Six days passed quietly. Early on, Sanae had become tired of sleeping in the open and had purchased a tent.

When she’d asked if she should also buy one for him, Meyriv had laughed.

“I slept in a literal cave for years and you think I still care about the comfort of my accommodations?”

“…yeah in retrospect that was a silly question.” She admitted

She should be grateful I was willing to provide money for her comforts…Although, her discomfort was grating my nerves by Reflection anyway, so I suppose it was a win-win.

That evening, Istan limped into camp. One of his arms was in a sling and a long, scabbed-over cut ran down the side of his face.

As he approached, his wounds made Meyriv wince.

Meyriv took one look at him and surmised “Looks like they found you out and tried to cut the loose end?”

“What gave it away?” The shapeshifter growled icily.

“What’s stopping them from following you here?” Meyriv demanded

“The fact that I killed their agent.”

“Are you sure that’s the only one nearby?”

“No, but it’s likely. They don’t have a lot of people from what I can tell. If they did, why hire me in the first place?”

“That’s a fair point.” Meyriv sighed.

“Did you find anything out?” Sanae interjected

Istan looked over. He seemed surprised that she was willing to talk to him. “No I did not, other than the realization that they had some way of knowing my message was false.”

“What did the agent have on their person?”Meyriv said

“Nothing of note. Unremarkable clothes. They were probably a dock-hand or something. A few personal effects, but no written orders of any kind.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“Personal effects? Show me.” Meyriv snapped

Istan shrugged and reached into one of his pockets. He pulled out a fishhook, an empty coin-purse and a tarnished copper ring.

Meyriv snatched the ring and turned it over in his hands.

“This’ll do.”

He sat down to study it closer.

Istan cleared his throat,

“I’ve done my part. Fix my powers.”

Normally, this would be my cue to cut the loose end myself, but since that would be very unpleasant…I’ll have to settle for a bluff.

Meyriv dramatically waved his hand in Istan’s direction and set about fixing his shape-shifting. He deliberately poked around a lot more than was necessary, causing the man to shudder.

“Done” Meyriv announced.

“Finally.” Istan said, breathing a sigh a contentment as the cut on his face started to fade.

“Beware, I’ve left an enchantment behind as insurance. If you knowingly give them any information about us it will kill you.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t plan on taking any more work from them, good pay or no.”

Istan nodded and took off at a brisk pace, not-quite-fleeing the area.

After they were sure he was gone, Sanae turned to Meyriv,

“So what’s the ring?”

“It has a communication enchantment of some sort. I think it’s deactivated, but I can almost certainly tweak it to accomplish some mischief.”

She raised an eyebrow

“Mischief? Like what?”

“There are many possibilities. Like, tapping the connection to spy from other connected nodes, tracking the aspect of whoever made the enchantment, sending false messages to whoever is on the other end. It all depends on how their setup works.”

“Doesn’t that mean they could try those things against us?”

“They can try. I’m almost certainly better at this than they are. Regardless, I’ll be keeping a close eye on it until I root out the details.”

“Well, that’s great and all, but I’ll still feel better once I’m back on the mainland. I’m going to secure passage on that ship I found that’s leaving in three days. Are you still wanting to—”

“Yes.” He replied immediately, “I have some things I need to check.”