Jeanne sat alone at the table, holding a flagon of ale in her hand, waving her fingers through the flames of the candle. Each time a fiery ring wrapped a knuckle joining her fingers to her hand. She heard Cid’s footsteps as he sat down next to her, his own drink in hand.

Neither spoke, exhaustion now affecting them. Cid looking particularly exhausted in from the earlier events, his eyes half opened and his mouth drooping down. Jeanne looked at Cid from the corner of her eye. “Are you going to say it?”

“I mean. Did you have to make the threat?”

“Wait, I thought you were going to talk about the interrogation?”

“I’m not thrilled about that either, but more of us having little time to work with when it happened.”

“Huh,” Jeanne said, placing her flagon down, crossing her arms on the table and resting her head down, “I thought you were going to chew me out.”

“I would’ve preferred you not pummel the poor man, but at this point we need to start breaking some ground on this Kolville before moving onto the rest. And Jeanne, I going to be honest here. And don’t take this as an offense.”

“I only promise to try.”

“I am having my fill and a half of your homeland.”

“How you do you like I feel? I want to go back home and pretend none of this happened.”

“Fair enough. Though maybe this will get this Stefan character to reveal himself.”

“Who knows at this point. And we need to talk to Bellem, too.”

“Oh no,” Cid groaned. “Why can’t just have one problem at a time?”

“Are you going to meet him?”

“I don’t know. I don’t trust the man at all, and my gut is telling me it’s either a trap or he’ll try to hire us for some dirty work.”

“I’m starting to remember why I never wanted to be in charge of a mercenary company, Cid.”

“It is not pleasant, that’s for certain.”

“What do you plan to do?”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Tomorrow, I plan to sleep. The day after, ponder. Following that, I’m thinking panic.”

“So, expect a plan then?”

“At least I’ll have time to consider options.”

“I didn’t expect this to get so complicated.”

“Life tends to have a habit of doing that.”

“Well, I think I’m going to call this a night,” Jeanne said as she rose from her seat and moved towards the stairs.

“Tell the doctor and pup I said hello.”

“I’ll do that,” Jeanne said, waving to Cid as she moved up the stairs.

Reaching her room, she gently opened the door before entering. Closing the door, she could see Leonidas, with Puppý resting on his chest, sleeping on their bed. She made herself comfortable and rested next to the two. Puppý slowly moved his head up, and after hopping off of Leonidas nuzzled his head into her shoulder.

“You know if he finds out we’re doing this, he’ll lose it,” she said to the spectral pup.

“Oh that boat sailed a long time ago,” Leonidas said to her.

“I thought you were asleep.”

He waved tilted his hand back and forth. “Mhe, I was still in that tired but can’t sleep state.”

“Well, if we’re lucky the next couple days will be uneventful.”

“You know saying that means something is going to happen, right?”

“Always the optimist,” Jeanne said, weakly moving her arm and pretending to try and hit him.

“Someone has to be with you pessimistic miscreants.”

Jeanne opened her eyes slightly, looking at Puppý. “I need you to nibble on the doc.”

Puppý looked up at Jeanne and then after a short moment went back to sleep.

“We’re going to need to train this dog better.”

“You get on that. I’m sleeping.”

“Of course you’d say that.”

“How are you holding up?”

“Tired,” Jeanne stretching her neck out. “You?”

“Same.”

“You planning on staying in tomorrow?”

“Oh yeah. You?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Silvius and Hypatia were thinking of going back down into the tunnel and checking out the images down there.”

“So soon?”

“Normally religious groups tend to avoid going back to such places immediately after they’re raided. And they’ll want to make sure the place is safe altogether before they try to move themselves back into what was raided.”

“Is that from superstitions?”

“No, it’s so they don’t die from someone stabbing them. Or something else of a highly annoying nature.”

“Oh, fair enough. You mind if I tag along?”

“You wouldn’t mind?”

“No, never bad to have an extra pair of eyes to watch your back.”

“You’re hoping to find another spell book aren’t you?”

“No no no … yes, yes I am.”

“Still, it’d be nice to have you with us. I think it might be good for you.”

Jeanne turned to Leonidas. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been focusing on hunting men responsible for robbing you of a sister. That isn’t an easy to travel.”

“No, no it hasn’t.”

“You think we’re near to this Stefan character?”

“I mean, I threatened him personally, I’d be surprised if there was no response from him.”

“And did you Cid really run into Lord Bellem?”

Jeanne rolled her eyes. “Oh, I don’t want to think about that.”

“That wasn’t a no, Jeanne.”

“I know, but I still don’t want to talk about it.”

“So is that a no to the job offer?”

“That’s Cid’s call, but I don’t think he will.”

“I’ll pray to Kusti’s wisdom he see through whatever honeyed words the lord would bring.”

“But, I think I’m going to get some sleep.”

“Night, love,” Leonidas said.

“Night, love, see you in the morning,” Jeanne said as she cuddled Puppý and felt slumber come to her.