Twilight had stilled the day, the sunset painting the sky with a pinkish gold that bled to a violet that reminded her of the wisteria. The inn’s back stonework rose in a straight wall, three stories tall, parts of its bricks reflecting the sky’s colors in a dull shine. Opposite, the roofline of the stables jutted in silhouette.

When she and the ogre stepped out, one of the innkeeps was in the midst of lighting the gas lamps.

They walked a little ways from the back door, then stopped.

She faced the ogre, an eyebrow raised expectantly.

The guardswoman was huge. All ogres were. She’d had to duck to exit both the back door and the common room, a fact of life she was no doubt used to—with the guild crest she wore, she’d been working around goblin holds for years. Despite her size, she moved lightly, well-controlled. The callouses on her hands told of blade practice, or perhaps stave work, the ones on her knuckles for closer, unarmed work. A network of old scars criss-crossed her defensive arm, pale against the smooth, moss-green pattern of her skin.

It reminded her of a gemstone she’d once seen Lady Stanek wear.

She didn’t think she meant to attack—she didn’t get that sense from her, and the woman wasn’t wearing armor, besides. And if she was simply luring her out of the way while her goblin friends all went for the prince…

Well, Matteo would be giving them a rude shock.

Still, she let her woodcraft slip out, ease into their surroundings. Immediately, the scent of the nearby gardenias doubled-down, along with her sense of sounds coming from the stable. The dogwood at the front of the inn gleefully re-announced its presence, practically beaming its greeting at her bloodline magic.

She turned it down. Again.

“I am Prya,” the guardswoman said. “Of Luima.”

“Catrin. Of Pemberlin.”

Pemberlin, not the Raidt. She wondered if she was technically of Lorka now. After all, it was Nales who now held her leash, not the Staneks.

That, however, was not information she was about to give to Prya, no matter how friendly she seemed.

“What did you want to talk to me about?” she asked.

“My companions and I just traveled from Emelle.” Southeast, roughly twice the distance they’d traveled from Brighton today. “The roads have been strange since the attack. Lots of stories going about. Have you heard anything?”

Catrin crossed her arms and slunk her weight to the side. “Plenty of demons going around. A bit less to the Southwest, now—Pemberlin’s been organizing patrols and hunting parties with Brighton. You know about the Temi demons?”

Prya cocked her head. “Temi demons?”

“Those are the ones that hang in the trees for ambush.”

“Ah. Yes. We had an… encounter.” Prya’s hand went to her shoulder, where a fresher, thicker scar raised more prominently from her skin, still outlined in rose-pink from healing. “You’ve been dealing with them?”

“Yes.”

“And your magic?” Prya made a gesture to Catrin’s collar, where the edge of Kodanh’s mercari runes peeked out from under her shirt. “Has it been affected?”

Catrin hesitated. How much should she tell her? Not everything, surely—that would reveal too much. But they did know much more about the problems with the world’s magic than most.

“Some of it, yes. It depends on the source. Whatever the attack did, it affected our world’s connection to the gates. If a magic is sourced in our world, it should be fine. If it’s sourced in another, however, like the fey, or—” Realization snapped through her—or like goblin. She looked up sharply. “Have you been having trouble? With artificing?”

Prya winced, glancing around quickly. Her hands had come up, as if she could forestall Catrin’s words from leaving her mouth. Then she sighed, defeated.

“Only sometimes,” she admitted. “Please, don’t tell anyone.”

Of course. They wouldn’t want potential customers—and competitors—knowing they had stumbled in their reliability.

“I won’t advertise it,” she said in a low tone, which made Prya relax. “But I will let my companions know. We’re… researching what happened. This only confirms our findings.”

Prya’s cringe returned, but only for a moment. “What findings? This gate connection theory of yours?”

“Not of ours—High Fey. We ran into them a fortnight ago. A prince and his heartsworn accompanying a high priestess.”

Prya relaxed somewhat. A theory from High Fey was far more trustworthy than something from humans or elves—and far easier to feed her compatriots.

While she had the woman’s favor, she slipped in her own questioning:

“What manner of demons have you seen?”

“Hounds, mostly. One that looked like a big boar. It ate one of the horses. Some of those—what did you call them? ‘Temi’? The hanging ones. There was a bunch that moved in a group, like big flies.”

“Did you encounter any other odd things?” Catrin pressed. “Structures, perhaps? Animals that shouldn’t be here? Plants?”

One of the other weak points on the map had been close to the road from Emelle.

“A few of those, yes,” Prya confirmed. “Buildings with strange language on them.”

Catrin perked up. Strange language? Matteo’s, possibly? “Was it close to the road?”

“It blocked the road. We had to break through two fences to go around. My company… we spent some time there, investigating. There were odd things inside the building. Strange technology.”

“Any magic?” she asked.

“Two demons, but we killed them. I think they broke inside.” Prya’s dark eyes slipped back to hers. “Temi.”

Made sense. Temi seemed to like the insides of places.

“If I showed you a map, do you think you could point it out? We’re looking for places like that.”

Prya’s dark eyes held hers for a beat, caution warring within.

“I suppose I could do that, rnari. Can you tell me more about the problems with magic?”

She hesitated. “I only know a little.”

Prya snorted. “A little is more than I know, apparently.”

Elrya. Was this what it had come to? Searching for the answers to the world’s problems from random guardsmen at inns?

They had to get to the bottom of this.

She chewed her tongue. What would be useful to a group of goblins and their guard?

“Local magic is unaffected. Pemberlin has had success relying on kimbic scripts. Both my local ones are working fine. If you want to use magic with an otherworldly source, however, it may be best to find a working gate to that world. Or find out how to fix a broken gate. The normal lines of connection are disrupted.”

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“I see.” Prya paused for a beat. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

The clop of hooves announced another guest’s arrival. Two of them. They passed near the lamps near the stable’s entrance, the light catching their deep brown skin and forest green cloaks.

Raidt elves. That made three, including the one she’d ignored inside.

She and Prya watched them dismount.

“Friends of yours?” the ogre asked.

Not when they find out who it is I’m guarding.

That thought, however, would remain unvoiced.

“I should get back inside,” she said. “They start wandering off when I’m not around.”

Prya snorted softly. “They do tend to do that, don’t they?”

They exchanged a knowing look, then ambled back toward the door. Prya held it open for her.

“The stew here is good, rnari. You should try it.”

***

The stew was good. And, miracle of miracles—her charges had not wandered off without her. Except for Doneil, of course, who wandered off even with her there and who, later, ended up pulling half the back-of-house staff over to sit at their table for a couple rounds, chitchatting.

A few hours in, and more than a few bottles, and they seemed to have increased Matteo’s fluency. His sentences were sounding smoother, less halting, as if he weren’t having to think so much about his words.

Good.

Prince Nales even started talking. That took less bottles and more nagging—Doneil’s doing, not hers.

The elf from earlier was nowhere to be seen.

After a while, Nales got up from the table and announced his intention to retire.

She got up, too, and followed him to the door.

He turned to her with a grimace.

“I don’t need a minder, Catrin. I can manage the stairs on my own.”

She held his eyes for a solid second, then held out her hand. “Give me the map.”

He frowned. “What? Why?”

“Found another possible location. She’ll mark it for us.”

He looked past her, no doubt zeroing in on the Luima Guild’s table, eyebrows arching. “The ogre?”

She arched her own. “Her name is Prya, and she’s been with them more than ten years.”

“Fine.” He rummaged into a pocket of his bag and brought it out. “Don’t lose it.”

She didn’t deign that with a response, only took the map from his hands.

“Pleasant dreams, Your Highness.”

He wasn’t actually going to sleep. She knew that. But it still felt good to walk away with the map in her hand and his daggered stare hitting her back.

Temdin. She never would have tried that with Prince Tarris.

Prya saw her coming with the map in her hand. By the time she got to the goblins’ table, the guardswoman had cleared a space in front of her. The table went quiet as Catrin spread the map, unrolling the southwestern piece that marked the road from Emelle, then fumbled for the pencil at the side.

One of the goblins handed her an inked stylus from his crooked hand. “You’re the one who discussed the world links?”

She glanced at him. He’d spoken to her in Common Fey. A test? Or simply an attempt to keep their conversation guarded? His speech had been stilted and the verbiage archaic, as if he were code-switching like Matteo was starting to do.

“I am. Have you an interest?”

“I have.”

The rest of the goblins remained silent, watching and listening. They reminded her a little of Temi demons, the way they’d gone still. Goblins did that, she remembered. They could sit so still people mistook them for statues, or part of the scenery.

At her own table, she noticed Matteo looking over at them curiously.

The goblin noticed, too. He made a gesture toward him with the stylus, head tilting on the man like a crow sighting silver. “Your friend—he is not from here?”

She looked at him steadily. “My friend is under my protection.”

His eye flicked to her. He smiled. “He has strange technology.” He stopped offering the stylus, instead placing it on the southwest part of the map, and his hand over the top of it. “We want to see it.”

Ah. A trade. Information for information.

She didn’t really need the location of their potential world-overlap weak spot, but neither would them looking at Matteo’s firearm do them much good.

Besides, the way goblins worked—the way many people worked—it was usually better to ply them with favors first. Then they’d show their true hand.

She turned, caught Matteo’s eye, and jerked her head for him to come over here.

His eyebrows arched upward, confusion clear on his face, but he complied, lumbering up from the table and sauntering over.

A few seconds later, he was by her side and offering the table an amiable smile.

Harmless. He looked harmless. Except for the way he filled out the clothes they’d given him, and the way that, even a few rounds in, he seemed to carry himself a little more consciously than others.

He picked the one she’d been speaking with, smiled more broadly, then leaned forward and offered his hand to shake.

The goblin stared at it.

“It’s a greeting custom he has,” she explained in High Fey. “He shakes everyone’s hand and introduces himself.”

Slowly, the goblin lifted his hand, leaving the stylus behind on the map.

Good. Maybe she’d finally get his name.

“Hello,” Matteo said, shaking it. “My name is Matteo. It is nice to meet you.”

“Hello,” the goblin echoed back, his thin, long fingers folding over Matteo’s like ashwood twigs. “My name is Erralei.”

Excellent. Matteo was already proving useful.

“He wants to look at your gun,” she said in Janessi, slowly, so Matteo could understand. By the shift to caution and incredulity in his expression, he did.

He broke his handshake to start gesturing.

“I hear goblins good at magic machine?”

Erralei’s eyes flared. “Yes.”

Matteo nodded and reached for his holster. The table rippled as he drew his firearm, pointing its end carefully toward the thick wooden beams of the wall.

When one of the goblins reached to take it, he lifted it higher and shook his head.

“No. Dangerous. I keep.”

At that goblin’s reproachful, mildly offended look, she shook her head.

“He’s right. It’s quite dangerous. Similar to Lorkan firearms, but it fires hot light instead of balls or bullets.”

“Hot light?” Erralei asked.

“Yes.” She reached out to indicate the lens on its business end. “They come from here.”

“How is it stored?”

She relayed the question to Matteo until he understood, and he pointed to the grip of the gun. “It has a type of battery. Self-replenishing.”

“Self-replenishing, without magic?”

“Apparently.”

Erralei was quiet for a moment. At his silence, the rest of the table quietened again. He gazed at the gun thoughtfully.

“I wish to touch it.”

She chewed it over. Similar to how she had her woodcraft, Goblins could read… things. Mechanisms. Machinery. Spellwork. Anything with a magical path.

If she let him touch Matteo’s gun, he could get a feel for the circuitry inside, the self-replenishing battery, the firing mechanism.

If she let him touch the gun, he’d owe her an awful lot more than just a spot on the map.

“Matteo?” She met the man’s stare, then put pressure on his hand, asking him to lower the firearm. “A little touch?”

The look he gave her could have frozen the dead.

But, after a slight resistance, he lowered the gun.

“A little,” he said, his words clipped.

“Thank you,” she said.

He still kept it pointed at the wall, angling it upward. His hand fully blocked the trigger, she noticed, fingers wrapping back around and holding it tight.

Erralei reached forward and, with a delicate gesture, placed his forefingers over the grip and butt of the firearm—

—and jerked them back with a hiss, like he’d been burned.

The entire table rippled, each goblin tensing as their leader spat out a few swears, shaking out his fingers.

Matteo jerked the gun back up, eyebrows arching in concern. “Are you okay?”

“Fine. Fine. I’m fine.” He spat out another swear, flicked his fingers a final time, then turned a glower up at the gun. “It’s got more fire in it than I expected.”

Prya tilted her head. “Fire? So it is magic?”

The goblin shrugged. “I don’t know what it is. But it is interesting.”

“Problem?” Matteo asked, clearly confused and still looking at Erralei with some concern.

“No, no problem.” The goblin plucked up the stylus, made a concise mark on the map, then stood. A wall of movement came from Catrin’s right as Prya stood with him. Erralei reached out to clasp Matteo’s in both of his. “Thank you, Matteo. You have shown me much tonight, and I must think.”

At his words, the other goblins rose and filed out, trailing into his wake.

Before he left, he paused by Catrin.

“And you, rnari—tell that prince of yours his brother wants him dead.”