Anton had some questions as they headed back to the inn. He didn’t think Kelsey would want him talking in front of Karim about it, so he switched back to Tiatian.

“Thirty people is more than was taken, and didn’t we figure that some of them would have been moved on by now?”

Kelsey looked at Karim, who had reacted to his speaking, but only to stare in confusion. If he was pretending to not understand, then he was doing a pretty good job. She shrugged.

“Yeah, but I figure we won’t limit ourselves. It will be as easy to take whoever’s locked up as it will be to find the ones we want and just take them.”

Anton wasn’t sure if that was true, but he didn’t want to be the one to argue for leaving slaves locked up. Some impracticalities occurred to him though.

“Our boat’s not big enough for that many,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, we’ll have to get another boat,” Kelsey agreed. “We were probably going to have to do that anyway. We don’t really want to ferry around a bunch of teenagers while we look for the rest of the group.”

“You just want to send them all back home then? Regardless of where they’re from?”

“If they’re from here, they can always stay,” Kelsey replied. “If they’re from the south, then we can take them along at least part of the way. If they’re from the north, they can make their way home from there.”

“You can’t just dump them and expect them to find their way home,” he objected.

“Suliel will look after them,” she assured him. “Kirido needs workers, as much as it needs its children back. They can stay and work, or work enough to get passage home.”

Anton nodded slowly. By this time, they were almost at the inn. Kelsey told Karim to hide and wait, and that Aris would come out with Zaphar after their meeting. She also arranged a time and place where she could give them their pay and get her reports.

Aris had, it turned out, made her way back without incident. Zaphar had joined the two courl prisoners in their room and was talking to them while they all waited for Kelsey to get back. The chatter sounded pretty friendly as they approached, but it stopped dead when Kelsey opened the door.

“Oh don’t stop on my account,” Kelsey said brightly. “What were we talking about?”

Zaphar looked at her warily. “They— they were saying that deals with you come with a sting in them.”

“True enough,” Kelsey said. Anton came in behind her and shut the door. Walking over to Aris, who was sitting on one of the two chairs in the room, he smiled to see that she was all right. Smiling back, she jumped out of her chair and let him sit on it, taking her seat on his lap.

Kelsey took a seat on one of the beds, next to the courl whose bed it was. He made a face and switched to the other bed. Kelsey smirked at his snub.

“You’ll make your deal with Anton,” she told Zaphar. “He doesn’t have the same impediment.”

“How come we didn’t get that option?” Kusec grumbled.

Kelsey raised an eyebrow. “This man, gentlemen, is a thief,” she said, pointing at Zaphar. “He sneaks into people's homes, steals their most precious possessions and memories and sells them to whoever will buy. Truly, he is a stain on Humanity.”

She paused, smirking, giving Zaphar a chance to look embarrassed. Kelsey wasn’t done.

“You guys, though, I don’t trust.”

Kusec glowered at her but didn’t respond. “You any closer to finding the girl?” he finally asked.

“Maybe! This guy's going to get us a look,” Kelsey told him. “Let’s move this into our room, we’ve got more chairs, and fewer surly courls.”

Zaphar shrugged and followed them into Kelsey’s room. The courls stayed behind.

“Why are they here?” Zaphar asked.

“To help us learn the language, and get us up to speed on how things work here,” Kelsey explained. “They’re almost surplus to requirements, but they can still be some muscle if we need it.”

“Sure, all right, whatever,” Zaphar said. “What do you need from me?”

“First off,” Kelsey said, looking thoughtful, “We need a map of the compound, showing us how the buildings are laid out and what’s where.”

“I dunno about a map, but anyone can enter the compound,” Zaphar said. “All you need is proof that you have business there. That guy you’re gonna bribe can write a note saying he wants to see you, that’d do it. Or you could apply for a permit or something.”

“They just let people in?” Anton asked. Zaphar looked at him nervously.

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“Yeah, yeah. All the buildings inside are guarded. You need a pass or something for the building you want to get into. But just wandering around you can do, as long as you look like you know where you’re going.”

“All right, we’ll check it out,” Kelsey said. “Next, we’ll need the interior layout of wherever they’re keeping the slaves, and some idea of how many slaves there are.”

Zaphar grimaced. “The one place where they’re keeping valuable merchandise. Yeah, yeah, I can get that. Maybe one night to scope it out, and another to get inside. Wait, you mean the holding cells, or where the slaves that work there are kept?”

Kelsey grimaced. “The holding cells. Freeing every slave in the city is a little more than we’re ready for.”

“Sure, sure, I can get you that.”

“Good. One more thing. Can you find out where this newly arrived Pasha is going to be staying?”

“That’s easy,” Zaphar said immediately. “Big shot like that, he’ll be staying in the Wali’s palace. But that place is bad news. They’ve got magic guarding it, as well as guards running all about the place.”

“If you want a better Class, you’re going to need to pull off a flashy job,” Kelsey told him. “What better job than stealing from the Palace?”

“Nah, nah, stealing from that place is suicide,” Zaphar demurred. “You think getting me killed is doing me a favour? Hard, hard pass.”

“We can come back to that later,” Kelsey said. “Once you’ve got that building layout back to us, we’re going to need to break in and steal those slaves.”

“Sure, sure, but you know, I like to go for smaller stuff that’s easier to carry. You got any idea of how to get them out? And how you’re gonna keep them once you’ve got them?”

“A few,” Kelsey said coolly. “But details will have to wait until we get more information.”

“That part makes sense. The rest of it is crazy, but that part makes sense. So is that all you need?”

“For now. Why don’t you talk to Anton about payment?”

Anton started as Zaphar looked at him expectantly. “Uh, name your price?” he asked. It wasn’t like Kelsey cared about expenses.

Zaphar blinked in surprise, but recovered quickly. “Two gold for the maps,” he said, “and three gold if I get the details of the prisoners.”

“I thought you said you worked for silver?” Anton asked.

“You said name your price,” the thief said defensively. “Not like I want to work for you guys, so you need to sweeten the deal.”

Anton wasn’t sure if raising the price a hundred-fold counted as sweetening, but he pressed on. “Why extra to count the prisoners? Won’t you be taking the same risk going in to get the layout?”

“I’ll have to go up to the cells and look inside,” Zaphar said, shuddering. “Lots— Lots more risk.”

“I guess that makes sense.” Anton glanced at Kelsey, who didn’t seem concerned. “All right then. Half now, half when the job’s done?”

He was taken aback at Zaphar’s sudden consternation.

“In the underworld, if you don’t bargain, it makes them think that you plan to get out of paying by killing them when the job’s finished,” Kelsey said.

“Oh, what? We weren’t going to—”

“That’s just what a man planning murder would say!” Kelsey jumped in, laughing. “Don’t worry, Zaphar, we’re rich, so we don’t care how much you charge.”

“If you’re that rich, why don’t you just buy the slaves?” Zaphar asked.

“Well, you see, if you buy a slave off a slaver, he just goes and uses that money to get more slaves. And whatever it costs him, it’s probably going to be less than you paid, so he ends up with more slaves than before. It just perpetuates the system.”

“Stealing’s better?”

“Yeah. You get the slaves and you keep your money. Free the slaves, and there’s less of both in the system. The slaver has to spend more money getting more slaves, so it costs him. Cost him enough, and he drops out of the business.”

“Sure, sure, I get it. You hate slavery then?”

“Don’t most people?”

Zaphar shrugged. “Most poor people don’t like it, sure. Rich folks, though, they never seem to mind too much.”

“I guess we’re just crazy rich folks then,” Kelsey said, grinning.

“Yeah,” Zaphar said, but he didn’t seem happy to be in agreement. “Yeah.”

“Is foreign coin fine?” Anton asked. “We’ve got plenty of gold, but it’s not from here. Tiatian standard weight, even if it's not from the Empire’s mint.”

“Is that right?” Kelsey said. “I suppose I— er, I suppose it was copied from Empire coinage originally.”

“A lot of dungeons do that,” he told her. Whatever the coins were that were first lost in a dungeon, that’s what they provide from then on. A place like this probably seeds a new dungeon with a set of coins.”

“Standard or not, I don’t want coins that mark me as connected to you lot. Can you change it first?”

“Sure,” Kelsey said. “It will delay us paying you, though. Shall we say, half after your recon, and the other half when you’re done?”

“Sure, sure,” Zaphar said. “Are we done then?”

“I think so. We’re meeting Rashaq’s guy tomorrow night, so make sure you get here before sunset. Aris can show you out.”

Zaphar looked suspiciously at Aris, but she just smiled, so he shrugged and followed her. Anton had whispered to her earlier what she was expected to do, so she filled her role without asking any questions.

“I didn’t see any sign of Karim,” she said when she got back. “But I stayed with Zaphar until we stepped outside. He should have seen us.”

“I guess we’ll see tomorrow if he’s good at his job or just slacking off,” Kelsey commented.

“Are you really going to be fine changing your coins that quickly?” Anton asked.

“It’s fine,” Kelsey told him. “I got samples when we were out shopping, and I’m retooling the coin press now. I should have plenty by tomorrow.”

“Samples of gold coins?”

Kelsey shrugged. “I swapped like for like with a friendly merchant. My— that is, Tiatian standard is a little heavier than theirs so he came out ahead on the deal.”

“If you’re sure. How about sharing some details of this plan of yours?”

“It’s still pretty shaky,” Kelsey admitted. “Tomorrow, we need to find a boat with a… compliant captain. I doubt we’ll be able to take them straight to the docks, so that hideout is a must. There are a few things we should go over in advance, though.”

She pulled out a small, metal box with a protrusion coming out of it.

“This,” she said, “Is a timed detonator. Uncharged, so it’s safe. The unsafe version will destroy your hand if you’re holding it when it goes off, or if it gets handled too roughly. So be very, very careful holding it.”

She demonstrated it’s function. “You twist this, and the further you twist it, the longer it takes before it goes off. You do not want to be near it when it goes off.”

She handed it to Anton, who examined it in confusion. Now that he was holding it, he could hear a very faint ticking. The dial had markings and numbers that Kelsey told him represented minutes. Even as she explained that, there was a loud clack from the device, and the ticking stopped.

“There!” Kelsey said. “It’s gone off, and you’ve lost your hand. And probably an eye, as close as you were to it. You lose, game over. Don’t let that happen.”

Anton shrugged and passed the strange device to Aris. She twisted the dial and listened to the ticking.

“Now this,” Kelsey said, pulling another box out of the air, “Is teiantea.”