“Jonas!” Florencia whispered, as if afraid someone would overhear, but Sanermo was dead-quiet. “On the day that you disappeared, Keon Zek said the same thing! Word for word. ‘Rufasmos, I demand my reward!’. I remember it like it was yesterday. Sometimes I even dream about it. I’m sure of it.”

Surprisingly, I felt very little over the revelation, while Florencia was distraught.

“Why…” she repeated. “Why would they say the exact same thing? It’s all connected. But how?”

It was an odd thing, for sure, given that the two events happened almost forty years apart. I failed to see how they were connected, but the thing piqued my curiosity, even though my heart strongly wanted nothing to do with this. I knew there was a deeper truth hidden there; the coincidence was too huge to ignore.

As a half-desperate attempt, I asked Goxhandar. Maybe it had an insight. “Does the name Rufasmos tell you anything?”

“The name Rufasmos tells me nothing. But there are countless demons in countless realms,” said Goxhandar, and its attention dwindled into a slumber-like state. The answer didn’t surprise me.

As I fell silent, Florencia began to undress and removed most of her garments and boots, then set to stirring the fireplace back to life with only a mere thought. She propped her ancient longsword, with its curious marking on its hilt, against the wall beside her bed.

“I know you don’t want to talk about what happened before you came back, or about your past with me,” Florencia said gently. “But whether you like it or not, you are connected to all of this. I don’t know how, but what happened with you and what happened in Scorro are connected. I feel like this Rufasmos is the key to the puzzle. It is giving out rewards to those who do evil things. It… I guess it rewarded Keon by killing him? How does that make sense? Keon wanted to die. He awaited it.”

“Demons come from somewhere else, another realm,” I said, sitting on the bed beside her and throwing my boots in front of the door. “And it seems that when evil things are done, some of them can come into our world.”

“If both Keon and the secretary, Pasquinne, asked Rufasmos for a reward, does that mean that Rufasmos was watching? Is it always watching?” Florencia asked, but more rhetorically than it was a guided question.

I had few answers.

“As I said before, they can observe our world. At least, that’s what Goxhandar said. To what extent, I don’t know.”

“What if… Rufasmos was the… demon in Scorro?” Florencia wondered, mumbling the word demon almost as if she was afraid of it.

“No,” I said too quickly, though I didn’t know why. “No, I don’t think it was.”

“So your disappearance was connected to all of this, I knew it!” Florencia said hotly, again not using the word for the Enemy. “I foolishly spent twenty years trying to convince Ardovar of it, but it was all a waste of time. I was so stupid! Like Iskander, I should’ve gone rogue. Maybe sought Pitties out myself.”

Florencia laughed bitterly. “If I had done that, maybe I would’ve known more. Maybe I could’ve prevented Scorro or given Pitties more information. Maybe I could’ve brought you back quicker…”

“Flo,” I said softly. “You can’t blame yourself.”

“I’m not!” she said. “But right now, I can’t help but think like this. I know it’s not my fault. But I could’ve been smart.”

“I think you’re smart enough.” I winked wickedly and kissed her cheek, and the mood lightened.

For another hour, we went back and forth with wild theories about what the answer could be, but we were both stumbling around blind, coming up with ideas based on nothing. We didn’t know enough, and there was nothing we could do.

We had to know more.

For what felt like a short while we laid in bed, and barely any time had passed before the warm orange glow of dawn was creeping in through the window and a new day had begun.

“If we would just catch one and interrogate them,” Florencia said sleepily. “I could never do it myself, back under Ardovar’s command. He always wanted to interrogate them himself, with only Sofia by his side. He never had me or Ferchell helping him. I think he was trying to hide the truth from everyone. Now… now I think we can get some answers.”

“I don’t know how we’re going to do that, though," I said.

“With the Warrant, we can do so much more,” she said. We had been unchained and released into the realm of Lienor to hunt down the cancer that has been infesting the land. For Florencia, this meant she could carry out her work without opposition, and I saw a glimmer of excitement in her eyes, like a tiny spark igniting within her.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

And we also knew we couldn’t be reckless. The rules governing us were unclear, and we both understood that we had to play it safe, for a single misstep could have deadly consequences.

Finding out what Rufasmos was had to become our secondary priority for the time being, and we would tell nobody of this unless we had to.

*

We managed two hours of sleep before Florencia stirred me awake.

She wanted to talk to Jace and Iskander before going to Old Town with Pitties’ contact.

“They must be furious,” she said, dressing in her travel clothes, discarding the court robes into a corner beside the bath.

“I think Jace is alright, but you’re right about Iskander and Jaxine,” I said and then fell into thought. “I want to ask them to join us. He’s skilled with a sword. He didn’t run or cower. And I have a feeling about Jaxine. What do you think?”

Florencia scrunched her nose and said: “No, I would leave them behind. I don’t like Jaxine too much, and Iskander would make everyone we meet uncomfortable. And there’s violence inside him that turns me off.”

“That can be a good thing.”

“I’ve had more success with flattery and flirting than with the threat of violence,” Florencia said with confidence. “People don’t take coercion well, especially if they’re a captain or mayor. It’s your decision, though.” The last words sounded bitter but with a strange hint of relief.

We spoke no more about this and went to see Jace.

The halls outside were empty, save for a few patrolling guards making their rounds.

Jace looked bewildered as he answered the door, clearly having been asleep. He wore a white, long nightshirt, and his hair was messy and disheveled. A silver platter was set upon a small table next to the bed, with a pile of bones licked clean on it. Beside it was a bowl of some kind of yellow sauce, and a few empty wine bottles laying on the floor.

The small black book that he found in Scorro looked like it had been read through front to back many times over, and was now laying beside the fireplace on the windowsill.

“The trial was something else,” Jace said, rubbing his puffy eyes. “The crown prince and Pitties were all in the same place where I was! I’ve never even either of them. Have you any idea what this is all about?”

“There… there have been some developments,” I said awkwardly.

“No kidding,” he smiled, but not warmly. He sat down on the bed and put his leg over his knee. “They falsely accused you of using dark magic, and then you confessed to it? Then I was thrown out of the Lodge, along with Florencia, and called incompetent. And wiping the memories of the Russos and putting them under a spell? Jonas, I really hope that there have been developments because this is a bit much for me to handle.”

“You don’t seem that bothered by all of this, though,” said Florencia.

“I’ve had help,” said Jace, idly swirling an empty wine bottle around. “When they asked if they could bring me something to pass the time, I requested a very specific wine. After all, what did I have to lose? And it turns out they had it—Moncratta, a favorite of my father’s. I even visited their winery when I was young. It was all the way down south in Ranza. Wonderful place, with huge vineyards and a very warm, bright blue ocean and a cool breeze in springtime. Very pleasant. Lovely small villages and those bright orange and yellow houses with those vines growing on the walls everywhere…”

I walked more toward the middle of the room and looked out of the window for a moment. Then I turned to Jace.

“It turns out that the entire hearing was a farce. They wanted to restrict Cappesand’s operations. What happened to me, and you, was a show. Well… except for the part where you were kicked out. That was all Ardovar’s doing. That wasn’t meant to happen.”

This was surprising to Jace. His eyebrows raised, and he made a strange noise in his throat.

“Meant to happen? I’m… even more confused. Please explain.”

“Rainier Pitties wanted to talk to me ever since Veneiea,” I said plainly and continued before Jace could ask any more questions. “To cut a long story short, he summoned me last night and asked me to become his agent. He wants me to work in secret, to make sure what happened in Scorro and Veneiea would never happen again—”

“Demons,” Jace whispered.

The name was already familiar to him. We had talked about this, and I had explained some of what Goxhandar told me during Scorro’s clean up and when we were making our journey to the capital.

“Yes, demons,” I said like it was the most normal thing ever. “Pitties wanted me to work for him and I agreed.”

“I… wasn’t expecting this,” Jace said honestly and set the wine bottle back on the table. “This is quite honestly the furthest from what I expected. I really thought the hearing was to bring Cappesand to heel, and maybe punish the High Council a bit. Light a fire under their feet, so to speak. I guessed Ardovar and Philemon had somehow angered Pitties, so he wanted to humiliate them publicly.”

“You’re not far off,” Florencia said brightly. “That was the hearing’s secondary goal. I’ve been trying to tell Ardovar about the dangers, but he has always dismissed them. Now he won’t be in our way.”

“Our way?” Jace asked.

“I asked Florencia to do this with me,” I said. “And I’m also asking you. Since you’re no longer a part of Cappesand or the Yasman Lodge.”

“Oh,” Jace fell into thought. “Working for Cappesand has always been my dream. My father and mother were so proud when they heard the news…”

Before Jace could fall deeper into despair, I explained to him the details of what I was offering.

I didn’t mention that the crown prince and the chief justice had been present in the meeting, along with the king’s mother. Nor did I reveal the full extent of the power that the Royal Warrant had granted me—even though I didn’t fully understand it. I simply said I was under Pitties’ protection, and we had a high degree of freedom with how we would do the work.

My plan worked, and Jace’s expression grew increasingly more impressed as I spoke. When I sensed he was at the peak of his wonder, I asked him again to join Florencia and me.

“Come with us to Veneiea and Caffria,” I said, looking into his eyes and speaking proudly. “Let’s make sure that there will never be another Scorro in Lienor ever again!”

“I must confess,” said Jace. “I was preparing myself to apologize to Ardovar over my… failure.”

He laughed.

“I thought I had to make myself small and that I’d be put away somewhere far and dark. To keep records of other people’s deeds for a few decades. Jonas—” He rose and looked back at me. “I need time. Please. All of this came so suddenly that I want some time to think about it.”

“You’ll have it,” Florencia said. “We must stay in Sanermo for three more days. Is that enough time?”

Jace nodded hesitantly, and we left him alone with his thoughts and his empty bottles of wine, and the book that had saved his mind.