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Chapter 35 - Spoils 1

The fey man before him was grinning as he suggested that Colin surrender. His angular features, his well cared for gold blonde hair, and pale complexion gave him a regal but high and mighty look. That and his green and gold cloak with matching pants, somehow made him look as douchey as he sounded.

His sister behind him looked physically similar, only feminine with gentle curves that made the green and silver trimmed dress she wore more appealing. Also, to be fair, the elegant long-bladed rapier she carried detracted from her looks.

Only marginally though, neither had an ounce of fat, no blemishes marred their skin, and no scars were visible to his eyes. He knew little about the Fey, but neither of these looked like they weren’t anything less than they intended to be. In Colin’s opinion, this meant beautiful and dangerous.

Luckily, he came with a back-up plan.

“Nox, can you get the flask and drop it?” Colin whispered.

“Indeed, but you do know he can hear you, right?” Nox informed him.

Colin gauged the man’s reaction, and the quirk in the man’s grin made Colin agree. This guy could hear him and was waiting to see what would happen. To think he was the arrogant one.

The Goblin created a tendril of shadow and manipulated it up his leg like an ethereal snake. At the same time, Colin tried his best not to cringe as Nox moved towards his backpack.

“So, who is this Nox, and where is he? I’d hate to have to go search for him,” Forrem told him. The looks he was giving Colin as his eyes drifted over him while he looked around, told Colin exactly how he viewed him. A street rat, an animal that scavenged off of other, better off animals.

After a few seconds, Forrem sighed in disappointment. “Oh well, I guess we will have a hunt tonight. Sister, you want him or the hidden one?”

“I’ll take the skulker,” she affirmed after a moment of thought.

“Then these rodents are mine,” he nodded, allowing a light show of arcing electricity to dance around his hands. Then Forrem raised his arms to his chest and took in a deep, happy breath as he increased the amount of electricity going about his fingers. Slowly, he extended both towards Colin as the blue light from his hands grew more intense.

“Don’t worry, you’ll live through this,” he informed Colin.

A wispy hand made of shadow emerged from Colin’s backpack and tossed a flask to the floor at the Fey sibling’s feet. The glass shattered, sending its precise contents across their feet and soaking the carpet. A second passed before the mixture that Colin had requested Nox to make began to aerosolize into a blue fog.

The pair started to cough, and Colin swallowed as a thought hit him as he remembered Nox’s warning about the mixture. “Do you think it matters that electricity isn’t technically fire?”

“No,” Nox answered.

Turning towards the stairs, Colin heard the crackling of electricity as the Fey noble started charging up his spell again.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Colin muttered as he tried his best to hurry down the stairs without dropping the girl or impaling himself on his sword.

FWOOM!

The mixture burst into flame and spread across the hallway. There was no force behind the ignition, so all it did was burn the potion and ignite the building and Fey in an instant inferno. Their screams reach him at the bottom of the stairs, but worse was the yell of rage that followed them.

Colin was at the office door, stepping outside when he heard Forrem yell something as if in absolute defiance as to what was happening to them. Colin hurried out into the lawn and looked up and behind him for a moment to see a burst of blizzard force cold and windbreak half the windows in the house.

“So, you said you had an escape plan?” Nox inquired as Colin hurried up a step.

“Sort of, just need to focus on hurrying,” he answered, scrambling up the wall with some effort. Carrying a whole person and only using one hand does increase the difficulty. Following his same path out as he used to get in, Colin was panting when he finally landed out of the gated community.

Colin turned the girl in his arms from a fireman’s carry to a princess and changed to a walk. Keeping his eyes open, he looked for the cart that Henrietta said would be waiting for him and found it after a minute of walking down the street. It was conspicuously parked with a few hay bales inside, with Henrietta sitting in the driver’s seat, but she was there.

Colin stepped up into the cart and set the still unconscious Daphne behind one of the bundles, Henrietta watching him. When he was done, he stepped up to take the seat next to her and let out a large exhale, “drive.”

Nodding, she snapped the reigns and kicked the waiting donkey into motion. After a minute to let Colin catch his breath, she spoke, “so what happened? I could hear the shattering glass from here.”

“First, Fey are really freaky. I checked that hallway seconds before, and no one was there. Then, POOF, two Fey are there. Second, I essentially molotov’d them, and he put them out with a spell that seemed a bit overkill to me,” Colin explained.

“Geez, I can see why they didn’t pursue you,” Henrietta remarked. “Why is she asleep?”

“I think she was drugged,” Colin said. “I think it will wear off soon.”

“That’s good, but you haven’t said anything to explain that smile,” Henrietta said, grinning herself as she turned her head back and forth between the road and him.

“Before I answer that, what do you and your group think of the Prince?” Colin probed.

The woman shrugged, “no real opinion on him. Just that he’s a score that none of us have attempted to thieve from yet. Mostly because his kids are usually home and the community guards are a bit of a pain.”

Colin nodded, “Good to know that you don’t mind that I robbed his place.”

Henrietta’s smile widened with genuine amusement, “Ha! That’s great! Oh, you were born to be a thief. I think if you want to join our group, the boss will allow it.”

He shook his head, “Nah, I’m not one for doing theft. I just moonlight it on the weekends,” Colin told her. “All I want is the information I requested, and the meeting with your boss I wanted. Maybe, I’ll contract with you again when this is done.”

“I think I’ll actually look forward to that. You always bring us the most interesting stuff,” Henrietta stated. “But, I actually do have some information about the guild you asked us to look into.”

Excited, Colin scooted just a little closer to the woman to hear her words more carefully.

“First, pay up,” Henrietta stated, releasing one of the reins and extending an empty palm towards Colin.

“How much?” Colin asked, eyeing the woman carefully.

Grinning like the cat that ate the mouse, she replied, “five CC.”

Five hundred dollars was reasonable for research. He didn’t ask for anything covert or devious, Colin just wanted the help. Reaching into his dimensional bag, he produced the bag of copper he’d taken from the Prince’s desk. He looked inside and counted out five Copper Coins and handed them over to Henrietta.

The woman took them, looked them over in some passing lamplight, and tucked them into her cleavage. “So, the Krimson Spire is considered an important guild on this continent. Their members are generally considered to be high-quality Outworlder’s and their leader, especially so. Officially, they are an Adventuring guild, which means that they do almost anything required. Locally, they are trying to get a branch office set-up to get their contracts in the surrounding region. Interestingly, they have been getting some trouble from the Cult of Scylla.”

“Why?” he asked, knowing that anything he knew could come in handy.

“This is just a rumor, but supposedly one of the Krimson Spire Guild Officers tried to negotiate with the Cult to buy an apartment complex for their guildhall. It was a ploy to kill their high ranked leaders, and they succeeded. They managed to kill a Level 79 Planar Navigator and a level 57 Eldritch Ranger, all while losing no one. The only thing the attack actually accomplished was pissing off a power in the city,” she explained. “Between the two, I hope the Cult wins, but I expect the Krimson Spire will win. They just have more resources at their disposal, and oh, their all Outworlders. Reincarnation guarantees victory eventually.”

Absorbing the information, put all that in a mental folder marked ‘For later use’ and went back to listening patiently. There was still one other bit of info he was owed.

“We did look into the names of the individuals you mentioned hadn’t seen them in the city. Until yesterday, at least,” she said.

Colin’s eyes widened in surprise. He actually hadn’t expected that to pan out when he asked the group to look into it. “Who?”

“A budding Aeromage by the name of Volkiere. Supposedly, he was separated from his party two-ish weeks ago to help another party, and he’s still helping them. That’s all here say from a bartender who heard him drunk talk,” she said, turning the cart to the right.

Volkiere, the silent air mage. The asshole who’d bound him to the tree with magic and allowed Morenstad to take his time to kill him. Colin’s teeth clenched tighter together as he thought about the day that started him down this path. The group that betrayed what trust he had because this was a game and killed him. The core reason Colin was stuck in this damned game was that those assholes killed him, and he pursued what he needed like a bloodhound.

Thinking of the man’s face made Colin consider going after the man right now. He was considerably stronger since the last time they’d met, and he wasn’t with his crew. If he was going to attempt to kill any of them at his current level, he wasn’t going to get a better chance.

But instead of asking where the quiet dickmage was so he could try and kill him, he simply breathed for a moment. Each slow breath drained just a little calmer without reducing his resolve. Volkiere was going to die, that was for sure. The only problem in his head was that he wouldn’t stay dead, But that only meant that he had to do it in a way that would send a message to the rest of them.

It was something that Colin was going to think about.

For now, though, he listened to Henrietta tell him the answer to every question he asked and then some. Telling him more about the conflict between the various factions in the city, how they involved the Krimson Spire guild, and how their unnamed group had profited from it. Most of their thefts were pretty small compared to what he just pulled off but useful nonetheless.

She drove him the rest of the way to Miranda’s Echo Tavern, where she left him to go to his room. He watched her go, making sure she was gone before speaking to his shadow in the almost empty street.

“Thank you, Nox.”

Colin could almost hear the smile on his lips as he spoke, “for what?”

“Everything. There is no way I could have survived this long without your assistance. The Golem back in Scutch Town, the Columbine Mutator back in the Willows Cross Dungeon, and now with those Fey. You’ve been a friend to me when I needed someone, especially since I got trapped in this world. Just, thank you,” Colin said earnestly.

The silence stretched between them for a long moment while Colin waited to see if the Goblin would say anything. He was about to call it quits when he did speak up, “What are you waiting for, A kiss in thanks? We’re men, DevilWalker. None of this needs saying, ever.” Again, something in Nox’s voice spoke of a mirth filled smile.

“Fine,” Colin grinned. “Ready to get a good look at our finds?”

“Indeed.”

So Colin wasted no more time. He walked inside, got an order of whatever food was immediately available, and took the elk steak sandwich to his room and munched on it while he removed his gear.

It was near eleven at night, and as he was removing his gear, he discovered just how tired his sprint with the girl had made him. As soon as the jacket was off, and the daggers removed, he wanted nothing more than to fall asleep and go through everything in the morning. But he needed to go through it now. Since the Fey had seen him, there was the chance they could help the Prince find him if anything he took was extra valuable. Better to know if he needed to move to the next location tonight or if he could put it off until tomorrow.

He first removed anything that was merely gold or gold leafed. The Dimensional bag was oddly intuitive, all he thought was gold stuff, and a bookend popped out of the bag. It landed on his bed, so it didn’t make a noise, but it certainly made the separation easier. Next were the books that he took a few extra minutes to leaf through a couple and smiled at the wealth of information that he was gleaning in just the first few pages.

After setting those aside on the dresser, all three-and-a-half dozen books, he just started reaching in and pulling things out at random. Examining them all closer before setting them aside. He took a particularly close look at the microphone-sized crystals, the silver-bladed letter opener, and the signet ring.

He was just glad his skills were good enough for the task.

Crystal Light (Mediocre)

Summons a beam of artificial light to illuminate a cone-shaped area in front of the item. The range of bright illumination is 25 feet out with ten feet around the cone in shadowy illumination. This item draws mana from the user at a rate of 1 mana for every five seconds the device is turned on.

Durability: 75/75. Item Quality:6.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“Score!” Colin cheered quietly. He had just gotten a magical flashlight! Given the shape of the item and where he’d found it, he had the reasonable assumption that it could be its function. He had two of them, so this was a great theft. Out of curiosity, he aimed his will at the prompt that he hadn’t closed yet.

Knowledge: Enchantment & Appraisal.

The desired effect had occurred. He was curious if it was his appraisal skill or one of the Knowledge skills that helped him know what this item did. It was nice to know he could mentally flex it into existence as needed. He was thinking about how he needed to improve his knowledge skills to make sure his streak of identification would continue.

Your Appraisal Skill is now Level 2. You can now identify more items.

“Convenient,” Colin said, dismissing the prompt.

He then moved on to the knife, and his luck ran out.

Magic Letter Opener. Durability: ???/???. Item Quality: ?.

Magic Signet Ring. Durability: ???/???. Item Quality:?

Sighing, he put the ring in his pocket. Out of everything he’d seen so far, this ring was the only thing that might cause the Prince to come after him. These rings were traditionally used, at least back on Earth, to seal documents and letters with hot wax and their personal symbol. They were also used to prove specific affiliations within certain groups. He was curious about what magical effect could have been added to this item, but that would have to wait.

He looked over the Letter Opener and found a single rune carved into the flat of the blade. It certainly wasn’t an enchantment he was familiar with, and to search it out would take some time he was not going to spend now. Instead, he made sure it was secured in its little sheath and put it to the side for the moment.

Then he reached his hand into the back, and his hand brushed the drawer with the safe that he’d pilfered. He grabbed the handle of the drawer and pulled it out of the Dimensional Bag, weirded out by the weird sucking sound the drawer made when it formed outside the bag.

Laying it down, he looked it over and analyzed the safe carefully. The safe was eight inches across, sixteen inches long, and six inches deep with two separate locks across the top. He was reasonably sure that it was designed to keep someone, like himself, from picking the lock. He wished he knew how the inside of the safe operated, he knew of many ways to open safes back on Earth, but they only worked on certain safes.

Instead, he opted for a simple solution.

“Hey, Nox, wanna help a guy out?” Colin said, looking towards the stack of books that Nox was casually looking through.

Nox looked up from his book, snorted derisively, and snapped his fingers. Wispy, smoky shadows rose up along the seams of the safe’s door. Seeking around the locked box’s seams and internal mechanisms, the seeking shadows found themselves at the keyholes. Clicking reached Colin’s ear while he watched in fascination as the magic worked to open the safe.

Then, the mechanism lined up, and a sharp click and an airtight pop signaled the correct opening of the safe.

There was no handle to grab onto to open the door, which led Colin to assume that you usually would use the keys as a handle. So Colin used the Letter Opener and carefully pried the safe open, examining the inside with feverish excitement.

Only to get a little saddened when he only found that only a half dozen items were in the small desk safe. Half of them were rolled up pieces of vellum sealed with a signet ring that wasn’t the Princes.

He picked up the first item and activated Appraisal.

Magic Necklace.

This delicate looking ivory chain necklace is held together by magicks used in its creation. What it actually does is unknown to you.

Durability:???/???. Item Quality: ?/?.

Ivory? Colin honestly assumed it was treated white wood. He looked at the item again in fascination with the item’s construction before setting it outside the safe. He would have to either ask Nox to help him or just focus on the research he needed to do anyway.

Rested Eyes Spectacles.

While wearing these glasses, if you spend a long time reading, writing, or just staring at something, you will not get the mental fatigue known as Tired Eye.

Durability: 25/25. Item Quality: 7.

Not a very useful item, but at least it was pretty simple to understand. Putting the glasses with the Ivory necklace, Colin picked up the last piece in the safe.

Amulet of Poison Detection.

This Amulet, when worn, will add a bonus to the Perception skills ability to notice poison. Adds a .5% bonus per level of the Perception skill to Actively notice poisons and a .25% bonus per level

To passively notice poisons. This includes the ability to notice traps and monsters that contain poisons.

Durability: 56/56. Item Quality: 8

Without hesitation, Colin looked at the Amulet. A simple tube that contained a bit of sloshing liquid in it with runes carved into it. These runes looked different than the enchanting runes he was using, so Colin mentally added these runes to his checklist of things to look up. You never know what could come in handy. Aside from the runes, the Amulet had two small purple gems attached to each end of the tube and a pin on the back. It looked like the Amulet was meant to be connected to his shirt or clothing, and he did so immediately.

With the items done, Colin picked up one of the sealed pieces of rolled up vellum and used his Appraisal skill. Unsurprisingly, it came up as all question marks except for the title of ‘Magic Contract of Ownership.’

The other two sealed documents were written in the foreign language known in all worlds as Legalese. He knew enough of the words and patterns to parse out that one of them was the deed to the Prince’s house and the rules that came with living in that area. After the four hundred and three guidelines for living in a secure community were done, the vellum was signed with the Prince’s signature and his ring.

The other document was a lot more concise. It was a simple formal agreement from the Fey delegation that states that as long as the Prince serves their wishes as well with their offering, he could permanently keep the subject of the Contract stated under the name, ‘Darielle.’

With that read, Colin considered going back to the Magic Contract of Ownership and reading it himself. If the Fey were going to give this thing to the Prince, it might be worth looking into. He was unlikely to get his hands on it, but he was still curious at the least.

He grabbed the Contract and broke the seal with his thumb.

A golden light only about as strong as a night light emanate from the Contract for a second, a wave of magic pulsing out from it in the same instance.

“DevilWalker?! What are you doing?” Nox called out, setting down his book and hurrying over. He observed the opened document in his hands, and the fading glow, and looked like he was clenching his jaw. “What is that?”

“I’m not sure,” Colin admitted. “My Appraisal Skill only labeled it as a magic Contract of Ownership. I am trying to find out what this marks ownership of,” Colin explained.

“May I ask you a question?” Nox asked, immediately continuing before Colin could open his mouth to consent to it. “Were you known to be someone who randomly pushes unmarked buttons back at your world?”

“No,” Colin answered simply. A sinking feeling in his gut told him that he already knew where this was going.

“Did you know if it was cursed, booby-trapped, or otherwise designed to cause you harm?” He asked, calm as could be.

“No,” he responded again.

“Then why would you open a magical document that you don’t know what it is?” The Goblin asked, his triangular teeth grinding together a little though his voice remained calm.

Colin swallowed as he looked down at the document, then back up at the Goblin. He had no excuse and had no idea why he opened it without even thinking of a booby-trap. He knew magical traps were possible since his Primer to Enchanting had told him so. A heart-sinking suspicion sunk into his heart as he raised the Contract to his face.

“Nox, could you take a look at this for me. What do you see?” Colin handed the Goblin the roll of vellum.

The Goblin grunted as he looked it over and let out a sigh. “Un-fucking-fortunately, I cannot blame you for this. This thing is booby-trapped to compel anyone who isn’t supposed to open it, to open it. Opening it triggers a homing beacon to the official owners of the Contract, the Fey, and- Oh shit.”

“What?”

“They’re almost here,” Nox whispered as if he thought that if he kept quiet that they might not find them.

“How do you know?” Colin asked, lowering his volume as well.

“We stole their human, lit them on fire, got away, and now you are opening their enchanted Contract. I think if they know where you are, they are on their way,” Nox explained.

Without another word, Colin started throwing everything in his Dimensional bag. He wasn’t sure if it could fit everything that he now possessed in there, but he sure was going to try. It would be a significant blow to all of the plans he was working on if he lost all his wealth.

Several minutes had passed, and Colin was hurrying out of his room, leaving behind only a single Copper Coin on the bed as an apology for all the trouble he caused.

He rushed out onto the street, Nox in his shadow in case someone saw Colin, and just bolted in a random direction.

“Vacuum Shackles!” a voice that Colin knew from just a little earlier that evening shouted.

Air tightened around Colin’s ankles, and the faintest outline of moving air showed what was happening. Thick chains made of compressed air attached to the ground and the shackles around his ankle. He resisted them, they were only made out of air, but they held as strong as if they were made of steel. Colin drew his Mythic Xiphos and Drenching Dagger, readying himself against the two as he spun around.

Colin immediately had to defend himself against that damned man’s sister. Her blade sliding towards his left as he moved to block it with both his weapon’s. He wanted to move away from her, to engage in a retreating battle but knew if he tripped with the shackles on him, it was over.

Instead, with his blade interlocked with hers, Colin used the Drenching Enchantment on the dagger to splash water onto the woman’s blade. Immediately, Colin used Frost Shaping to freeze it in a thin coat on the blade. Now heavier, she was caught unawares as the slightest difference in her weapon’s weight had thrown off her rhythm.

“Lesser Knockback!” Colin announced, aiming the spell at Noistra before she could recover.

She was well outside the capabilities of what the low-level spell could accomplish, but Colin wasn’t expecting it to work. He only needed her pushed a little so he could try and remove the chain with his weapon.

He swung the Xiphos at the chain of air that was holding him in his place. The blade collided, and everything went still.

Noistra, Forrem, everyone, and everything that he could see was frozen as if time had paused, and only his mind could perceive it. Even he couldn’t move a single part of his body, and the whole thing felt almost like his body had gone cold numb.

Then the prompt appeared that helped everything make sense.

Your weapon, The Living Mythic Xiphos, has a unique trait in this current world. It can channel abilities unique to your Antagonist Class at a reduced cost. However, your new Skill, Consume, is an integral (if lesser) ability to the Antagonist Class. You can directly channel this Skill through your sword. This message has appeared since this is your first time activating the Skill, with or without, your sword.

Consume, Level 1. Your Gluttony has no boundaries, and neither will your power. This Skill will grant you boosts and powers depending on what you decide to take into your body. At level one, all bonuses gained are minimal, and there is only so much you can take in at once. Experimentation will be necessary to test your limits. You may activate this ability in one of two ways, Absorption or Eating. If you Absorb something, you take it in at a pace that far outstretched Eating, but the bonuses and abilities gained fade faster. If you Eat something, you have to physically shove it into your gullet and swallow it down to take in the benefits. This takes time, but the bonuses and abilities last longer. Absorption: Activation Time: ten seconds. MP cost 100 MP. Eating: Activation Time: variable. MP Cost: 50 MP. !Attention! You may activate this ability through your Living Mythic Xiphos at a reduced cost.

Time will resume as soon as you make a choice here.

Would you like to have your Xiphos Consume this spell (Vacuum Shackles)?

Colin took a second to center himself, this whole experience had thrown him for a loop, and he was getting tired of being on the weak side of things. Everything seemed stronger than him, and he really, really hated it. How was he ever going to accomplish everything he was trying to do if this kept happening?

Annoyed at himself, annoyed at the world around him, and right now, he was focused on just being pissed at these pompous Fey that attacked him for rescuing a teenage girl.

Colin told the prompt yes, and his vision tunneled.

The blade of his Xiphos passed through the Vacuum Shackles as if they were normal air, and another prompt appeared.

Absorbing…

With his legs free, Colin swung his Drenching Dagger in a long arc before him. Using Frost Shaping to turn the line of water into a scything blade that flew towards Forrem.

The male Fey hadn’t been attacking due to his sister being near their target. He had been watching and waiting, a spell ready from Colin, but of course, the moment she was thrown away from him, the human had thrown an odd ability at him.

He had to drop the spell he had ready and mentally move to defense. He raised a hand in front of him and bellowed, “Wind Barricade!”

The thin blade of ice impacted the wall of physical wind and shattered upon impact. It gave Colin the time to activate Kinetic Vigor and sprint towards Forrem at enhanced speed. Leaping into the air with his enhanced body before the Wind Barricade, Colin activated Aligned strike and sliced through the Barrier in a single attack.

Forrem, again, was thrown for a loop. Instinct moved him, and he raised both hands up in front of him, shouting, “Vortex of knives!”

A column of roaring wind erupted from the ground at Colin’s feet. This literal mini-tornado whistled through the air as if it were made up of thousands of little wind blades. This was a dangerous spell to use, and Forrem knew it. It was a bit of a double-edged sword given that, anything that got close enough to strike him would take damage, but he had the same limitation. He could see through the vortex well enough to see the human coming at him, but if he were to move, the blades around him would slice him up too.

Then, the human did something entirely insane. He deliberately leaped into the vortex and tackled Forrem outside the vortex, both taking damage from the experience. It was so far out of what the Fey had been expecting that he didn’t react when Colin impacted him.

You have taken 117 points of damage and now have 165/282 health remaining.

You have taken 121 points of damage and now have 44/282 health remaining.

At that moment, Colin got another prompt.

Absorption Complete. You may now throw the chains your blade has cut through. Usable only for the next minute.

Ignoring it, Colin looked down at the Fey that he was on top of while scrambling to get into a better position. With a rage-filled yell, Colin drove the Mythic Xiphos down into the Fey’s chest cavity. When he didn’t die, Colin repeated the process one more time before scrambling off him. The winds were fading, and he suspected that was a good thing.

Then on instinct, Colin swung his Xiphos with a flick at the oncoming Noistra. It was only a quick mental switch that was needed to throw the spell at the Fey woman who was hurrying towards him at desperate speed.

The spell connected, and she fell forward onto her face as the shackles bound her feet in place. Colin suspected it wouldn’t work for long, so he hurried over and felt the rush of energy fade as he ran out of MP for Kinetic Vigor.

The fall onto her face must have placed some kind of dazed debuff because she seemed to be struggling to get to her feet.

Colin hurried over to her, blade ready to get rid of the second of the two siblings that would have haunted him.

“Wait!” a woman nearby shouted. “Let her live!”

Colin climbed on top of the woman, immediately placing his knee into her back before looking at the speaker.

Admittedly, Colin had forgotten about the third member of the delegation that was at the Prince’s home. She was of average height for a human woman, had honey brown hair that ran smoothly down her back and pale grey eyes that refused to look at him squarely. She was wearing a loose-fitting forest green dress under a brown leather jacket that had seen better days.

The woman under Colin groaned and moaned angrily at the girl in front of them both. Noitra turned her head to face the girl and almost shouted behind clenched teeth.

“Who said that you could follow us, Darielle?! You idiot, you never listen!” She spat out.

Darielle. Colin knew that name from the document that was with the Magic Contract of Ownership. This girl was the thing they were going to give to the Prince?