“Touch those coins if you want to burn!” Nerran yelled, and he reached into his pocket. The young man who had picked up the first coin promptly dropped it and began to run wildly, screaming, as flames raced up the sleeves of his previously pristine suit.

A few people closest to Nerran backed away from him, but most of the lucky treasure finders were unfazed by the threat. Finally giving up on the would-be thief, the thick-armed Nerran swung at a man who was being particularly greedy in his scrabble for coins. One meaty fist connected with the man’s jaw, and he flopped to the ground. Behind him, another two men grappled with each other, fighting over a fistful of gold.

Max was stuck in a quandary. Should he help Nerran out? On the one hand, he was supposed to prove his worth to the Red Handers. The reactions of the crowd confirmed that what had been in Nerran’s purse had indeed been an awful lot of money. On the other hand, wasn’t Nerran supposed to be escorting him, and hadn’t Max specifically stated that he wasn’t a fighter? It was important that one not give in to pressure at their job to perform duties outside of the scope of their employment agreement.

“Halt! All of you! Halt!” A pair of guards in helms and breastplates and wielding spears hurried toward the commotion, their vain demands for order barely audible over what was now a small melee surrounded by a ring of not-so-innocent onlookers who jostled each other to snatched up coins at the edge of the melee. The guards slowed as they approached, realizing how outnumbered they were. One of them also stole desirous glances at the coins littering the ground.

“The Captain’s nearby,” one of the guards shouted. “Get him! Quick! Before skills start flying!”

After a moment’s hesitation, the guard who’d been glancing at the gold ran off, and the other dropped his spear and waded into the melee, alternately pulling people off of each other or knocking them out. In less than a minute, someone had pulled off his helm, and he was forced into a tactical withdrawal.

Yep. That looked dangerous. Besides, Nerran had just given him a lecture about keeping his head down. The Red Handers had plenty of money. If not, they could steal more. The best course of action was to sink back into the crowd and wait for Nerran.

The best course of action was to sink back —

Sink —

He looked down at his feet. Odd. Try as he might, they wouldn’t move. A sudden sense of de ja vu washed over him. Was he about to be transported back to Earth? But he hadn’t had a chance to do anything yet! He hadn’t been here for even twenty-four hours! At least he ought to be able to cast a spell, any spell, before he left!

He waved a hand. Or at least, he tried to. It also refused to move. Very odd. This seemed different. It was as though the signals from his brain weren’t reaching his muscles. Was this what a phantom limb felt like?

“Girrolorrig, are you sure this is him?” Behind Max a woman whispered, close enough to send a shiver down his spine.

His arm was strongly grasped by a large hand. It was reassuring to know that his unresponsive arms could still feel sensations.

“Hmm...no, I’m not sure,” replied a man’s deep voice, the kind unsuitable for whispering. “Are you sure?”

“What?” the woman spluttered. “How could I be sure? You’ve barely told me anything about him! If we’d arrived a few days later — the trail’s so faint that I can barely distinguish it from the astral detritus left behind by this reckless planar lunatic. I swear, if we run into this planar-humping Mage, I’ll shove a plane right up his — ”

“We’ll take him. Hey, you.” The man’s voice rose, directed at Max’s back. “Would you mind accompanying us? We’d like to speak with you without your companion.”

Ah. He was being abducted. Shit. What did they have against him? He’d arrived in this world yesterday, and all he’d done was get dragged through the sewers and get lectured by the Red Handers. They couldn’t be after him. What kind of incompetent kidnappers couldn’t recognize their victim? At least be sure before committing a crime!

“Hold Person also prevents speech,” said the woman drily.

“Hm. Could you release it momentarily?”

The woman sighed.

As soon as Max regained control over his limbs, he struggled frantically to escape the grip on his arm. “Who the hell are — ”

“You can put it back.”

"Hold Person. Disguise Object.”

The hand reached around his waist, and the ground fell away and the world spun.

When everything stopped moving, he was horizontal on someone’s shoulder, facing outward, still curiously locked in an upright stance as if he’d been cast and cooled in this position. Whoever was carrying him moved out of the crowd, away from the gold coins, away from Nerran. Not a single person gave them more than a glance. Were these people so greedy that they’d ignore a kidnapping in broad daylight?

Max strained his vocal cords, but no sound came out.

In addition to the small mountain carrying him, there were two kidnappers. A woman who had cast spells, and another man who hadn’t spoken yet. They were both dressed plainly and had nondescript faces. If he’d passed them on the street, he wouldn’t have given them a second glance.

Crap. At this rate, no one would stop them.

“Halt! What in the frozen void do you think you’re doing?” shouted a voice from a distance away.

“By the gods, I knew this would happen,” the woman said. “I asked for a diversion, not a melee in the middle of town.”

The sounds of clanking metal and stomping boots filled the air. They were being surrounded.

“The boy was supposed to steal the gold, not throw it.” The third kidnapper finally spoke. His voice had a harsh edge to it.

“Thieves can’t be relied on.”

A brief shifting of the boulder-like shoulder beneath him gave Max a glimpse of who had stopped them: a proud-looking guard with a pink feather in his helm and fancy armor led a dozen guards, who were spreading out behind him to block the street.

“Sir, the commotion is over there,” one of the guards said.

“I am Befor Watz, Captain of the Guard!” shouted the pink-feathered guard, ignoring the suggestion of his underling. “You three, drop the illusions. What have you to do with the commotion over there?”

“What’re you talking about?”

“Don’t play dumb. One of you is casting spells like your life depends on it.”

The guard captain paused. Max felt the pro-wrestler tense up under him.

“It looks like Aver’s smiling on me today. I’ve caught some Imperial rats. Don’t deny it. Is this what the ‘most honorable knight between ice and sand’ does these days? Sneak around foreign countries with a false face and lie to guards like a common Thief? Fat lot that disguise does for you — the only man in Rhine with your stature is Paladin Mirror, and you, sir, are not him. I take it the woman is the Queen of Lies.”

What about me?! Max wanted to scream. First the crowd had ignored him, now the guards. Was carrying a body over one’s shoulder a common occurrence in this city?

“Release the illusions, Wisamy.” The pro-wrestler carrying Max seemed to be the leader.

“We can’t fight,” protested the cloaked woman whom the Guard Captain had called the Queen of Lies. She was an Illusionist, like Scarlet? But how had she paralyzed him? Could Scarlet do that? For some reason, that thought gave Max a chill.

“What a farce.” The third kidnapper, who’d said little until now, launched a scathing critique of his comrades. “You’re supposed to be training me? An undercover mission where the leader is a loud, unmistakable oaf and the Illusionist is a gutless little girl who can’t hide her spells.”

“He shouldn’t have been able to detect my casting,” the Queen of Lies said. “There’s no way a Guard — ”

“The God-Emperor must have — ”

In the middle of what was sounding like another snarky comment by the third kidnapper, Max was thrown off the Wrestler’s shoulder, regaining control over his body just in time to flail his limbs before hitting the cobblestone street.

There was another loud thud next to him.

Max dragged himself upright. His muscles screamed and his elbows and knees stung where they’d hit the ground. It probably would’ve hurt less if he’d hit the ground still paralyzed.

The kidnappers looked completely different, throwing Max for a loop until he realized that they’d dropped their illusions. Well, he hadn’t gotten a good look at this Girrolorrig’s disguise from his uncomfortably close-up vantage point, but the other two had changed, most noticeably their clothes. The woman’s patched cloak and loose brown clothes had been replaced by matching skin-tight navy blue shirt and pants — which had to be made from a material more elastic than the cotton and occasional silk that Rhinians wore — that revealed a slim but obviously feminine figure, and her long cyan hair was tied up in a bun.

The third kidnapper, the man who’d been quiet until levying criticisms at his colleagues, a black-robed and black-haired man, was lying face down in the street. The source of the thud. Girrolorrig had struck down his fellow kidnapper.

“You will not insult the Emperor.”

The third man, spewing curses, punched the ground hard enough to crack the cobblestone and propelled himself into the air, his black robes billowing, landing on his feet like a cat. A glimpse of his face, which sported a murderous expression, shocked Max. The third man was Asian-looking — the first Asian-looking person he’d seen in Rhinia.

No wonder this trio was using illusions. Each of the three on their own stuck out like a sore thumb, and together they might as well have been a K-pop band walking around Rhinia.

While to Max, the kidnappers turning on each other and the Complainer’s physics-defying feat were front-page news, the Guard Captain had chosen to stare with an incredulous expression at Max as if he’d appeared from nowhere. Behind the Guard Captain, the guards were more appropriately focused on Girrolorrig, their spears raised in tight grips as though they were hunting a wild boar who’d turned out to be much larger and angrier than they’d been told.

D&D had taught Max that it always paid off to promptly thank one’s savior, lest they fly into an indignant rage and teleport the party into a volcano. A Guard Captain was unlikely to have such powers, but it was also good manners. He gave the Guard Captain a grateful nod. “Hi, uh, Mr. Captain of the Guard. Thanks for saving me.”

“Who in the void is that? You were kidnapping someone under Aver’s bright gaze?”

Now the Guard Captain noticed him? Not while — ah, as part of the illusion, the kidnappers must have hidden him somehow. Very clever, kidnappers. It was reassuring that kidnapping was not an everyday matter in Rhinia.

“I’m, uh — ” Max cut himself off. Was it okay to give out his name? He had the feeling Nerran was giving him one of those disapproving looks.

Shit! Nerran! What had happened to the grumpy bastard?

As Max spun around, he realized that the din of the melee had long since quieted. The marketplace was deserted, save for a handful of guards who blocked off the other side of the street, with more running in to join their ranks.

Nerran was gone. That grumpy bastard had abandoned him!

“Nevermind. Imperial Knights, you’ll be coming to the palace. It’s rude for a diplomatic delegation to not greet the King, don’t you think?”

“Thanks, again, Mr. Guard Captain, I’ll just — ”

“Take that one to the guardhouse,” the Guard Captain said without giving Max a glance. “Find out his relationship to the Empire. Let’s go.”

Without waiting for affirmation from the kidnappers, the Guard Captain turned, and his squad parted. After a brief exchange of glances, the kidnapping trio followed the Guard Captain, the black-robed complainer after a moment’s hesitation.

Two soldiers approached Max from behind. “This way.”

“Wait, I — ”

If we don’t meet again, Arce doesn’t hold what you seek.

A whisper made Max jump. Jesus. One of the guards? There was no need to whisper in his ear. But the guards on either side of him returned his confused gaze as though they were beginning to question his sanity.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Are you all right?”

And both guards were men. That whisper had been a woman’s voice.

In front of you.

In front of him? But the whisper had come from — in the large group walking down the street, a head with a cyan bun turned. The Queen of Lies. Her eyes locked with his, and the buildings and guards blurred, and his face drew his vision like a whirlpool does an errant fish until he thought he could make out the pores in her skin.

Nod if you’ve heard this message: Arce does not hold what you seek.

The two guards grabbed him on either arm. “Are you going to walk, or would you rather be dragged through the streets?”

Dizzy, Max nodded, and the woman returned her gaze forward. His vision snapped back into focus. One of the guards escorting her glanced back curiously.

His escorts pulled, half-dragging him into the deserted marketplace. What in the world had that been? The guards clearly hadn’t heard the whispers. It had been some sort of secret message. Was that why they’d tried to kidnap him? But why would they use such a hostile method if all they wanted was to pass on a message? And what did the message mean? Something didn’t hold what he sought … what was he seeking? Adventure? Magical powers? The role of a hero? He couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

“I can walk,” Max said, shaking the guards off.

“Good,” one of the guards said, “Don’t move. We’ll take a quick break here so you can rest your legs.”

“Cleaning up messes,” the other guard said, bending over to pick up a gold coin and slipping it into his coin purse, “that’s the sad lot of Guards, ain’t it, Roach?”

“If it’s a mess like this,” the guard named Roach said with a laugh, “I’d trade my spear for a broom. Just think what my missus’ll say when I come home with a whole year’s pay.”

Nerran’s coins! They remained scattered on the ground where the melee had been. Apparently, the fear of real fighting had overcome the mob’s greed.

“That’s my — ” Max started, but realized that it might be better to say nothing. Right now, the guards didn’t know he was related to the commotion in the marketplace. He was an innocent victim. If they found out that he’d been with Nerran, and Nerran was in a group of thieves, who knew how the day would end for him.

“Got something to say?” one of the guards asked, pausing his coin collecting.

“Hey! Is it over?” Across the marketplace, the door to a two-story shop had opened, and a man had stuck his head out. In fact, there were people peeking out through cracked-open shutters from a number of them.

It seemed they hadn’t been completely scared off.

“Stay indoors! This is Guard business,” one of the guards yelled.

“It ain’t over! This here is a dangerous prisoner, see?” The other guard lifted Max’s arm like a referee at a boxing match announcing a winner.

“He doesn’t look dangerous to me! Are you picking up coins?”

“Shut it, old man, and go back to inside your shop, or unless you want to join him! That goes for all of you!”

“Gods above!” The old man shouted in fear and retreated into the shop, slamming the door. Shutters clicked shut all around the square.

The guard waggled his spear at the closed door and then resumed coin collecting, mocking the old man and not noticing the cloaked figure sprinting up one of the intersecting streets, a flame in one hand. Max took a few steps back. What now? Another kidnapper? The marketplace was an open area with nowhere to hide, and all the nearby shops had their doors shut, likely locked from the inside.

These guards were professionals. They could deal with a lone kidnapper. If they could look at anything besides the gold coins on the ground, that was. “Uh, Mr. Guard. There’s a guy — hey! Guard! Guard!”

“No respect for Guards — shut it! — putting our lives on the line, ungrateful — gah!”

The guard screamed and tried to pat out the fire on his sleeve, dropping his spear. The cloaked figure ran to the other guard, and soon both Guards were human candles, albeit ones that screamed and ran around. The cloaked figure ran at Max, who threw his arms in the air.

“I surrender! I surrender!” Getting set on fire was not on his list of things to do today. Kidnapping was enough, thank you very much.

“Shut up and move!” The cloaked figure grabbed his wrist, and Max glimpsed who was under the hood.

“Ner — ”

Nerran slammed a furred hand over his mouth hard enough that it felt like a slap. “Move!”

Obliging, Max broke into a run after Nerran. The grump had come back! That tough exterior belied the grump’s softie personality underneath. It almost brought tears to his eyes.

* * *

The red sun was kissing the horizon when the pair shoved open the door to the Red Hander’s mansion. They’d spent the afternoon zigging and zagging through the streets of Rhinia, turning back or dodging into shops whenever they saw a guard.

The three women were seated at the dining table, eating either a very late lunch or an early dinner. The wooden stool Amelia sat on was nearly as tall as the table, so she ended up taller than the rest of the Red Handers, having to reach far down to grab food off the table. A few stacks of flatbread sandwiches sat on a platter. The sight and smell beckoned Max, who was famished, and he ran across the living room and swiped a sandwich, stuffing it into his mouth as he sat down. Juicy pork slathered in a sweet-and-sour sauce sat under a sharp cheese and leafy greens between the pieces of flatbread. Sauce dribbled out with each bite, covering Max’s mouth and fingers.

Getting kidnapped was hungry work.

“You two are late,” Boss’s melodic voice called out. “You should have been back before us. Our end was a success. The Crimson Tide shouldn’t bother us anymore, although we heard rumors of Imperial Knights in Rhinia.”

“Well, those rumors are true.” Nerran remained standing. “That’s why we’re late: we ran into them.”

The atmosphere in the room immediately iced over. When Boss spoke again, her tone was flat. “Imperial Knights? What happened?”

“They tried to kidnap me,” Max said.

“Are they still on your trail?”

“We weren’t followed,” Nerran assured her, “The Captain of the Guard caught them and took them to the Palace, so they ought to be tied up for the day, but one of them was the Queen of Lies.”

Evidently this meant something, as Boss’s and Scarlet’s eyes widened at the same time. This Queen of Lies must be pretty famous.

“Scarlet, can you check if she’s tracking him? Mari, watch the window.”

Tracking? Like … with magic?

Shoving the rest of her sandwich into her mouth and grabbing another, Mari rose and moved to a window by the front door.

“Shit,” Scarlet said, approaching Max, “I don’t know. I can try, but the Queen of Lies … she’s a professional.” She placed a hand on his neck. So cold! Did she have circulation problems? For the love of the fantastic, she could have thought to rub her hands together first. A tingling sensation ran all over his skin like an army of ants.

On the one hand, he didn’t want to be tracked. It was creepy — hopefully there wasn’t a magical Big Brother in this world — and more importantly, it wouldn’t bode well for him and the Red Handers. On the other hand, tracking someone with magic sounded pretty fucking cool.

“I don’t see anything. This house is well warded, too, but I can’t be certain. How long were you with her? Did you see her casting a spell on you?”

“She was casting illusions...”

“Start from the beginning.”

Nerran narrated how they’d gone to the tailor’s, then the library, and then his side of the incident in the marketplace. When he realized that Max had disappeared, he immediately started searching, but the appearance of the Imperial Knights scared everyone off. Nerran was forced to flee with a handful of people into a nearby shop in order to remain inconspicuous. He watched the standoff from a window, and when there was an opportunity to rescue Max, he’d taken it.

“You got lucky. When you appeared over that Imperial Knight’s shoulder, I thought you were a goner. What did they want with you?”

In a more roundabout manner than Nerran, with stops and starts and backtracks as he recalled more details, Max filled in his side. At Boss’s prompting, he did his best to relay verbatim everything he’d heard, especially from the Imperial Knights, but how was he supposed to remember all that? He’d been under severe duress.

Everything, that is, except for the cyan-haired woman’s whisper. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t mention it. It had felt personal, the message, intended solely for him. Even her companions hadn’t heard it. The kidnapping trio had demonstrated they weren’t all on the same page. Maybe she’d been trying to help him. If he told the Red Handers, they might take it the wrong way and think he had a connection to the woman. Besides, he had no idea what she’d meant. Something didn’t hold what he sought? He wasn’t hiding information if he didn’t have the information in the first place. Not to mention she was called the Queen of Lies.

“He’s a batch of dry tinder waiting to catch fire,” Nerran said once Boss ceased prodding Max for more details. “We’re going to get burned.”

“You’re good with fire,” Scarlet joked.

Nerran pressed on, addressing Boss. “I say we turn him in to the guards. Let them handle the Imperial Knights. It’s the Queen of Lies! She tracked him down once, and she’ll do it again. We may as well send smoke signals asking the Empire to find us. They could be on their way here right now.”

Max glanced at the front door nervously. Kidnapping someone more than once per day ought to be illegal.

“I don’t think so,” Boss said. “Scarlet, do you know how the Queen of Lies found him?”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Scarlet said slowly. “It could have something to do with his mana.”

Max’s jaw dropped open. Hold on. “I have mana?” This was revelatory news — it meant he could cast spells, right?

“Every living thing has mana, dunce. Some of your mana circulates with the ambient mana. If you’re really not of this world, there might be a different quality to your mana, something that makes it traceable.”

“Maybe he doesn’t have mana at all,” Nerran remarked.

Scarlet looked shocked at the suggestion. “That would be … ”

“They would’ve had to have known about Max in the first place,” Boss said, bringing them back on topic.

“It’s possible that the teleportation event — and I’m way out of my depth here — created a disturbance that the Queen of Lies picked up on, and they managed to trace it to him.”

“You’re saying they were already in the area for another reason, and Max happened to pique their interest.”

Scarlet nodded. “More importantly, mana circulates in and out of our bodies. From what Max said, it sounds like in a few more days at most, whatever trail they were following will be too cold to trace. That lines up with Arcesilaus’s Third Law: all magic decays over time and space. But this is all speculation. The Queen of Lies is beyond me. Fascinating as this is, I have to side with Nerran here. There’s a chance that keeping this kid will bring the Imperial Knights down on us. However useful he might be, he’s not worth that.”

“C-can I ask something?”

“Yes, Amelia?”

“Isn’t it safe to go to the guards? My papa says — ” the girl froze midsentence.

The Red Handers shot each other confused looks. What was — Jesus, she was an orphan, of course.

When none of the others got up to help her, and the girl looked like she was hyperventilating, Max shot out of his chair, which screeched against the floor, and went over to awkwardly pat her on the back.

“It’s all right.”

For fuck’s sake, he didn’t know how to handle traumatized kids! He was either too young or too old for this — he was not planning on becoming a parent in the near future and it had been many years since he’d worked the nightmarish summer job of a camp counselor.

In a moment of eye contact, he caught Boss giving him a grateful look. It was the first glance he’d received from her that didn’t approach a glare.

“What were you saying?”

“My p-papa says, when we’re in the city, it was Castia, not … here, if I’m in trouble to go to the guards. The guards help you.”

The girl had a point. As a thieving group, the Red Handers were at odds with the guards, but he was unaffiliated. The guards might question him a bit, but once they realized he had no relation to the Imperial Knights, he could try to become a normal citizen in Rhinia.

“I don’t want to cause you all any trouble. If it would be better for everyone if I turned myself in to the guards, I’m happy to do that.”

Boss scoffed, but there was no edge to it. If there was condescension in it, it was directed inward. “You have no clue what you’re proposing for yourself.”

“Then enlighten me!” Max tried to keep anger from slipping into his voice, for the sake of Amelia. “All I know is that some people tried to kidnap me, and some guards stopped it! How am I supposed to know what’s going on? I don’t know who anyone is, where we are, or if any of this is even real!”

Boss sighed. “The Imperial Knights are the personal soldiers of Emperor Karlatz. In a weak country like Rhine, they can do nearly anything with impunity, guards or no guards.” She glanced at Amelia. “I’ve seen them kill children in the streets for sport. If you see them, turn around and hope they don’t notice you. If they notice you, pray it’s not one of the nasty ones.”

Okay, she could have toned it down a little there. There was a child present. Though Amelia looked unperturbed, as far as he could tell. If anything, that made it worse. A kid ought to react to tales of murderers in their city. If not fear, at least curiosity.

“They scare me,” Mari added, “which means you should be wetting your pants, Mook.”

Remembering how easily Mari had knocked out the thugs, Max decided to take her word for it.

“Remember the hunters I mentioned?” Nerran asked. “The vultures that would descend on you if word got out you had teleported or whatever it is you did to get here? The Imperial Knights are among the ‘worse.’ They have mind-readers, high-Level Mages, Blessings with sensory Skills, or just terrifyingly good intuition. Now that they’ve noticed you’re special, they’ll haul you back to the Emperor as a present.”

They’d tried to haul him back, but they’d failed. “The guards managed to stop them.”

“Which means they’re playing a game. If they wanted to, they could tear through all the guards in Rhinia in minutes.”

“You all are thinking about this too narrowly,” Boss said suddenly. “So we have to watch our backs for a few days, so what? We’re used to that. If they don’t come, we’ve stolen something from Karlatz for free.”

“And if they do?” Scarlet asked.

“We kill them.”

The enormous frame of Max’s kidnapper came to mind. The way the man in black robes had fractured stone and defied gravity with an effortless punch. The way the woman had disguised all three kidnappers and hidden Max’s motionless body from sight. The blase manner with which they’d bickered among themselves while two dozen spears were pointed at them.

Four Thieves were going to kill that?

And there was a kid here! Planning murder with a kid present was a terrible thing to do! Max clapped his hands over Amelia’s ears, and she scrabbled at them, trying to pry them off. After receiving no support from the Red Handers, Max wearily let Amelia peel his hands off her ears. His right hand, though, after being removed from her ear, became trapped between two small hands that refused to let go. He tried to give her a kind smile while worrying about her future upbringing.

“Boss … three Imperial Knights, and one of them’s Girrolorrig.” Scarlet’s brow furrowed with uncertainty.

“Girrolorrig is strong, but he has weaknesses. I’m sure I can kill him. And he rarely strays more than an arm’s length from Karlatz, so we’ll never get a better chance to kill him. From all reports, the Queen of Lies is not a strong combatant. Without preparation, even Mari could probably beat her.”

Hold on, hold on. They were seriously planning murder here.

“She’ll come prepared,” Scarlet protested.

“Scarlet, I’m sorry, but you’ve never seen me fight. Really fight. Nerran?” She looked at Nerran for confirmation.

“No one’s prepared for Boss. If she can take down Girrolorrig, then we can win.”

“Scarlet? Mari?” Boss looked to the other members in turn. Apparently, Max hadn’t obtained voting rights yet.

Mari nodded, although she looked uncertain.

Scarlet just sighed. “I suppose when I signed up, I knew we’d be going up against them eventually. I hope this tracking wears off soon and we don’t have to find out.”

“Good. We’ll need to move up our schedule. We’re hitting the Guild tomorrow.”

“While waiting for the Imperial Knights? We’re not ready for it! And the Veck job — ”

“ — is canceled. Money we can steal anywhere. Regardless of whether the Imperial Knights find us, if Rhine is hiring Imperial Knights, or if Karlatz annexes Rhine, we could lose our one chance at hitting a Guild branch. We have to take it.”

Planning murder, and then stealing from the Adventurers’ Guild? The Red Handers didn’t come across as bad people, but their actions were starting to seem increasingly villainous. Maybe, despite their warnings, the best course of action would be to take the girl and go to the guards. He’d have to find a time to chat with the girl when the Red Handers weren’t around.

But before that, he needed some sleep. It looked as though tomorrow would be another long day.