Several Weeks Earlier

The year’s last proper snowfall crunched under my boots. I spotted a lantern hung from the lowest branch of a dead tree ahead. Approaching, the half-dead hiding in the tree’s shadow slipped from her cover.

“Tusks should be here soon,” Catrin told me. “We have a large batch of special guests at the inn, so he’s on a long shift. Me too, so we’ll need to make this quick.”

Karog made little noise when he arrived. The deepening dusk seemed to prickle with hostility all the sudden, then a shadow strode forth from down the road at a steady pace. The ogre’s red-rimmed yellow eyes blinked sullenly from the gloom. He growled at me, low and threatening, then squatted down in the middle of the woodland road to rest on his knuckles.

He’d changed his outfit — he’d discarded the ragged cloak and the belt of skulls, now wearing an oversized leather jacket that barely fit him and a baggy pair of trousers sewn from enough cloth to get an entire village through winter. It hardly made him look less threatening — that was all him, regardless of what he wore.

“The winter is ending,” the mercenary rumbled, “yet the trail grows colder every day.” He swiped a hand before him, cutting the air audibly. “Enough waiting. We decide what is to be done tonight.”

“To business then?” Catrin piped in.

I nodded. “I agree. First of all, you two have been the ones listening to the rumor mill. What have you learned?”

“Lots of stuff,” Catrin said. “Not certain any of it’s useful, though. I think Tusks is the one who’s got something for you, Al.”

I turned to the ogre. His permanently angry eyes went to Cat. “One of your fellow whores visited me in my room,” Karog rumbled.

I bristled, but the dhampir seemed not to take offense. “Hessa?” She asked, after a moment of thought.

The mercenary shrugged his hillock shoulders, to show how little interest he had in remembering such things. “A scrawny creature, with short yellow hair and a nervous titter. She annoyed me.”

“Joy,” Catrin spat. “That bitch. What did she say?”

“She delivered a message,” Karog said. “From whom, she would not say, but she told me a gathering will soon take place. One in which a warrior of my caliber may find great reward.” He snorted. “She was very enamored with stroking my ego.”

“I bet that’s not the only thing she was looking to stroke,” Catrin muttered, snickering. “You sleep with her?”

Karog and I both mirrored one another in our expressions of disgust. The ogre let out a rumbling growl. “She annoyed me. And she is likely a messenger for our enemies, besides.”

Cat shrugged, unconcerned. “I dunno, that can be fun sometimes.”

“Cat,” I said. “Focus.”

“Right, right. Sorry.” She flashed me an apologetic smile. “So, where’s this mysterious gathering supposed to take place?” She sidled to a tree near the edge of the road and leaned against it, folding her arms.

“In the north,” Karog said. “In a city called Garihelm.”

He paused then, glancing between me and the dhampir as we both traded knowing gazes. “What?” He asked.

“Looks like your hunch was right,” Catrin said to me.

“It’s the throne city of Urn’s emperor,” I explained to Karog. “One of the largest and most populated cities in the world, and definitely the biggest here in the subcontinent. I’ve learned recently that there are various factions and intrigues at work behind its walls.”

“And you believe one of them might be the Council?” Karog asked, leaning forward with interest.

“Maybe,” I said. “It’s a hunch, anyway. You both remember that ghoul commander, Issachar?” When they nodded, I continued. “The Mistwalkers are an Edaean legion. The Edaean Guilds are one of the major groups in the northern cities lately. I don’t have any hard evidence, but I believe the Council of Cael might have continental interests behind it.”

The Guilds. The Crowfriars. Orson Falconer’s allies. The Inquisition. Plots in the Capital, all circling around like sharks in bloodied water. I didn’t know how it all connected, but I felt certain it all did, somehow.

A thought struck me and I turned to Karog. “How did you get involved with Orson?”

“Through Issachar,” the mercenary admitted, looking troubled. “We had fought together — and against one another — many times. He told me of opportunity in the subcontinent, and his own contacts gave me handsome compensation to make the journey.”

I folded my arms, swallowing the rush of excitement sparking to life in my chest — the sense of validation in being right.

“What else did Joy say to you?” Catrin asked the ogre.

“Only to travel to this city,” Karog said. “She told me I would be contacted when I arrived.”

Catrin met my eyes. “You sure it’s them?” She asked. “The Council?”

“Maybe,” I said, rubbing at my chin. “Maybe not. You think you can get anything from Joy?”

Cat grimaced. “Doubt it. She’s a slippery one, and I don’t want to give away we’re on to her. She might make a mistake, slip up. I’ll watch her, don’t you worry. Might at least figure out who she was speaking for. A lot of the other girls do work under or around the Keeper’s attention, and he lets them. Canny old fiend knows he’ll outlast everyone, anyway.”

“Including you?” Karog spread his scarred lips in a savage grin to bare his yellowed teeth. “Does he know of your disloyalty, little leech?”

Catrin returned his gaze without a hint of fear or apology. “I’ve never made a secret where my loyalties lie,” she said in a low voice. “I do what I think is right, and I stand by my friends. That’s him.” She nodded at me. “Could be you too, Tusks. I know you’re not just in this for the coin.”

Karog lifted his chin, affronted. “I have no need of friends. Our acquaintance is for mutual gain. Once our enemies lie in the mud, we shall part ways.”

Cat shrugged, her face becoming remote. “Suit yourself.”

Karog let out a bullish snort, then turned his candleflame glare on me. “I shall go north, to this great city. I will see if the fools who tried to cheat and discard me are there. If they are, I will kill them. What will you do?”

Both sets of not-quite-human eyes turned to me. “I’m going north,” I said. “To Garihelm. I’ll get to the bottom of what’s happening there. If the Council is part of it, I’ll have their heads.”

Catrin’s eyes widened. “Your angels finally getting involved, big man?”

I hesitated, and Karog let out a hacking laugh. “No!” he chortled, a disorienting sound from the normally terse behemoth. “I can see it on his face. This is all him — is the loyal dog slipping his leash?”

Ignoring the mercenary I looked at Catrin and said, “I haven’t heard from the Choir in many weeks.”

She sighed, all the excitement deflating out of her. “So they might call you away, and then it’s another cut thread.”

I didn’t like the disappointment I saw in her eyes. I opened my mouth to say something — but what could I say? She was right.

Snorting in contempt, Karog turned back the way he’d come. “It matters not to me if the assassin’s leash is tugged. I have a den to chase my quarry to — that is enough.”

“You can’t honestly expect to waltz into Urn’s greatest fortress-city and start slaughtering,” I said to him, letting my own tongue drip a bit of mockery. “They’ll go underground before you’re within ten miles and laugh while the guard cut you to pieces.”

Karog glowered at me, and for a moment I thought he meant violence — hard to tell, since he always looked ready for violence. “Do you have another suggestion?” He growled.

I thought a moment, then nodded. “Go to Garihelm ahead of me. Let these people contact you. If they’re who we’re looking for, we can take them out together. If not, then maybe they have information. It’s worth investigating, anyway.”

Karog considered, then nodded. “A sound plan. However, if I have my chance, I shall not wait on you.”

He stalked off then. Catrin shifted to stand at my side, looking skeptical. “You just going to let him walk off on his own?”

“I don’t trust him,” I said. “Not to watch my back, and definitely to not stick a blade into it. Besides…”

She nudged me with an elbow. “No mysterious silences, big man. What’re you thinking?”

I glanced at her, unsure how she’d react. “I’m not just going to chase down the Council,” I admitted. “I have… people I know in the city. Old comrades. They might be in danger from all this conspiracy, and I just…” I sighed. “I’ve been hiding in the wild too long. And I don’t want him near the people I’m trying to protect.” I nodded after the departed killer.

I didn’t look at Catrin’s face. Would she be frustrated at my mixed motives, like Karog? Would she want to know my secrets?

“I get it,” she said. “Honestly, I’m not just helping you out here because of Caelfall. I’ve heard things are getting bad in the capital, and I’ve got people I know there. Friends.” She shrugged, though I sensed her neutral expression had a touch too much control in it.

It relieved me to know we had similar motives. Even still, I couldn’t shake the feeling I didn’t have as much information as I needed, or anything even close to a real plan.

I’d never been a schemer. My only advantage, I hoped, was that I could be the wild card.

***

Spring, At Last

I’d only ever been to Garihelm, one of the oldest and proudest cities in all of Urn, once. The last time I’d seen it, it had been aflame.

Seeing it from the ring of hills surrounding the coastal plain stretching beyond the city walls, I couldn’t help but remember those nights of siege. Though I knew the city had recovered, even thrived under Markham Forger’s rule, I couldn’t help but feel like I beheld a silent corpse as I peered down across the plain.

Built within the shelter of high cliffs in a bay of the Riven Sea, the moonlight shone on the fortress-city to cast it all in shades of black and silver. The night was clear, but the dense fog rolling in from the bay filled the streets, so the grand basilicas, bastion towers, and rows of manor houses seemed to rise up from a murky lake of quicksilver cloud. The Living Moon blazed full in the sky, and the fog caught its glow so the capital, and the scattered townships beyond its limits, shone beneath the sky.

“Pretty,” Catrin noted.

I nodded, trying to settle the surreal tapestry before me with the flame-lit hell in my memory.

Descending down into the fog, we had to rely on Catrin to guide us through the brume. Even my Alder-blessed eyes are not infallible. I can see through darkness, but not through smoke or mist. The dhampir changed in a way that unsettled me as we sank into the fog, her movements becoming more lithe and smooth, her form wisping into something half-real.

She was in her element. Even still, I trusted her. I don’t trust easy, but she’d had her opportunities to betray me in the past and had remained constant. She’d respected my boundaries, when I’d established them. That was enough.

Emma, however, kept her hand close to her sword. She wore a long coat to help conceal the finely wrought saber, her bright yellow scarf helping draw attention from it, but I didn’t miss her wary eyes as they tracked our guide through the mist.

“So,” my ward said to me, lowering her voice and stepping into pace at my side. “That’s Catrin.”

I nodded. “Yes.” Ahead, Catrin was humming to the tune of a very old song, one about a shepherd being lured from his pasture by the flute of a wolfwere.

Hear the sound, O’ Sheepherd, sweet as summer light.

Beware, beware, the hunter walks this night.

Her hair is dark as raven’s feather,

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Her voice, a soft caress.

Beware, beware, the hunter eats tonight.

“She’s a vampire,” Emma said. “Isn’t she?”

“She is,” I said.

“And you trust her?” Emma asked, frowning.

“It surprises you?” I asked.

“Yes.” Emma glanced at me as we walked. “You were angry about working for Nath. You and Ser Maxim were both demon hunters, right? That was another of the Table’s roles, if the stories have it right.”

“She’s not a demon,” I said, immediately hearing the sharpness in my voice. Taking a breath to calm myself I added, “She was born this way. I’d be a bastard to damn her for that. I was a bastard, when I first met her. She’s trustworthy.”

Catrin’s own words came to me then, in memory. I’ve been a monster. A real one.

I didn’t really know much about Cat. I didn’t understand myself why I felt so sure about her.

Maybe I just wanted to be sure of something.

“Are you two…” Emma trailed off, her silence full of inquiry.

“No,” I said, and felt no contrition for my annoyed tone then. “We’re not.”

Emma sighed, and fell back a step. “Your life is so sad, sometimes.”

I didn’t have time to reply to that, as Catrin stopped ahead of us. Looking around, I realized she’d brought us into a graveyard. I couldn’t see the whole of it through the thick ripples of mist coiling across the fields, but I saw the assortment of gravestones, the warding statues and sepulchers broken by age or violence.

Ghosts watched us from the mist, whispering suspiciously and glaring with scratchy eyes. Catrin noticed them too and hissed, making the nearest scatter. Turning to us, the changeling grinned. “Pests. Anyway, here we are!” She spread her hands out, presenting the decrepit ruins.

I glanced around. “Is this where you spring a surprise betrayal? Or is it some allegory for what lies at the end of the road?”

Catrin rolled her eyes. “Maybe it’s my home?”

She glided over to one of the more ornate and intact graves then, a piece near tall as she was. Foolish thieves had stolen the auremark on it and many others — this place had long ago become unhallowed, and I felt the oppressive gravity of danger all around me. The ghosts murmured angrily nearby.

“Alder knight.”

“Oathbreaker.”

“Betrayer.”

“Murderer!”

Emma glared at them. “Leave him alone".

“Don’t talk to them,” I told her. “It just makes them stronger. Try to ignore it.”

Catrin fiddled with the grave a while, running her hands along lichen-eaten stone, then gestured toward me. “Help me with this.”

I approached, and together we began pushing the grave. I quickly realized it was poorly set into the ground, and there was a hollow beneath. I caught sight of tied rope — a ladder.

“Old smuggler tunnel,” she said. “I used to use it to sneak in and out of the city.”

I caught my breath and stood straight. The marker had been damned heavy. “You used to live here?”

She shrugged, her expression becoming more remote. While we’d been opening the secret passage, her messy hair had fallen to cover one eye. “In the hills.” She gestured the way we’d come. “I snuck into the city sometimes. Stole stuff, enjoyed the festivals. That was decades back. There was a vampire clan in the city those days who didn’t like mongrel outsiders in their territory, but they got on the wrong side of the Keeper and ended up being hounded into the wilderness by the nobles when he put word in certain ears.”

She glanced at me through her messed locks. “That’s how I got involved with him.”

Even though I’d long suspected she was older than me, despite looking in her mid twenties at most, it still took me off guard to hear her casually mention a past event as having happened decades before.

Catrin nodded to the tunnel. “Down we go. It’s a labyrinth down there, so keep close. I’ll lead you through safe paths.”

I gestured for Emma to go ahead of me, intending to bring up the rear. I lingered above the tunnel, scanning the fog.

“What is it, big man?” Catrin had lingered as well, noticing my distractedness.

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I fought here, Cat. I remember these fields. I can still hear the war chimera, the shouting. I can still smell the grass burning.”

I looked into the depths of the fog, knowing somewhere beyond it rose high curtain walls. “The Recusants had captured half the city by the time we arrived to relieve the defenders. I saw High Lord Forger — the previous one — die not a mile from here.”

Looking around, I realized something. “I remember this graveyard. The Recusants had necromancers with them, and they tried raising the dead to fight us. They messed it up, and the wights started killing everyone.”

Catrin followed my gaze and shuddered. “Sounds terrible.”

“I don’t want another war,” I said to her. “All these years I’ve been doing this work, I’ve done it to stop another one from happening. But I had direction then. I had the Choir telling me who needed chopping. Now… I’m going into a mess without Their guidance, and I don’t know if it’s the right thing to—”

“Does it feel right?” She asked me, interrupting.

I frowned at her, noticing how intense her dark eyes had become. She reached out and grabbed my elbow, the same one she’d drank from in Castle Cael.

“Does it feel right, Alken? Going back to help your old comrades? Trying to get to the bottom of things without some god or angel telling you what to do?”

I frowned, trying to find the thread of my own tangled feelings. “That feels like a loaded question.”

She shrugged, still holding my arm. “Personally, I think the gods can be cunts. I used to pray as a girl, but the shrines kept making me feel sick when I got too near. I figured out fast that most holy things don’t like me much. But I’m not telling you, damn it. Alken, this is your quest. You decided to embark on it.”

“Lias asked me to—”

She squeezed, and her sharp nails bit into my flesh. I winced, but she wouldn’t let me pull away. “No one made any choices for you this time, big man. Do you feel like this is right?”

I stared at her, surprised my answer meant so much. Catrin had an expressive face, with a solid jaw, her brown eyes arched by thick eyebrows. I’d never looked at her face too long, some part of me always instinctively afraid she’d try to enthrall me with her preternatural nature, as she’d done on that first night we’d met.

I looked at her then. I'd been around noblewomen my entire life, witnessed first hand the beauty of the Sidhe. And yet, Catrin was fair to my eyes. There was no artifice to her, no pomp.

She winced like one might looking directly at the sun, and I knew the sacred aura in my eyes hurt her some, just as the hallowed ground she’d learned to avoid did. It was another reason I rarely met her gaze.

Yet she didn’t look away. My answer mattered to her.

“I don’t know what’s right,” I told her, speaking softly. “I don’t know if I can trust Lias. It’s been a lifetime since I knew him, and even back then he was a schemer.”

I thought about it more, and cursed. “It doesn’t matter if I trust them,” I said. “I made a vow. If I’m needed, I’ll fight.” Even if I do it without Rose knowing about it, I added silently.

“Even if it means fighting another war?” Catrin asked.

I didn’t hear any judgement in her words, only a desire to understand.

After some consideration I said, “I don’t feel any loyalty to the Accord. It’s just a name for something that might never actually exist. I don’t care about Forger, or the Church. I made my promises to a person, not a nation or an idea.”

It was only after, that things got complicated and I’d gotten lost.

I took a deep breath of the cold night air. “I’ll see what’s what, and do what I feel is right after.”

A small smile touched Catrin’s lips, breaking the oddly grim mask she’d assumed. “No proclamations of duty? No grand vow to smite all the evil in the city?”

I laughed. “No. I think I’ve learned that lesson.” Then, wincing again I added, “That hurts, Cat.”

She hadn’t let go of my arm, and she’d been squeezing very hard. Realizing this, she pulled her talons out of my flesh. Seeing the blood on her nails, she grimaced. “Sorry.”

“Are you two rutting up there, or something?” Emma’s voice called up wraithlike and hollow from the depths of the tunnel. “It’s dark down here, and I don’t have the benefit of night vision like you two.”

I nodded to Cat. “Let’s go.”

She was staring dreamily at the blood on her nails. “Hm? Oh, yes.” She started looking around, still holding the hand up as though trying to find something to clean it with.

I sighed. “Go ahead. Not like I can put it back.”

Catrin smiled guiltily. As I began descending down the ladder, I could hear her licking my blood off her fingers.

***

Catrin led us through a maze of tunnels. Some were old crypts, while others had clearly been added for the smuggling operations Cat had mentioned.

They’d have to be very brave, or very desperate, those smugglers. While the surface was just above our heads, realms untouched by daylight belong to the Dead.

We lit a lantern, mostly for Emma’s benefit, and spent many hours navigating the winding tunnels. After a time, I noticed the passages of rough-dug stone became less frequent, replaced more consistently by masonry of increasingly complex design. When we passed into a larger hall lined in pilasters, the arched ceiling rising high above our heads, I felt like we must be beneath the city.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Catrin nodded to the walls. I saw regularly placed depressions between the ridged supports, each of which contained an unlit sconce fashioned into the shape of a wizened, sleeping face. When lit, I imagined those ancient faces would waken with shining eyes and fiery hair.

“It looks ancient,” Emma said, running her lantern’s beam over the architecture.

“It is,” the changeling said, pacing ahead of us. “Built by the folk who lived here before the God-Queen brought Her armies over from the west. There are more ruins beneath us. They go deep underground. All the way to Draubard, I’ve heard, but I doubt anyone alive has seen the bottom, so who knows?”

Emma frowned down at the floor, and placed her hand on the pommel of her sword as though expecting rotten, gnashing teeth to burst from the stone at any moment.

“There are undead down here,” Catrin added, reaching the end of the hall. There was a doorless portal surrounded by two statues, both depicting archaic warriors clad in conical helms. “Not as good looking as me, either. Rabid ghouls, mostly. They dig up into the cities crypts to eat cadavers. I’ve seen ghosts down here, too. Sewer trolls. Worse things.”

She glanced at me, her tone growing serious. “Keep close. You get lost in these halls, even I might not be able to find you again. I can’t swim in the shadows down here — they’re too loud.”

I nodded, swallowing that unsettling statement. Then, frowning I said, “this is a dead end.”

Indeed, the recess between the statues went about five feet before ending at a flat wall. I saw no other way forward, and no halls branching off from the one we stood in.

Catrin grinned. “Lucky you have me here. This old girl has some tricks, just you watch.”

She sidled up to the wall and rapped her knuckles against three stones in sequence. She frowned, then did it again. She adjusted her position, then did it again, rapping a different stone on the third tap.

“Hm.” She threw me a nervous look. “It’s been a while… ah!”

She went over to one of the statues, grabbed the spear in its hand, and twisted it. I heard something shift in the walls with a subtle thud. Then, moving back to the dead end, Catrin rapped the stones again. This time, I could hear gears audibly grind, and the wall began to slide away. It stopped after about two feet, revealing a thin passageway leading further in.

It looked barely large enough for someone my size to fit through while moving sideways. I pressed my lips together.

Frowning, Catrin tried pushing at the wall. It wouldn’t budge. “Fucking thing,” she spat. “Ancient civilization, and they can’t even build their trap walls right. Pissants. Buggers!”

She gave it one last push, then stopped to catch her breath. Shaking her head she said, “Guess we’ll have to make do. I think we can fit one at a time.”

I nodded, then started to go forward first. Emma grabbed my wrist, stopping me.

“If there’s any trouble ahead,” she said, drawing her Carreon sword, “my weapon’s better for it than your axe in these tight quarters. Best let me take the lead, eh?”

She didn’t wait for my permission, sliding sidelong into the passage with her slender sword held out in front of her. She had barely enough room to maneuver, and I was reminded of certain sword masters who’d train to fence while standing on narrow beams.

“Be careful,” I said. “And don’t drop the light.”

“Noted!” Emma said, already a ways in. She’d buckled the lantern onto her belt, so it faced down the tunnel. Smart girl.

“I like her,” Catrin said, when Emma had gone too far to hear. “She’s got spunk.”

I grunted. “That what you want to call it?” I started forward again, but Catrin stopped me.

“Best you bring up the rear,” she said. “Ladies first, and all that. Weren’t you a knight, or something?”

I sighed and gestured impatiently for her to go. She made a point of brushing her body along mine as she slid into the passage. I couldn’t really feel it through my armor, but I felt heat rising up my neck anyway.

I’d gotten used to the changeling’s forwardness, for the most part, but my thoughts lingered on her behavior anyway. After how intimate things had become the last time I’d spent a night at her inn, I’d been thinking about it a lot. About her.

I hadn’t had a woman’s face linger in my thoughts in a long time, not since Dei. Sometimes I wondered if I’d even see Cat’s face in my dreams, if I let myself sleep without my ring. Would that be so bad? Would we be so bad?

I knew much of her own attraction was due to my blood. She craved it with a fervor I couldn’t truly understand. I didn’t think it was all that, though.

I wouldn’t mind if it was you, she’d said. How did I take that? Did she care for me? Or did she just not mind being intimate, since intimacy was an everyday part of her life?

Could I accept that? Could I be… what, a friend who slept with her sometimes? I didn’t much like the idea. Not that she’d be with others, but that we wouldn’t be more than that.

Overthinking things, again. I knew one thing — I did like her. I was attracted to her. Maybe, with time, I might even love her. She might even help heal some of the wounds in me.

But I couldn’t afford those kinds of distractions. I’d sworn oaths, and had battles to fight. There would be no picket fences and green fields full of laughing children for me, not ever.

I didn’t deserve them.

We made it to the far end of the narrow gap, much to my relief. I’d spent the entire time terrified the walls would merge again, crushing us flat between them. I’d never liked being underground, or in tight spaces. I preferred the open sky.

Catrin went ahead of us again, taking a minute to sniff the air. Letting out a sigh of relief, she jerked her chin toward a set of stairs ahead. “I don’t smell anything, so we’re probably safe. This stairway ahead leads out into one of the old church districts. Last I was here, the chapel it connected to was abandoned.”

Which meant it might not be anymore. “Does it go into their crypt?” I asked.

Catrin nodded. “Didn’t have any moaners last time. Just old bones. Still, I hear the cities had a lot of construction since the war. Best be on guard. Go up this way until you find a spiral stair, then there’s going to be a dead end in the hall at the top. Some of the stones on the ceiling are loose.”

Emma frowned. “You’re not coming with us?”

Catrin smiled at the younger woman, holding up both hands in a shrug. “With an inquisition in full swing, and the city locked down? No way. I’m just here so this lug didn’t try breaking the gates down.” She jabbed a thumb at me.

I saw the distrust in my squires eyes. “It’s fine,” I said. “We discussed this beforehand.” I nodded to the stairs. “Time to go.”

Before I followed Emma up, I turned to Catrin. She caught my eye and quirked an eyebrow.

“Thank you,” I said. “If I can do anything to repay you—”

“You can,” she said, taking me aback. She saw my surprised expression and let out a throaty laugh. “Oh, you were expecting me to be all it’s really no bother, or something like that, weren’t you? Well, it is a bother. I know the Backroad can appear anywhere, but I went out of my way for this! Keeper’s going to lecture me for skipping work.”

I nodded slowly. “Then…”

Her jesting demeanor turned serious. “If you meet any of my kind in the city — you know what I mean — and they seem like they could use help, then help them. You don’t need to go out of your way for it or anything, or sacrifice your other obligations, but do a good turn for the Hidden Folk, alright? We might not all be wise and fair like your pretty elves, but we’ve had it hard enough.”

She turned sideways and jabbed a finger into my chest. “And don’t die. You hear? I’ve gotten fond of you, big man.”

I nodded. “I’ll try to keep my head, and if I meet any changelings in the city I’ll try not to make their lives worse. It’s the most I can promise.”

She nodded. “I’ll get a message to Karog, let him know you’re about. You two try to play nice. I’ve gotten to know him a bit better while he was working in the Backroad. You two have a lot in common.”

I must have looked skeptical, because she grinned. “Oh,” she added. “And there’s one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Once this is all done, I want you to take me out on the town. We’ll eat somewhere nice, maybe take a boat on the canals. I’ve always wanted to try that.”

She grabbed the front of my cloak, pulled me down, and planted a kiss on the side of my mouth, then said what she did next into my ear. “That’s the sort of thing you’re lookin’ for, yeah? Get to know me before we get to the point? I’m willing, if you are.”

I blinked, utterly taken off guard. “How did—”

“I can hear some of your thoughts when your blood is in me,” she said, her tone apologetic. “Not something I can really help. I wanted to give you space, but I’m not really a patient person, and I do like you, Alken. So let’s do something that doesn’t involve plots and kingdoms, alright? Just be normal for a while.”

She pushed off me then, spun in place, and pointed with her thumb at Emma. My squire had been standing near the stairs, watching us with a bemused expression. “You keep him alive, hear? Otherwise I’ll never get that canal ride.”

Emma shrugged and rested her sword on one shoulder. “No promises. He’s so lost in his own head half the time, he might just walk off a building when I’m not looking.”

Catrin laughed. “I do like her.” Then she turned, gave a casual wave over one shoulder, and walked off down the tunnels.

“Did she just ask me on a date?” I said aloud, frowning. I reached up and touched the tips of my fingers to the corner of my mouth, where she’d kissed me.

“Yes,” Emma said. “But let’s focus on not getting thrown into an Inquisition torture room for now.” She turned and muttered something under her breath. I couldn’t be certain, but I swear it sounded like “I knew it.”