Once they had finished eating, the guards escorted them back outside. Lady Clase was nowhere to be seen, though Pirin figured he’d see her soon enough. Supposedly, she’d talk with them in the morning, but he wasn’t sure how true that was.

The guards brought them to a corner of the camp, where they settled down. The guards, after pushing the Familiars along, told them all to sleep. After a couple minutes, only a few guards still lingered. They stood at a safe distance, side-by-side, with their salt-tipped spears ready.

In the center of the thoroughfare, just outside her tent, Lady Clase stood among a group of warriors. She kept her voice hushed, and Pirin couldn’t hear anything more than murmuring with his own ears. But he wasn’t without tools.

He looked into Gray’s eyes, then whispered, “Gray, your hearing should be better than mine, being a gnatsnapper.”

Yeah, but I don't know what they’re saying. I guess it sounds like the Low Speech that you always use, but I can’t make out any words. Wait, wait, was that something about a ‘map’? You’ve been saying that a lot lately.

Pirin sighed. “I know you can’t understand them. But if you concentrate on what they’re saying, and I use the Whisper Hitch, I should be able to get it.”

Oh…I see. Yeah, go right ahead. Listen through my ears!

Pirin scrunched his eyebrows. “Is that…sarcasm?”

What’s sarcasm?

“I’ll tell you later. Right now, I need you to listen.” He held out his hand and met Gray’s eyes, and he almost started the technique, but he cut it off. The two guards watching them would notice. They might not have been able to hear him whispering, but they’d notice if he used an arcane technique out in the open.

He tucked his hand behind his back, hiding it from sight of the guards. He didn’t technically need to hold his hand out to trigger the technique; the precise movement of Essence in his channels was enough.

With his Reyad, the Whisper Hitch worked on the first try.

Gray’s mind, now having been strengthened by a core and Essence system, was much more robust than it used to be. She was truly sapient now, and it was a good thing she wasn’t trying to resist him.

He figured he could still overpower her will if he absolutely had to, but it would take serious effort.

Still, he had to let his Essence linger in his hand for longer, holding and absorbing her thoughts. He filtered through scattered phrases. Her thoughts weren’t distinctly Low Speech, not in the same way that he could parse most other creatures’ thoughts. Instead, they were consistent and coherent strings of tweets that sounded like some kind of language.

She was thinking a lot of thoughts, and none of them were concentrating on Lady Clase’s and the warriors’ conversation.

“Gray,” Pirin whispered. “Concentrate on what they’re saying…”

I’m trying…

“Just…try to let the sounds ring out in your mind.”

After a few seconds, Pirin picked up something that sounded like a baby mumbling. Then, he caught Lady Clase’s voice. It sounded like she was trying to talk to him underwater, and the words came slowly.

Finally, Gray stopped trying to parse the sounds and just let them echo through her head.

“...a bartering chip,” Lady Clase was saying.

“We couldn’t arrange a meeting with the Dominion, even if we wanted to,” one of the warriors, a man with long hair and a high ponytail said. “They’ve been detaining and enlisting our men into their workforces on the spot.”

“But the man that we saw in the port,” another soldier said, “he’s different, and high-ranking. And he had a wizard with him. A master and an apprentice, maybe, but neither of them seem to swing with the Dominion the same way the marshals do. This…this man might be open to a trade.”

“And what would we trade?” Lady Clase asked.

“Give them the wizards you just caught,” the ponytail warrior said. “In exchange for…for peace? For some of our sect members back?”

Lady Clase turned in a circle, locking eyes with all the warriors. She folded her hands behind her back in a clean, military fashion. “This…master and apprentice pair you saw, Janen, what did they look like?”

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“The man? He wore a black frock coat and a single blood-red glove. The girl was wearing a Kaless-Ost uniform.”

Pirin’s eyes widened. He knew exactly who they were talking about.

The Red Hand was here.

The Red Hand? Gray exclaimed. Sorry. Whisper Hitch goes both ways. He’s that spooky man, right? Always scowling, and always with that fancy curved sword?

“Yes, him,” Pirin breathed.

He focused on the sounds Gray was picking up again, trying to filter back to the conversation.

“...get more out of a deal with the Dominion than you will by helping two weakling Sirdian wizards,” said one of the warriors.

“I am aware,” Lady Clase stated. “Send a party to Dulfer right away. Try to find someone who will listen to you, or who can bring you before the Red Hand. Tell them to meet me at dawn, and we will make a decision.”

Pirin snapped his fist shut and closed off the Essence flow. He’d heard enough. Lady Clase would play both sides.

No matter what happened, the Hand would come out on top, and Pirin wouldn’t.

They had to get moving. As softly as he could, Pirin told Myraden what he’d just discovered.

Myraden glanced at the guard, then whispered something to Pirin in the same language she spoke to Kythen.

He shook his head. “I…I swear, Myraden, I don’t remember that language, even if you did teach me a little.”

Which was almost true. He recalled a few curses, even if he couldn’t say specifically what they meant.

Staring at the guards, she crossed her arms. She shut her eyes for a moment, then let out a short breath. “We need to leave. Now. They are expecting us to play nicely. Lady Clase has not restricted our spirits, and if we run now, we can make it into the tunnels.”

“How long do you think it would be before she noticed and attacked?” Pirin shook his head. He kept his voice low, but the guards had to be able to see him talking to her, even if they couldn’t hear. “Whatever stage she’s at, however high, she has some kind of spiritual sense. I’d bet it's trained on us.”

“Do you know how to veil yourself? How to hide your spirit from all but the strongest of senses and wills?”

“Do you think I’d know how to do that?” Pirin tilted his head, then glanced back at Gray. “We don’t know how to do that, do we?”

What does ‘veil’ mean?

Pirin took that as a no.

“It was one of the first things I learned,” Myraden told him. “It came especially easy to me…partially because I was struggling so much to feed Kythen Essence and use the full Familiar circuit.”

“How do I do it?”

Myraden opened her mouth, then shut it again.

“I don’t care if it’s not your place to teach me, or whatever,” Pirin whispered, eying the two closest guards warily. “If you don’t teach me how to do this one thing, we aren’t getting out of here intact.”

“Pull all your Essence in towards your core and hold it tight,” Myraden said. “The movement of Essence is what wizards can sense. If it does not move, it cannot be sensed. But unless you have trained your willpower, as most high level wizards have, you will not be able to maintain a veil with your willpower alone.”

“How, then?”

“Breathing techniques. Take small, shallow breaths, and do not let your Essence slip—not once.”

Pirin glanced at Gray. He might have been able to make that work, but the system of Essence channels jumped between him and Gray. He’d have to get her to veil herself as well. Her breathing helped him transfer and cycle Essence as well, and if she didn’t control her breathing, the veil wouldn’t work.

It was a good thing he could deactivate his Reyad whenever he wanted.

“Gray,” he whispered. “I’m going to pull all the Essence back to myself. That way, you won’t have to worry about hiding your core. And then I’ll deactivate our Reyad.”

Shutting his eyes, Pirin tugged all the Essence back towards himself. He drew it across the bond between him and Gray so quickly that a few sparks of brownish-green gnatsnapper Essence manifested in the air—along the invisible path of their bond.

As soon as all the Essence crossed over into his body, he pulled his mask off his face. Shaking it, he let the runes cool and the stray Essence evaporate off into the air. Gray suddenly seemed a lot more distant, even if she hadn’t moved.

He pushed his consciousness down through his body, thinking about his core and pulling the Essence back to it. He was still an Embercore, no matter how much Essence he had accumulated, and it was still weak. Not all of the Essence could slide back inside his core.

But there was no way he was venting any hard-earned Essence—if he could even figure out how to do that.

He started to compress it, tightening it in his channels just beneath his core, until it finally held still. He had to take small, tight breaths to keep the Essence from moving, and extend as much willpower as he could muster.

Slowly, he opened his eyes. “Can you sense me?” he asked Myraden, keeping his voice low.

“I could not have sensed much even if you weren’t veiling yourself,” she reminded him. “But I do not feel the faint spiritual tug of your core. Hold it.”

“Can you sense Gray’s core?”

“With such little Essence in it, I cannot feel it either.” She glanced back at Kythen. “Give me a moment to veil myself, and then we will get moving.”

She placed a hand on Kythen’s fluffy white flank and shut her eyes. After a few seconds, she opened them again.

She hadn’t been stirring up much Essence before, nor causing a massive weight on Pirin’s spirit, but now, something definitely felt lighter. There was…slightly less pressure from her direction.

“Now,” he whispered, “quietly, this time, we need to get ourselves a map. We need to sneak up there and get one. Then, we’ll be good to go.”