Alistair didn’t know what to make of his entire day. Now in his bedroom at Felix’s grand estate, where he was supposed to be getting dressed for dinner, all Alistair wanted to do was sit there and process everything that had happened, from Tarnis’ promise of a dungeon card to the agreement Ghost had made with Caidan.

But there was too much. Too much had happened, to the point that he didn’t know what to do next. So he relaxed onto the bed, Caidan’s final words coming to him again:

“If I am to find this Dreadwell man, I will need the lich mask,” she told Ghost. “Give me that, and handle Renez the Twin Daggered. It is another reason I have risked venturing to this side of the border. Some battledeck mages do have the capability to track me, you know. But she is another that Senka asked that I handle.”

This part resonated with Alistair.

Handing over the lich mask, even though Ghost seemed reluctant to do so, made sense. It made sense to Alistair that she would need it to find Dreadwell. But doing a hit for the woman, and not only for her, for Senka, was something that still needed an explanation, one that Ghost had yet to provide.

“Why her?” he finally asked Ghost, who had already started barking at him in his head. “Why this Renez woman? And why does that name sound familiar?”

“You have seen her before. Renez the Twin Daggered was at Felix’s masquerade in Solaria. She was the tall lady standing near Senka.”

Alistair closed his eyes in an attempt to remember the assassins there. He couldn’t. The whole event had been too creepy, especially with all the nude bodies with finger foods placed on them.

“They were rivals,” Ghost said as he took over Alistair’s body. He forced him to sit up and the two began to struggle.

“Hey, I was laying down—”

“—And you need to sit your ass up and get ready. Felix is expecting us soon. Remember, we are here for a reason.” Ghost switched to Spectral Text.

Ghost: Maybe it’s better if we discuss this here. You asked about Renez. You want to know about her, right? Unfortunately, I don’t have much. I’ve only met her twice. She has striking red hair. Like Hilda, Renez is a fan of tattoos. But hers are all around her eyes. She spoke in a very firm way, I remember that, and I took her as being all business.

“Really? Wouldn’t the eye tattoos make her quite noticeable? That seems like a stupid thing for an assassin to get.”

Ghost: If she operated during the day, yes. But she doesn’t. Remember when I told you about Goran, how he wasn’t like the other assassins, how we generally sent him on high target missions? Renez is similar, but her specialty is working at night, in scenarios that call for extreme accuracy.

Alistair relaxed onto the bed again, his hands now behind his head.

Alistair: And we’re seriously going to make an attempt on her? For what? Just a rivalry?

Ghost: There is more to it than that. I only know a little of it, but she did something to Senka that truly brought her to the brink. I was around when it happened, but Senka being Senka, I never got the full details.

Alistair: But it could be anything. It could be something trivial. Would we really kill someone for something trivial?

Ghost: Is Caidan helping us in the Dracolich Empire trivial?

Alistair: She said that she wanted evidence that. What are you going to do, take a finger or something?

Ghost: No, it could be just any finger. We need something more obvious. We will likely need her head—

Alistair: Seriously!?

Ghost: Or Renez’s blade. We could take that, a finger, and a locket of her red hair as evidence. A head would be easier, but if you have qualms with doing something like that—

Alistair: Of course, I have qualms with that.

Ghost: But she will be easier. We can use Lionel or Noctarii. This hit isn’t like the other ones.

Alistair: What do you mean?

Ghost: Goran needs to die at my hands, Kang and Felix the same. Felix has more protection than you know with his Baronblades. While none are battledeck mages, a handful are always trained in the art of battledeck deterency. And it is an art. But Renez the Twin Daggered, to my knowledge, won’t be like that. We can be as brutal as we want, and it doesn’t matter how we do it. It could just be our favorite murdering slime.

Alistair: Don’t refer to Ziggy that way.

Ghost: Or we just get Noctarii to pilot her into one of her own weapons.

Alistair: I really don’t like you using my summons to kill people.

Ghost: What else are they for?

Alistair: Not that! Let’s switch topics. What about weapons? I’m going to assume she has two daggers.

Ghost: No, she has two short swords which she sheathes across her back. They were mistakenly identified as daggers once and the name stuck.

Alistair: Fuck.

Ghost: Teenagers shouldn’t cuss.

Alistair sighed miserably.

Ghost: They shouldn’t fuss like little bitches, either. They should be seen and not heard. At least that’s the way I was raised.

Alistair: You were raised by an assassin whom you lovingly referred to as Mother. You killed her recently.

Ghost: Point taken. And she had it coming.

A knock at the door drew Alistair’s attention.

“It’s me,” Kanda said from the other side.

“Come in.”

The older girl let herself in. Kanda now wore a turquoise outfit, with a matching jacket and skirt, her hair in pigtails with turquoise bows. “Not a word.”

Alistair gawked at her clothing. “What the fuck?”

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“That’s a word, Alistair!” Kanda stepped forward like she was going to shove him. “Get dressed. Why the hell are you still lying around in your academy clothes?”

“I was thinking,” he told her as he sat up.

“About? What does thinking have to do with what you’re wearing?”

“I just got lost in my thoughts, that’s all. And conversations with—”

“Me,” Ghost said. “Go easy on us. Alistair isn’t used to a full day of fuckery like I am. and I suspect you are. Although I may be wrong.”

“Why do you say that?” she asked the assassin.

“Your shirt is on inside out.”

Kanda looked down at the dress shirt she wore beneath a tight turquoise jacket with studded jewels on the lapels. “Shit. I couldn’t tell which side was supposed to be facing out.”

“Or, you are just as overwhelmed by the day as Alistair.”

“Shut up and get dressed.” She pointed to the wardrobe.

“With you right here?” Ghost asked.

“I’ll turn around. It’s not like I haven’t seen a boy in his undergarments before. Besides, I need to turn my shirt around. So back-to-back.”

“Do you want to do this, or do you want me to do this?” Ghost asked Alistair.

“Ugh.” Alistair approached the wardrobe and got out the turquoise suit and matching shorts that Felix had prepared for him. Keeping his back to Kanda, he removed his overcoat and the rest of his clothing.

The silken material was cool against his skin, but knowing that Felix had chosen this outfit for him and Kanda as some sort of punishment, and assuming that it was perhaps part of so sick fantasy that the rich man may have had, continued to make him uncomfortable until Kanda approached from behind and placed a hand on his shoulder.

His stomach lurched forward, Alistair not at all expecting her to touch him. “What are you—?”

“Hold still. Geez.” She tapped him on the back of the head. “Your jacket isn’t on right. And do you know how to tie a bowtie?”

“No.”

“I do,” Ghost said.

“I can tie it for you. Switch back to Alistair.”

Alistair regained control of his body and loosened up to some degree. “Better?”

“Yes. Now, hold still.” Kanda continued adjusting his jacket. “This fucking thing. It’s so ugly. And you know he has a matching outfit, right?”

“He does?” Alistair thought back to the other times he’d seen Felix. “Yeah, he likely does.”

“The most annoying part,” Kanda said as she turned Alistair around to face her, the girl just a foot or so away from him now as she dealt with his bowtie, “is that he does this just because he can. My asshole of an uncle knows it’s ridiculous. He knows it could make him look weak, but he wields so much power that watching people squirm has become a favorite pastime of his. The fucker. I wish you and I could deal with him now.”

“Not yet,” Ghost said. “But soon. There is a method to my madness. We want Felix to suffer, do we not? Goran and Renez first. Perhaps Kang next, but I do not yet know how that will play out. Felix is either last, or we drive him mad with rumors, or you deal with him using the dungeon card that Tarnis promised you.”

“Tarnis better hand the card over or he doesn’t get the core,” she said as she finished adjusting his bowtie. “And he wants the core. It is more powerful than the card.”

“But you can’t use the core, right?” Ghost asked her.

“I cannot. I’m a Skyward. Only someone who has greater access to the Resonant Mana system, access granted to masters students and beyond, could even attempt to access the core. The card is a workaround to this. Think of it like that. ‘All cards are simplified conduits for dragonessence,’ as one of my professors is fond of saying.” She touched her chest and retrieved her full deck, Kanda quickly cycling through it. “These are spells that are written onto our souls. A dungeon core is written on to the soul of reality itself, if you can imagine something like that.”

“Could that be something like a Mechanical summon?” Alistair asked.

“Something like that, yes. But you won’t learn about these concepts until later on. Your Fledgling year is supposed to be about trials and tribulations through experimental and experiential education. You’re supposed to be focused on the tournament, and the next semester, focused on trials to prepare you for your Mageling year.”

“Ah, so you mean I’m not supposed to be focused on the assassin living in my head’s hit list and saving the Dawncrest Kingdom,” Alistair said. “Got it.”

Ghost: A true assassin never misses a chance. And just so we’re clear, no one likes a sarcastic assassin.

“You’re supposed to be focused on your studies,” Kanda told him as she brushed a bit of fuzz off Alistair’s arm, “the kinds of things you have found yourself getting into aren’t advised for anyone, let alone a Fledgling at a battledeck academy. Yet here we are. Now, back to Ghost.”

“Yes?”

“First, Goran. I believe I’ll be able to lure him out.”

“How?”

“Because my uncle is going to make a mockery of us, as you already know, as he already has started doing with these ridiculous outfits. It’s his way of dressing us down.” She swept her hand over her turquoise skirt. “And dressing us up. Once that happens, once he crosses some invisible line, I’ll turn on the tears.”

“You can cry on command?”

An almost wicked smile formed on her face. Even as she maintained the smile, tears started to well at the corner of her eyes. “Alistair,” Kanda said, her smile finally breaking, “I’m so sorry to hear what you’ve been through. I know it must have been tough losing your family. I know—” She wiped some tears away, the girl full-on sobbing now. “I know what it’s like.”

“It’s okay,” Alistair said as he forcefully took over. “It’s what happened. We can’t—”

Kanda, who had bent her head forward a bit, looked up at Alistair, the smile again on her face. “See?” She threw her head back and sucked in a deep breath through her nostrils. “Convincing?” Kanda carefully wiped the tears away.

Alistair took a step back. “How the hell—?”

“I learned to do that at an early age. No one likes to see a little girl cry, aside from Felix. That’s sort of how he came into my life, you know.”

“How?”

“He spotted me at the orphanage that he has set up for the various kids that the Baronblades produce. After all, Felix has promised to look after them, but not for the charitable reasons you may think. The orphanage is a training ground for future Blades in a way that would make you sick to your stomach.”

Ghost: She’s not lying. Get ready.

“What do you mean?” Alistair asked both of them.

“You have a master assassin living in your head. He knows what it feels like to strike someone down. I’m talking about the pressure you need to exert the force necessary to kill someone. There are various ways to test this, one being slabs of meat, but testing on a human is preferred. A living human makes it even better because you may have to look them in the eye and they may fight back. I fought back.”

“You did what?” Alistair asked, abhorred by what she was saying.

“Felix wanted to test a new blade. He isn’t good with a sword, so he constantly has new ones made for him with increased sharpness. He summoned an orphan and I happened to be that orphan. I was about ten. I don’t know. I don’t know my actual age because there are no records of my birth, but at the time I was between nine and eleven, I think. He gave me a club.”

“No way.”

“Yes, way, a club against a sword. He came at me, and rather than fight, I fell to my knees and started sobbing. I didn’t beg for my life. I just cried. He paused, and then I hit him as hard as I could with the club in the side of his leg, breaking his knee.”

“That was you?” Ghost asked, coming alive. “I remember the brace he wore for a good six months.”

“The gold brace. Yes, that was me.”

“And he didn’t try to kill you for that?” Alistair shook his head as he looked Kanda over again.

“No. He fell to the ground, laughing and clutching his knee. He enjoyed it. The sick fuck enjoyed the fact that I had tricked him, that I had hurt him. I went from living the life of an orphan—likely similar to yours but perhaps worse because my ‘brothers and sisters’ could be executed on a whim—to the life of his daughter. He had the paperwork fabricated. He had anyone that knew of who I was before aside from his Baronblades killed.”

It was a moment before Alistair spoke: “I really don’t know what to say.”

Ghost: As I’ve told you before, you don’t have to remind people of this.

Kanda puffed her cheeks out and let out a deep breath. “There is nothing to say, but I am better at it now, crying. He may suspect something, but Goran won’t. I will get him alone.”

“And what about Renez the Twin Daggered?” Alistair asked. “Caidan wants us to handle her as well.”

“I don’t know if she’s even here yet. That may be a tomorrow problem, once all the assassins arrive to find the estate on lockdown because of Goran’s death. I hate to kill the big fucker, and there were times when we were close, but if Ghost says he must go, and that will help me get to Felix, then so be it. Now, come,” Kanda said as she turned to the door. “It’s time for dinner. Later, once I storm off, follow me.”