"Your employer? The one that's scarier than me?" Castille asked.

"One and the same."

She let out a deep sigh.

"It's late, Simon. I don't have time for the words of a drunkard."

"Then you should make time. My employer wants Rugar dead, and she's thinking you're the right people to do it."

Castille narrowed her eyes. She impaled Dusk into the ground, leaning forward with both hands on the pommel.

"Now, I know you're drunk."

"I'm NOT drunk!"

"Could have fooled me," Isla said under her breath.

"What's the catch? What does she really want?" I asked.

"No catch. My employer wants Rugar gone as much as you do. She asked me, at great personal inconvenience I might add, to find you before you fell into his trap."

"Trap? What trap?" Castille asked.

Sim smiled, his gold tooth glinting in the moonlight.

"A few weeks ago, Rugar called back his patrols to form a perimeter around the capital. Main roads. Side roads. Forests. Fields. They're all being watched."

Castille scoffed.

"And now you're here to throw us a lifeline. Convenient, maybe, too convenient. How do we know you're not working for Rugar? Leading us into the real trap?"

"As much as I would love to do that, my employer would flay me six ways till sundown."

He jerked his head in my direction.

"She needs this one alive."

His words made my heart pound in my chest. A fresh sheen of sweat leaked from my pores. Ten years ago, Sin was sent to kill me. Instead, she spared my life and gave me a home.

Why did she abandon me if she needed me? Why were things never simple with Sin?

"Jacob?"

"What?!"

I blinked.

Isla was looking at me—they all were.

"Jacob, who's the Claw?"

My eyes went wide. My mouth twitched, making wordless sounds.

Castille frowned.

"Are you alright?"

What should I do? What should I say?

The truth.

"S-She's the woman who raised me. The closest thing I had to a mother."

"Your mother?" Isla whispered, eyebrows raised.

"What kind of name is the Claw?" Castille asked.

"A question I ask all the time. Never out loud in case she's listening," Sim said, glancing up at the night sky.

I turned to the smuggler.

"H-How do I know you work for her? Where's the proof?"

"Proof?! I'll show you proof."

He struggled with his bindings.

"After you untie me."

I frowned, glancing at Castille.

"Do it. Simon is annoying but not a threat."

"You didn't see what he did outside the watchtower."

"What? I offered you a drink."

I let out a long-suffering sigh.

There was no point arguing.

I tucked my short sword under my arm and untied the belt sash.

"I'm watching you."

Sim smiled.

"I got nothing to hide. I'm reformed."

He clenched and unclenched his hands, letting the blood flow back into his fingertips. He opened his long coat and rifled through its interior pocket.

"Watch it."

"Relax. It's not like I would throw sand in your eye or something."

He winked. I frowned. The story of my fight with Rugar's goons must have been all over the capital by now.

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"Found it."

Sim raised an off-white envelope in the air; a familiar red seal stamped over the flap.

He turned to me and thrust it forward like a knife. I took the letter with a trembling hand. It was smeared with dirt and stained with brown spots of alcohol. Yet, the seal was still in place. The crooked grin of a hawk's talon pressed into the wax.

"It's from her..."

I fumbled with the seal with shaking fingers. The longer I took, the more my shoulders tensed.

"Let me do it," Isla said. She stepped closer to my side—too close. She was the fire again. The thing too hot to touch. The thing I could never hold.

"Jacob, what's wrong with you? It's like your mind is somewhere else."

I shook my head.

"It's nothing. Here, take it."

Isla plucked the letter out of my hand, cracking the seal and unfolding the sheet of paper with practiced ease. She squinted at the page and let out an annoyed sigh. She grabbed the golden sceptre hanging off her weapons belt.

"That's better."

She cleared her throat.

"Jacob, you've done well for yourself. In honour of your victory, I've gifted you, Rugar Centovian. He is yours to slaughter. Sim can help you. He's competent enough. When you get back to the capital, be prepared for your next mission. Sin."

Isla twisted her mouth into a frown.

"How many missions have you done for her?"

"None! S-She just trained me. She taught me-"

"How to kill..." Isla whispered.

She looked away, her eyes distant.

Panic fluttered in my chest.

Did she figure it out?

Did she make the connection between me and the people who killed her mother? The people who were killing the King.

"Well, that explains a few things," Castille said.

She smirked at Sim.

"Competent enough? That was almost a compliment."

Sim stood straighter and smoothed the lapels of his coat. Clumps of dirt fell from under the flaps.

"It's a fair description. I don't like to scrape, but I can hold my own."

He pointed a thumb in my direction.

"Already saved this one's life."

I grimaced somewhere between disgust and disbelief.

"I think I would remember you."

"It was a few months ago, outside of the capital. When that big ugly guy was chasing you down with his horse."

I frowned, thinking back to our flight out of the city. There was a moment when the ground rose to trip Took's horse mid-charge.

"That was you?"

I blinked.

"You're Landbound?!"

Sim grinned.

"Guilty as charged."

I turned to Castille in disbelief. She shrugged.

"What? I told you he was a smuggler."

With a flourish of Sim's hand, a mound of grassy earth rose between his feet. He sat down on his makeshift throne and unscrewed his flask for another swig of alcohol.

"So, we are doing this or what?"

We exchanged glances.

Castille let out a resigned sigh.

"I'll wake up, Dugan and Thor."

# # #

Our party huddled at the other end of our camp. Sim was out of earshot but still in view.

"What do you think?" Castille asked Dugan.

Dugan glanced from Sim to me and then back to Castille.

"I don't trust him."

Castille ran a hand through her messy, black hair.

"I know, but I don't like turning down help in a fight. And if Simon isn't lying, we may need him."

"What do you know about Sim?" I asked.

"He's a former noble. A second or third son who got arrested for scamming other nobles."

"You must have gotten along."

She snorted.

What was the scam?" Isla asked.

"Dirt smuggling. He took earth from the capital and sold it to nobles in the countryside who buried it on their land. The idea was to infuse their property with more spirits."

Isla cocked her head in a thoughtful expression.

"He moved land with high quintessence to an area with low quintessence. The rural nobles thought they were increasing their magical potential."

I raised my eyebrows.

"Would that work?"

Isla shook her head.

"No, it's our will that binds quintessence to matter. Without our will, most of it pools around where we die. Moving some dirt wouldn't change that."

Castille shrugged.

"If you say so. When the capital's guards discovered his scam, he was fined and disowned by his family. He's been a smuggler ever since."

"He doesn't sound reliable," I said.

"Reliable enough for your mother," Isla said, an edge to her voice.

"She isn't my mother. She just trained me-"

"To be a murderer!"

I frowned at Isla.

"And how many times did this murderer save you? I trained you, Isla. If I'm a murderer, then so are you."

Isla looked away. Castille raised a calming hand.

"We've all killed our fair share of people. If we're taking a tally, I have you both beat."

She glanced between us.

"What happened at the watchtower?"

"Nothing," Isla and I said in unison.

That was the problem.

"Then why the attitude?"

I scoffed.

"Ask her."

Isla huffed.

"You're mother is an assassin, Jacob! And so are you. You didn't think to bring that up sooner?!"

"I told you she's not my mother! And she's no assassin. She's..."

Wait, what was Sin?

Outside of the night we met, I'd never seen her kill or hurt anyone—except for me. I knew she could fight. I knew she could sneak. I knew she could use magic. Beyond that, I knew nothing…Ten long years together, and I didn't even know her face.

"OK, I don't know what she is, but you're one to talk."

I leaned forward.

"You have you're own secrets."

All the colour drained from Isla's face.

"Really, Jacob? Right here? Right now? That's dirty."

"Since we're all in a secret sharing mood. I trust our party. Do you?"

Isla gave me a hard stare, her face flushing bright red. Then she sighed, letting her shoulders slump.

"I do trust them… Castille. Dugan. My father is the King of Luskaine."

Castille and Dugan exchanged glances.

"We know," they said in unison.

Isla turned to the veteran adventurers.

"What?! How?!"

Castille scoffed.

"We're not stupid."

She paused, scratching the back of her head.

"Although Dugan figured it out first."

The short man nodded, a smug smile peeking through his beard.

I laughed.

"It's not funny," Isla said, punching my arm while suppressing a smile.

Castille grinned.

"Now this is more like it."

The Northern woman wrapped her long arms around the three of us.

"This doesn't work if we don't trust each other."

Castille looked over her shoulder at Sim. He was still sitting on his grassy mound, his head bobbing up and down as he fought back the urge to sleep.

"I know Simon, but I don't know your mother, Jacob. Do you trust her?"

"She's not…"

I sighed.

What was the use in denying it?

I turned Castille's question over in my mind.

Trust Sin?

I almost laughed.

How could I ever trust her after everything she'd done to me?

Everything I asked her to do to me.

My stomach twisted around a hard lump of regret.

Yes. Sin kept secrets. She lied by omission. She also warned me against completing my training and only gave me her third challenge after I forced her hand. In her sick and twisted way, she supported me even when it went against her interests.

"Jacob, you're doing it again," Isla said.

I grit my teeth.

"I trust her, but there's more to this. Another reason she wants Rugar killed."

Utility...

Castille grunted.

"There always is. Dugan?"

Dugan gave me a long stare and then nodded.

"Let's g-g-get this over with."

Thor grunted in agreement.

"Isla?" Castille asked.

She looked up at me with her big blue eyes.

"I don't know Sim or your mother, but... I'll trust you, Jacob. Don't make me regret it."

Relief washed over me, followed by fear.

Castille nodded.

"Then we do it."

We broke from the huddle and walked over to the drowsy mage.

"Simon."

He jolted awake.

"Wah?! Oh, make up your mind?"

"Aye. We did. We'll take the job and your help. Knowing you, you already have a plan."

Sim grinned, wiping the drool dribbling down his chin with the back of his hand.

"Of course, but you won't like it."

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