Dantes stood from his bedroll and flexed his fingers as he moved toward Orebus, Merle, and Felix. It had started to rain, and a light drizzle was falling over the garden, which he sensed that many of the plants enjoyed, though a nearby cat was grumpily licking its fur nearby as it was forced to hide under an old piece of wall. Felix reeked of alcohol, and his eyes were wide as he carved small runes into Merle’s collar with a small jagged piece of metal.

“You’re going first?” Dantes asked.

“Can’t ask them to risk what I’m not willing to risk myself.”

Orebus sighed. “Yes you could, but arguing about it would be pointless.”

“What do I need to do?”

Felix gestured him closer and pointed at a small indent in the back of it. “This is the locking mechanism. I need to channel energy into the collar, and when I say go you’ll need to unlock it. If you do it too soon, or too late, he’ll die.”

“How? His head will explode? Or it jams a knife into his throat?”

“No, he’ll just die.”

“...Effective.”

“Get on with it,” said Merle, kneeling down a bit further and bowing forward.

Dantes turned his focus to his branch and had it extend some small thin pieces into the locking mechanism. It was a very simple lock, which made sense considering the lock itself wasn’t the deterrent so much as the enchantment around it.

“Okay…let’s see.” Felix placed his finger on one of the runes on Merle’s collar. The rune very slowly began to glow until it was lit in a bright green. He then moved onto the next rune, and then the next. Each of them seemed to be from a completely different alphabet, and each of them was lit a different color after he channeled energy into them. The entire time, Felix muttered different chants, and words under his breath. At some points he seemed to be speaking multiple chants and phrases at once, or leaving strange echoes in the air after certain words, defying natural logic.

Dantes felt the tips of his fingers begin to tingle more and more strongly as Felix worked, until they began to feel as if they were burning, but he saw no visible burns on his skin.

“Now!” yelled Felix suddenly.

Dantes quickly undid the mechanism holding the collar and, with a click, it fell from Merle’s thick neck and landed on the ground.

Felix fell backwards, panting.

Merle sat completely still for a moment, then straightened his back and stood up. His eyes were closed. He took a deep breath through his nose, then exhaled through his mouth. For a moment, all of the rain that was falling seemed to pause where it was in midair. Merle moved his right hand in a gentle motion in front of himself and the air seemed to distort around it, with the water hitting it turning to steam, as if he was simply adjusting the temperature around his hand. He moved his left hand in a semicircle and golden runes appeared in the air for just a moment, dancing around it.

Dantes had no clue what he was doing, but he knew power when he saw it. He was grateful Merle was a friend and not a foe at that moment.

Merle opened his eyes, and they were glowing bright purple, then he blinked them, and they were back to normal. He turned to look at Felix and held his hand out to him.

Felix flinched for a moment, then took the hand and was pulled back onto his feet and into a powerful hug.

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“You are a truly brilliant mage, Felix. I’d had theories about the collars, worked everything from every angle, but I never would’ve considered overloading the enchantment and redirecting it like that.”

Felix nodded, a bit of steel returning to his spine. “I’d be the head of my department if numbers one and two weren’t elves who won’t ever age out of their postings.”

Orebus frowned. “They don’t rotate anymore?”

“Not for decades.”

“Another reason the current academy needs to be rebuilt from the ground up,” said Merle, rolling his neck while running a hand along where his collar used to be.

He looked at Wane and Orebus. “I should be able to mimic what Felix was doing, but there’s no way my hands could pick a lock.”

“Wane should be able to do it,” responded Dantes. “The lock itself is very simple.” Dantes reached into his sleeves to pull out his old crude lockpicking set from the underprison, holding it out to Wane. “Take these. I have better tools now anyway.”

Merle nodded. “Thank you Dantes. None of this would’ve been possible without you.”

“True, but I bet you lost some good men to my garden. We’ll call this evening the score.”

Merle nodded.

“That being said, I’m certain we can come to some mutually beneficial arrangements, no?”

He smiled. “Of that I am certain.” he wiggled his fingers a bit and multi-colored sparks drifted off of them. “We may be out of contact for some time. Even with the collars removed it’s dangerous for fugitives out here. We have plans of our own to work towards as well.”

Dantes hid his disappointment. He knew they would be helpful with his plans, but he also couldn’t fault them for having their own priorities beyond helping him with his own revenge. He held out a hand and Merle clasped it firmly.

“Until next time.”

Merle nodded.

“I’ll bring some dice, you, me and Felix can figure out who has the best luck.”

Dantes smiled. “I’m happy to take your money.”

Felix nodded as well, “I’d prefer if we played cards.”

The collared gathered their things, and said their final goodbyes before disappearing back into the city where they could help their members still in hiding.

Dantes and Felix were left alone.

“I can… I can leave right?”

Dantes nodded. “That’s right, but I’ll see you in one week at the Bitter Wife. Bring more of those hammers, and I’ll bring you gold for them. Understood?”

Felix nodded.

“I’ll see you then.”

Felix moved to leave, but hesitated at the exit. “I uh, don’t know how to get back to the tower from here.”

…

After escorting Felix until he reached a road that he recognized, Dantes returned to his garden and waited for Jacopo. Once he arrived, he made sure he had a good meal, then left him there to rest while he began to travel to his other gardens. Clay was doing good work, but Dantes had to make sure that the gardens benefited the animals around them as much as the plants themselves, which seemed to be Clay’s biggest blind spot. Still, he did great work, and Dantes left his payment in the dead drop they’d last agreed to.

Once he was done, Dantes returned to his main garden, and laid out parchment on a flat piece of concrete. He weighed down the corners of it with stones, and then unrolled the letter that Danglar’s had received from his mother next to it. At a glance he’d been able to tell that Cornelia was using an old feather pen and inkwell rather than the newer fountain pens that had been common for more than a decade. He’d sourced one of his own, and on the clean parchment he began to write, doing his best to mimic Cornelia’s handwriting as he did so. He had always been an excellent forger, he had good hands, but Cornelia’s handwriting had a number of quirks related to her upbringing, and what he guessed was arthritis. Still, after filling a few different sheets with his attempts at mimicry he thought he’d gotten close enough for a real attempt.

For the first one, he simply copied the letter he’d stolen word for word, with no changes, but now on an uncrumpled and clean piece of paper. Once that was done he folded it neatly, and slipped it into his jacket for later. With that written, he moved on to notes that needed no forgery. He sent his thoughts to rats, roaches, and bats he had watching various enterprises of Mondego’s in midtown. Eventually he settled on a lightly manned gambling den filled with dust. He wrote specific information on it, and rolled it into a tight note, then summoned a rat. He tied the note to the rat, along with one of the enchanted keys, and sent him on his way to Pacha. He’d been feeding small, easily verifiable pieces of information to Pacha since the raid on Mondego’s warehouse, and Pacha had been taking the bait. He’d even earned himself a promotion, which filled Dantes with a little touch of pride he imagined a parent would feel at a child’s success.

When he was done writing he stood and settled next to Jacopo on his bedroll. He needed his rest, the next day he had plans with Mistress Dorsia at the Cruel Lady. Of course, he didn’t intend to participate in the more eccentric options at that particular brothel. At least, probably not.