"I need a liaison… A guide." I point to the woman who argued for surrender. "You."

"Me?" she asks, her tone shifting from confusion to confrontation. "Why? I argued against you."

"Because you argued against me. By which I mean you have authority within the gang; you can tell me if a request will be followed before I send you back." I sound very plausible – I almost convince myself.

"…Fine, but I can't take you all the way – it'd be too dangerous."

We walk down the stairs together. The guards at the bottom are alarmed by my presence, but the woman calms then reprimands them for their lack of vigilance.

"A bit unfair, no? You know I used magic," I say casually.

"They don't, and they can always be more watchful," she says, staring straight ahead.

I smile, liking her attitude. "So, what's your name?"

"Klar," she states. It sounds like a more standard Arkothan name like Claire or Clara that has been shortened and harshened with use until it resembles an act of violence, similar to a sound a dagger might make when it strikes flesh.

"Pleasure to meet you, Klar," I say, not quite getting the sound right. I'll have to work on that.

She side eyes me. "You aren't going to give your name?"

"Maybe later, when I'm sure our arrangement will work out. Now, how do you dispose of bodies? The beastkin?"

She nods. "When we need to like if we got more than a couple. Usually, we cut them up and have a smith under our protection burn the pieces in their forge. They say the stuff they make is better that way."

"Hmm, that's interesting. I wonder what's the alchemical principle behind that. Anyways, what did the Thrushes promise you to convince the rest of the Mud Hares to surrender?" I finish without changing tone of mild interest.

She stops dead and glares at me – a hand going to her dagger. "That's a dangerous accusation."

"Which is why I'm asking it in private." She continues to glare. "Oh, come now, you can't lie to me. I won't tell the others, I just want to know." I half lie. Part of me hates her for being a collaborator, yet… is her situation really comparable to Caethlon? It's not her homeland she's selling, and the enemy are of her same people. It's not entirely unreasonable for her to legitimately believe her way was better. If she happened to benefit, well, I'm hardly one to begrudge an opportunist.

Yet some trace of ire remains. I need to know the answer to decide how we'll be working together.

Her shoulders slump and her hand slide from her knife. "Magic?" she asks.

"I hardly needed it – it was obvious just from watching. Now, what was it? Did they say they'd put you in charge of the Mud Hares as a sort of client gang?"

She nods. "Yeah, I figured better me than one of them, right?"

"Not entirely unreasonable," I say, hiding my conflicted emotion. At least it's not as bad as I feared. She's a traitor, but… should I even care? It's not like she betrayed me, or anyone I cared about, and knowing her secret might make her easier to deal with. Moreover, her betrayal was limited to words, and, as far as I know, no one died from her actions. Still, a tinge of resentment remains.

She takes me on a circuitous route around the conflict area to where she says is the closest safe place to the Thrushes' headquarters, going over various details of my destination on the way.

"This is as far as I go," she says, peeking out of a shady alley. "The building is an apartment like ours, but a bit bigger. They live on the top two floors."

"Right, stay still," I say, contacting one of my bonded birds I have following me and telling it to land on her. "Go to a safe place. This bird will tell you when I need you… I mean, it won't speak, it'll just lead you."

She gives me a slightly insulted look. "We might not have as many birds here as your fancy noble sections, but I know they don't talk."

"Well, it is magic, you might have misunderstood… Anyways… don't remove the silver tag."

She nods and walks away. I wait until she is out of sight to cast concealment then walk briskly following her directions. I find the apartment quickly, just another square stone block. There's a pair of thugs armed with two-pronged fishing spears guarding the entrance, so I quickly duck back into an alley.

This would be so much simpler with my crossbow, though it would be too obvious a link back to me. Even my sling might be too much, though it's really the only safe method I have.

I grab a clump of dirt and put it in my pocket then climb up a building with a good view of the entrance. Once up I lie flat and retrieve the dirt and a seed which I plant in it. It takes about twenty minutes for the plant grower spell to achieve a usable maturity, and I have to drop my shield spell to maintain it, but I'm in no rush. Once it's ready I wrap the stem around a bullet with a poison augmenting/retaining enchantment and crush the plant against it with a rolling motion.

The poison would be stronger had I condensed it beforehand, but carrying processed toxins around is simply too suspicious. Besides, the plant is potent enough that it shouldn't matter, and freshness counts for something.

Fully prepared, I just have to draw him out.

I draw my silver rod from an added compartment in my sword sheath and quickly confirm Henry's presence using his name, social relations, physical description from Klar and a mildly enchanted short sword she said he uses. As expected, he's on the fourth floor.

Now how to do this? The obvious thing would have been to have the Mud Hares make a commotion that he needed to respond to, but the less they do the more capable of patron I seem… I wonder if I can cast mental whisper through a divination?

The Eye resists briefly, then relents with compromise when I use the missile guidance as precedent. I can only use the rod – no crystals or anthropomancy or any other method I might learn – and only at a very short range. I get the impression they would need to be able to hear me if I were to shout. Increasing power increases the range, but that would of course remove the advantage of the message being in their own mental voice.

I cast the spell and whisper as subtly as I can. 'What was that?' 'Outside?' 'Better check it out.' I track him with the rod as he moves to a window and spot him as he looks out. His face isn't too distinct – a beard and a faint scar over an eye. I could try to cast missile guidance before he moves away, but the shot would be too good for anything other than magic to explain it.

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These limits I'm placing on myself are frustrating, but it's best to be careful.

He walks away and I whisper again. 'Wait, there it is again.' 'Sigh.' 'A quick walk around won't hurt.'

I cast missile guidance as he goes unrushed down the stairs, making a few detours. A few moments later he emerges from the door with two others in tow, stopping to question his guards.

"You guys see anything? Hear anything?"

"No boss, it's been quiet." One says, not straightening from their leaning against the wall.

"What did you hear?" a woman who came out with him, armed with a blade somewhere between a sword and a broad knife at her side, asks.

He shakes his head. "I don't know. Probably just my imagination."

He makes to go back in and I panickly recast the mental whisper – pain shooting through my head as I briefly maintain three spells at once. 'Over there.' The pain intensifies as I include non-verbal stimuli in the message to indicate an alley away from the door.

"There it is again. Over there." The others are confused. "You didn't hear that?"

The woman shakes no with a concerned look. "What did it sound like?"

"I… it's hard to describe. Let's just check it out."

She nods. "I guess we better."

I need him away from the door so they can't retreat back inside. I wait until he nears the alley then pop up and throw the poisoned bullet into his back, a few inches from his heart. A spurt of blood as the bullet enters, he stumbles forward but catches himself, then everyone starts to move.

"Ambush! Take cover!" The woman shouts as she pulls her boss into the alley with his other companion lagging behind to scan the roofs before following.

I assess the situation. The poison should kill most squires, much less a page, but his healing ability might be unusually high; I need to finish the job. I almost wish I had just hit the heart and been done with it, but such precision would have been far too conspicuous.

I pause a few seconds to drop concealment and recast my shield spell – all too conscious of their footsteps fleeing into the distance – then I jump.

The two door guards rush me with their short spears. I'm not really in danger from them, even without my shield. Having two points halves their armour penetration, and while I'm not wearing my gambeson, my normal enchanted clothes should be more than enough to stop them.

Still, I don't let them hit me. They're not very good: Neither trained nor particularly experienced they just thrust at me wildly, overextending their footing without even bothering to attack together.

I twist out of the way of the first one, draw my iron phasing dagger in case they have hidden armour and ram it in their gut then slash out. They buckle forward, putting their throat in easy reach, so I obligingly slash it without much thought as I move on to the second one.

They're a lot more hesitant to approach after seeing how quickly I killed their associate, but their form is lousy, so I just rush in. I duck under their spear and slash their femoral artery then reverse my grip and slam the blade under the armpit into the heart. I don't wait for them to fall before turning to run after my prey, though I hear them before I reach the alley.

Henry doesn't get far and is stumbling weakly forward with the woman's support when I reach him. His second companion, a muscular and bearded man a little older than him spots me first and alerts the others. They ready themselves but Henry drops his sword as soon as he draws it.

"Poison," he gasps, staring at his shaking hand.

"Go," the woman says in a quiet shout. "Get to the doctor; we'll hold them off."

The alley is too narrow for them to fight together, so the muscle man comes at me first, swinging a sort of walking stick with a large knob on the end at me. The stick almost looks like it was made to be a noble's accessory, except someone drove a metal spike through the knob. It seems like an excellent weapon to collapse shield spells and light armour.

The alley is confined, so avoiding his strikes is difficult, and he's much more experienced than the two dead spears. He doesn't overextend his reach and steps back after each strike to prevent me from closing in.

Frustrated, I rush forward suddenly instead of dodging, letting him hit me, but with the shaft rather than the spike. It would no doubt have bruised and knocked me down without the shield, but with it the stick bounces off harmlessly with a bright flash.

His experience holds true, and he steps back to try to keep his distance while choking up on the stick in a smooth motion, but I rush in faster than he can retreat and stab his groin. Not overly perturbed, he grips my arm before I can retract it and makes to swing at my head with his other hand holding the stick at the midway point.

Before he can hit, I draw my poisoned enchanted dagger and stab the wrist of the hand gripping me, relaxing it enough to let me move in and again dodge the spike though not the shaft. My shield flashes erratically, indicating it's close to collapse.

I stab out into his chest with the poisoned blade and lodge it into his lung. Crying out he tightens his grip on my other arm and throws me away several paces into the wall, ripping the poisoned dagger from my grip, and my other dagger from him. My arm feels nearly dislocated and while my shield absorb the impact against the wall, it flutters then shatters an instant later.

The man grins at my vulnerable state and steps forward raising his stick. I jump back for space and time and he follows, but stumbles on the second step.

Smiling, I let him reach me. When he does his swing is uncoordinated and I easily dodge in and start stabbing – mostly going for the legs and gut as I can't reach his throat. He tries to grab me again, but the poison blurs his vision and shakes his hand, making his grasp far too easy to dodge. He collapses after I stab a knee, finally bringing his throat into easy slashing range.

I leap back to let him bleed out and try to recast my shield spell, but the woman doesn't give me time. She jumps past him as he gurgles blood on his ruined knee and swings her cleaver/sword at my head in near perfect form.

Pain shoots through my head from aborting the spell, but I push through it to dodge back. I sheath my dagger and draw my sword. I didn't want to use it, but she's too good to just dodge, and I can't parry her with a dagger, especially an iron phasing one.

Unfortunately, while she's not quite as enhanced as me, she is much better with a sword. She's obviously trained and experienced. A former mercenary or house guard? It doesn't matter. What does matter is that she scores a series of hits on my arms and torso before jumping back.

She looks at her blade then back at me with a quizzical then irritated look. "Now that's just cheating," she says as she realizes my clothes are too enchanted for her to penetrate.

We resume with her exclusively aiming at my face – the only exposed bit of skin on my body. This does make her a lot easier to parry, and I raise my gloved hand near my head to block strikes. The impacts bruise, but the pain is manageable.

Still, she's pressing me hard. I do surprise her by activating the lengthening enchantment to stab her torso from farther than she thought I could, but she twists out of the way turning it into a shallow cut. She powers her counter swing with the same movement she dodged with and hacks into my blocking hand – knocking it aside and scoring a cut on my face. The cut hit my hood first, so it's short and shallow, but it's bloody and directly above my eye.

This isn't getting anywhere, I can't keep up fighting her way.

I jump back and throw one of my wrist knives in the same motion I use to draw it. The invisible blade catches her by surprise and in her torso. Then, telling my sword to fully extend, I rush back in and attack purely with thrusts.

She parries well, but I have the reach advantage now and have better speed and reflexes allowing me to step back whenever she advances. Eventually, with only me being able to effectively attack, I start getting hits. Shallow stabs, but they start adding up. In desperation, she tries to grab the blade as it enters her, but the magically sharp sword slices through her fingers as I jump back.

She falls to her knees after a few more stabs, giving me a resentful look. "Fucking nobles," she spits, likely indicating that I bested her with coin more than skill. I half agree, though I could have won with magic had I been willing to be flashier.

I finish her off with a thrust to the throat then retrieve my dagger and knife before running after her boss.

That took far too long. I'm about to pull out my silver rod to track him when I hear ragged breathing down an alley. I turn and see Henry leaning against a wall for support – pale faced and shaking with a dagger held limply at his side. He gives his weapon an amused look and deliberately tosses it aside in resignation.

"What house sent you?" he gasps.

"House?" I ask, confused.

"Well, yeah, it would have to be either Nilerhal or Vynhal, right? They're the only ones opposing our interests in this section."

Wait… he's talking as if… "You're a noble?" I state as much as ask.

He laughs. "You mean you didn't know?"

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