appearing in Tome’s pages as Van der Heijden continued addressing the crowd.

  "Now, I have good news and bad news, people of Harrows Point,” announced Van Der Heijden. “The bad news is that Jansen may have already been betraying us and that forces our hand to act now, before the planned date.” I noticed some in the room become tense at this. “The good news is that those three new faces at this meeting are the delivery folks and I have here the knightly purple shade dye in my hand.” He held up the vial. “Deadly nightshade, as confirmed by apothecary Kruiden.” He grinned at the audience. “Something the bitch can’t run away from!”

  Dark chuckles of satisfaction rippled through the crowd, dispersing the tension in the room that’d become almost palpable.

  Suddenly, a voice cut through the mirth, languid, smooth as dark honey and clear.

  "You presume to impose on me, Van der Heijden."

  All eyes snapped to the back of the room. Vandecasteele slunk out of the shadow of the doorway like a minx into the dim light of the room, looking at Van der Heijden through her long eyelashes, her full lips in a playful smirk. Behind her, Johan framed the background in his full armor, a complete contrast to Vandecasteele as a shining sentinel of knightly virtue. A picture of mistress and servant.

  And, suddenly I understood Vandecasteele’s plan. It made so much sense. Who Elara was, why nobody lived in her house, why everything was happening the way it had. But, I couldn’t do anything about it now. Vandecasteele kept talking into stunned silence, oblivious to my revelations.

  "But impose far too much," Vandecasteele's voice, smooth as dark honey, cut through the air again, her eyes beginning to gleam with predatory amusement as they swept lusciously across the assembled stupefied faces. “Naughty boy.”

  “My apologies, Alexandra,” shouted Van der Heijden, pulling himself together and drawing a sword. “Glad to have you here!”

  He attacked, his face pure concentration and his off-hand crackling with arcane energy.

  I grit my teeth, silently pleading to any god who’d listen that Johan would hold back and not automatically follow a noble into combat. I knew it was a futile hope. Johan, the perfect knight, would always protect the rightful lady of the land. I quick-switched into my battle outfit.

  Van der Heijden's attack was a spinning dive of spiraling electricity, but Vandecasteele moved with an almost supernatural grace, darting far away from the strike like the shadow of an owl. Johan, meanwhile, bellowed an honourable warcry then charged Valks and his crew, his armored form smashing into their midst, shining armour deflecting multiple, panicked attacks. Avril was close behind and Hugh, fresh from a quick prayer, moved to support. He’d be fine.

  I held back, taking the chance to study Vandecasteele's movement ability mechanics. It looked like she could instantaneously become a shadow, move through shadows, make illusionary shadows, became physically enhanced in the absence of light and a few other darkness and illusion-based abilities. I noticed her attacks seemed lackluster though. I used Stop And Think to check my combat log. Yep, her damage per hit was comparable to Avril’s usual unenhanced strikes. Not good for a bronze ranker.

  Perhaps that’s why Van der Heijden abandoned snatching at the shadowy phantasms that always turned to nothing in his hands and turned his attention to Johan, who’d already run through Valks’ prime enforcer, Dirk Visser, and was raining heavy blows on all around him like the force of nature he was. Van der Heijden attempted to remove Johan from the battlefield with a burst of decisive, high damage attacks but two of the three hit his shield before he was interrupted by Avril. With the burst damage not achieving its objective, the melee continued but now with advantage looking to be on the side of team gangster. Hugh began chain casting Prayer Of Healing on Johan and Avril from behind me. A decent strategy. Those two killing machines do their thing, Hugh heals and I protect Hugh.

  Then, lights went out and the shadows came alive.

  Vandecasteele had used the opportunity to slip under a table, through the darkness and interact with the room's lighting. Now, her abilities free from defense, she became a half-seen phantom that ripped and tore through the gangsters. I noticed one with a shortbow drawing a bead on Hugh. Vand The Hand incorporated into a shadow that twisted and wound around him up from the floor. He shouted and shot wide, swiping his hand through the apparition to find it was an illusion. Meanwhile, a gurgle announced her real self, slitting the throat of another gangster who was in the shadows, trying to sneak up on me.

  Van der Heijden, winning against Johan and Avril, didn’t want to abandon his fight. And, all of his allies paid for it. Gangsters, here and there about the room, fell like puppets with their strings cut. The rank disparity allowed Vand to ignore the incidental and last desperate slashes the gangsters landed on her. Van der Heijden, mid duel, threw a floating globe of light high into the room to limit Vand The Hand’s movement abilities so, sensing opportunity, I wove an illusion.

  “Artistry’s phantoms, canvas this.”

  The half-lit room filled with blurred simulacrums of Vand The Hand flitting from shadow to shadow causing gangsters to jump and whirl trying to keep track of them. As though she’d read my mind. Vand herself let the gangsters have their initial surprise, let them understand it was an illusion spell and pretended to be a duplicate as cover to drag one of their number screaming, nails marking the grimy floorboards, into the dark. The gangers huddled together in the light, listening to the wet splash which came from the inky blackness.

  With the gangsters' attention fully on Vand, Johan had – as he does – found his way to duelling the biggest threat in the middle of the stage. He held his ground against Van der Heijden's relentless assault, their duel a clash of steel and arcane energy. Although Van der Heijden must have been paying some attention to the fight around him for when the death spams of Vand’s latest victim alerted the presence of her real self, Van der Heijden struck.

  I’d backed into a corner of the room with Hugh behind me, still blasting hot lead at anybody who got close so I didn’t see what Van der Heijden cast but it was called Phantom Tether. I tried to cast Dispel And Quell Magic over where I knew she was but a tough cracked me in the face with a ball of resonant force and I hit the floor instead.

  “Inject her now!” shouted Van der Heijden, using a special attack to buy time against a flagging Johan and panting Avril to throw the diffuser filled with nightshade to Valks.

  Valks caught the small device and wasted no time in moving to inject the toxin into Vandecasteele. I cursed. It wasn’t time! I quickly activated my teleportation rod from my inventory, leaving Hugh to fend for himself and began running at Vand who was already being surrounded by toughs. I wouldn’t get there in time.

  Sprinting, I saw Valks lean over Vand, a gloating look on his piggy face, and raised the diffuser. His shadow falling over her was everything Vand had planned for. She shifted through the ethereal, grey bindings holding her down and grinned like the Cheshire cat and, with a speed that defied perception, squeezed her razor-sharp fingers over Valks’ hand, slicing through his digits as she took the diffuser from him.

  Valks began to scream in pain and his gang scattered away from him. Ignoring them all, Vand crouched, teleported into Van der Heijden’s shadow and struck him in the neck with the diffuser. There was a hiss and the nightshade magically diffused from the vial into the essence of the being it was pressed against. Van der Heijden swore and threw a spinning elbow to Vand’s face and delivered a deep cut to her leg but she only grinned wickedly, letting the blow carry her to the floor where she scrambled away from Van der Heijden’s attacks into the safety of the shadow that the stage cast on the floor.

  Now’s my chance, I thought.

  “Vand! Over here!” I shouted, taking a bronze healing potion I’d prepared for a dire situation like this weeks earlier out of my inventory and holding it high.

  She teleported into my shadow and took the powerful healing potion my hand, drinking it in one gulp as she collapsed with more grace than one would expect onto a roulette table while the potion healed her leg.

  “Thanks, Buttercup,” moaned Vandecasteele, stretching her now-healed leg through the high slit in her dress. “Nightshade takes how long to work?”

  “That dose? With the diffuser?” I replied, tossing my head towards Van der Heijden to indicate she ought to pay attention.

  It was easy to see that his pupils were dilated. He attacked Johan frantically, beating his arming sword against Johan’s shield, staggering the iron ranker. His face was reddening and he stared wildly at shadows before frantically attacking Johan again.

  “I thought nightshade took minutes at best?” inquired Vandecasteele, slinking towards the stage.

  “Heal me!” screamed Van der Heijen, abandoning his fight with Johan and Avril and dashing over to Hugh, ploughing through tables as he ran.

  Hugh had been fighting toughs for the last few moments since I left him but the activity around him had paused.

  “Heal me and I’ll give you whatever you want!” begged Van der Heijden.

  “The diffuser makes it instantly systemic,” I muttered so that Vandecasteele could hear.

  “You can’t give me what I want,” rumbled Hugh in his deep baritone, made crackly by his earth form.

  “No, no! Gold… power! Essences!” rambled Van der Heijden. “I can give it to you! You know I can!”

  Smirking, Vandecasteele seemed to change her intentions from stalking to watching and carefully arranged herself sitting on a table with folded legs.

  “How much do you think you can offer?” asked Hugh, switching to air form and floating ever so slowly out of Van der Heijden’s reach.

  “What? I don’t know… argh!” Van der Heijden growled with an aggressive burst of his aura, reading Hugh’s intention to play for time.

  “You’re dead, Rickard,” crooned Vandecasteele loudly so that the entire room could hear.

  Van der Heijden staggered in her direction on unsteady legs. Staring at her with his overblown eyes, he tried to talk but just vomited. Vandecasteele zipped backwards as a shower creature.

  “I can serve,” Van der Heijden managed to mutter, crawling towards Vandecasteele.

  “I’d prefer you didn’t,” snapped Vand the hand, eyes flashing, she activated Razor Fingers and pulled Van der Heijden up by the neck with predictable results. “You tried to kill me, after all,” she whispered, almost like a lover as she tightened her fist through the last of his spine.

  There was a moment of silence before Johan removed his helm, shook out his hair into a perfect formation and stood under the floating magical light on the stage looking like he was at risk of rescuing a princess at any moment.

  “The rest of you are under arrest!” declared Johan.

  “Oh, you darling farmer boy!” exclaimed Vandecasteele, wiping blood off her hands with a smokey look at Johan. “They’ll be tried in my court, remember?”

  “Of course, milady,” called Johan, bowing. “I just wanted to do things Right?.”

  “So sweet,” murmured Vandecasteele, casting her eyes around and letting them stop on a mewling Valks. “But I’m happy to sit in judgement now.”

  Vandecasteele fell backwards into a shadow and simultaneously out of Valks shadow at his back. She grasped his head with both of her hands and the silence was shattered with a quick scream and that cut short as she twisted.

  The rest of the toughs, not much more than a handful now, ran. One used an ability to climb up the wall to a window. Vandecasteele stepped from shadow to shadow and beat him to it. He looked at at the apex of his climb to see a savage grin set in a face of darkness waiting for him. He yelled as he was thrown down like a sack of meat and broke upon floor with a wet smack.

  “Stay beneath the light,” I called to Johan and Avril, while that first death took place. I pointed at Hugh. “Hugh, fireform and come here,” I sent with Swift Message Of The Mind.

  On his way over, another tough tried to flee through a small backdoor but the door wouldn’t open. Locked. Magically probably. Likely not any good craftsmanship considering our experiences in this town. It didn’t matter. He flattened himself against it and cringed as he turned around, knowing he’d only find the darkness from between the stars and death when he did.

  He didn’t make a sound as his heart was ripped out of his chest.

  "She's hunting them," muttered Avril, eyes sharp.

  I nodded, watching her progress. The deliberate movement reminded me of a cat playing with a mouse. One thug ran past a pool of shadow and was yanked backward into it, his scream belting out as he came crawling out with no feet. Vandecasteele left him there to scream and sob. I took pity on him, aimed my wand of hot lead between his eyes and let it take my mana.

  Vandecasteele had already moved on. The next one tried to beg. Vandecasteele just tilted her head and stepped through his shadow. Razor Fingers flashed and he crumpled, face frozen in confused fear.

  "She’s enjoying this too much," Hugh rumbled into his beard behind me, his voice granite again. “Perhaps we should…”

  He left the statement hanging. Perhaps we should but perhaps we shouldn’t question a bronze ranker high on homicide.

  "Let her be," I muttered, watching closely. "We should let our client take as long as she needs."

  As long as she needs. Longer even. I wrote on my face with Telekinetic Scribe and made sure my teammates read it before erasing the writing with the same powers.

  Vand the hand was killing the last two gangsters when I saw the symptoms start. Flushed skin. A slight stumble as she picked the celestial woman up with both hands around her spine and wrenched it out. I had to keep my cool.

  She blood-eagled the last tough with her hands and walked over to us, pouring crystal wash over her head as she came. She worked her dry mouth before she spoke.

  “This does conclude our business, doesn’t it? Detective Booker,” she purred happily, the crystal wash taking the last of the blood from her fingers. “You know, you’ve been ever so helpful but I’m afraid you’re mine now.”

  Avril raised her blade before I could stop her. “You planning to kill us now?”

  “I’ll have to,” Vandecasteele sighed, a sultry look playing on her face as she stalked nearer to us. “Honestly, I’d prefer to let the investigators do that. One noble dead, multiple influential townfolk and poor me, a mere scout type, the victim of an assassination plot! Oh my, it writes itself, don’t you think?”

  She gave me the more alluring, smouldering look I’d ever received from a woman in my life. “But, you, Detective Booker,” she continued in her low voice, “you are clever enough to get out of that with your quest ability, aren’t you?”

  “I figured that was your plan,” I said, quick-switching back into my street clothes, putting my hands in my pockets and rocking on my heels. “Since the moment I figured out Elara de Boer was you.”

  My team looked at me in surprise and Vandecasteele indulgently tilted her head but I kept going.

  “The way you insisted she wasn’t anything from the start. You practically jumped at me when I suggested looking into her. You didn’t even wait for me to finish the question. Just shut it down. It stuck in my mind that you were hiding something.”

  I kept my hands in my coat pockets, shifting my weight just a little as she took a half-step back, to lean on a craps table. Her left hand twitched slightly.

  “Then there was the assassination plot. You told us they were coming for you before we even saw the full picture. Don’t think I missed that I didn’t figure it out, you fed it to me.” I shook my finger at her. “Laid it out like a trail of mushrooms following heidelshit. It didn’t fit. Not until after the facts were in. Unless you knew the whole thing from the inside.”

  She didn’t speak but she did smirk behind wide eyes. She let her hair fall across her face and then flicked it back again in a fidgety manner.

  “And then there was the paper trail after I got into Jansen’s safe. Every time I found a sheet with Elara’s name on it — invoice, letter, order or whatever — it vanished. Not just disappeared, not misfiled. Removed from my mind library. I’m guessing you’ve never paid attention to how administrative abilities work? Doesn’t matter. My guess is that was for the investigators. You wanted a story for them where Elara de Boer never existed. Right?”

  No reply. But I saw her lips part, ever so slightly, and she worked her jaw to bring moisture into her mouth.

  “But you couldn’t clean everything, could you? You were stuck here in town, playing lady about town. You didn’t have time to scrub the document on the outskirts. Where Elara lived. I had someone access them for me and check around the house. By the way, fireplace unused? Dust thick on the hearth? Sloppy work, milady. But anyway, those letters kept arriving there and they were arriving long after you’d said Elara was gone. And, nobody would bother delivering letters to someone who isn’t there. And a small down like this knows when someone dies so someone was collecting them.”

  I tilted my head, just a little. “And that someone was you.”

  A flicker passed across her eyes. She was leaning sideways on the craps table now, shadow falling across her face.

  “What got me mostly thinking it was you then was that. The letters at the house were the only ones not getting deleted. Only the ones in town disappeared. You didn’t have time to get to the outskirts did you? So you only cleared the documents you could reach.”

  Her breathing was faster now. Delicate shoulders rising and falling. She was trying to keep the sultry act going, but the cracks were showing.

  “And this little gathering here?” I spread my hands. “All the traitors in one room. I was just thinking about how all the eggs were in one basket before your grand reveal. That’s when I got it. When I knew it had to be you. You discovered an assassination plot against you and used the conspiracy to smoke out the disloyal gangs in town but with a nob like Van der Heijden involved you couldn’t just kill everyone anymore, could you? You needed us. Some useful little adventurers to pin it all on.”

  I smirked at her. “It almost worked.”

  She smiled, amused. “I told you, you were too clever, Detective.”

  “Oh, I think I was,” I said, stepping forward.with a cheeky grin.

  Her eyes narrowed. “What do you -”

  That’s when she swayed.

  Just for a moment. Just a tiny little dip in her posture. But I caught it and she knew I saw it.

  “You poisoned me,” she said flatly.

  “Big dose of nightshade,” I nodded. “In the healing potion. Enough to kill an ogre. When you got hit in the fight, I took the opportunity to give you a little something I’d cooked up weeks ago.”

  “You bastard,” she whispered with a smile, staggering back, hand clutching the edge of a roulette table. “I thought you gave your weapon to Van der Heijen.”

  “I did,” I stated simply and took a wax-sealed jar labelled ‘concentrated essence of nightshade’ out of my inventory and sloshed around the contents for a second before putting it back in. “Yeah, I got about a cup of this stuff. Sam finds this stuff all the time. I’ve got even more iron rank nightshade.”

  “Would it do any good to ask for cleansing?” she asked, letting her eyes drift to Hugh.

  He shook his head. “My Lady says that I don’t have to do a thing,” rumbled Hugh.

  Vandecasteele gave a shaky, breathy laugh and straightened, trying to preserve some of that effortless elegance. It didn’t quite work. Her legs buckled again and she caught herself against the craps table, fingers slipping slightly on the felt.

  “I suppose…” she said, voice light and distant, “...this does mean our business is concluded.”

  She turned her head toward me and smiled her sultry smile but laden heavy with resignation and sadness.

  “You really are clever, Detective Booker,” she whispered.

  Then her knees gave way completely and she sank to the floor, back against the table leg. One hand rested lazily across her lap. The other clutched at her corset, fingers twitching. She blinked slowly.

  “You know,” she murmured, “I really looked for a way to let you live.”

  “I know,” I said quietly. “You’d have liked a pet.”

  Her lips parted again, but whatever she meant to say got swallowed up by a final, shallow breath. Her eyes, still half-lidded, fixed on nothing. Then, gently, her head lolled sideways.

  She was still smiling.

  My text box rolled with information: Quest complete: Take Out The Garbage. 28/28 Conspirators Eliminated.

  I sighed.

  “Loot the bodies,” I said to Avril, who was still holding her sword. “And be careful. This rough bunch might have trapped rings or Goodness knows what.”

  Avril nodded and got to work. Johan, nodded and went with her. Me and Hugh set up a simple detection ritual with Tome just in case someone had a dimensional space ability. Nobody did. We ended up with some coin, quintessences, and a few weapons worth selling. Nothing spectacular. Vandecasteele had the best loot by far. Legendary cloak. Two amulets. Several pouches of rare components. One heavily enchanted lipstick that my ability couldn’t entirely identify.

  We gathered everything into a spare inventory pack and got out before the place started attracting attention.

  Vandecasteele’s castle was mostly empty by the time we got there. We told the staff the mistress wanted the place cleared, and they ran like it was going to explode. Maybe she’d made requests like that before — with gruesome results.

  We looted what we could: coin, jewellery, quintessence, essences, awakening stones, weapons, armour, potions... Then we moved on to expensive furniture, fine dresses, and whatever else wasn’t nailed down. We walked out of that over-decorated nest with more full dimensional packs than even Avril had dared hope for.

  We left town.

  No guards stopped us.

  No bells rang.

  Good.

  I passed around the loot tally when I’d got it done.

  Avril wasn't looking at me. Not even a glare. Nothing. Probably meant she was still ruminating on the fact I’d kept Vandecasteele’s plan to myself. She didn’t like knowing things last. I couldn’t have told her, of course. Vand could have had her smouldering eyes and delicate ears in any shadow.

  Avril would understand. Eventually.

  Still, even pissed off, her face softened when she read her share. A flicker, but it was there.

  Hugh gave me a quiet, meaningful nod when he read it. He couldn’t remember much of what we’d done, not with his blessing of forgetfulness but I think the nod meant he felt he was glad he’d been there with us.

  Johan didn’t say anything when he saw the tally. Just smiled a rueful but hopeful smile that promised better days and pat me on the shoulder in a way that somehow managed to be noble.

  We didn’t speak much the whole time we walked. The road got thick with a low fog as we approached the place where Sam waited for us. We trusted the path of the road as we went, just listening to the crunch of boots and the slow creak of full packs.

  There was a yellow quest marker hanging over the road.

  I let my presence reach out to brush it and flicked my eyes to my text box: Leave Harrow’s Point. I clicked on the quest and read the first objective. Don’t look back.

  I accepted the quest.