“You know, this island actually has a very vibrant wilderness,” Lucius said as he sliced through a venison steak. To either side of him, Kajsa and Aisha did the same, mincing their meat to pieces without eating it. Both women seemed intent on drinking their dinner and had already emptied one flagon of wine.

“Indeed, m’Lord,” Lupin said. “The locals did little to tame the islands and left them unspoiled. The animals have a very… powerful flavor to them.”

“A bit of nature tamed for our dinner,” Lucius said, choking down one of the cartilage suffused pieces. “The locals tend to stew their meat with spices.”

“Yes, I’ve had some of those meals. They go well over rice, but they don’t agree with me much. Simpler fare is preferable,” the merchant said, inspecting a piece of meat and setting it aside on his plate in favor of mashed tubers.

Lucius washed his gamey meal down with some wine and perused the table. Sammy and his paramore, Sera, sat opposite each other, buffering Lupin from the icy air. Miss Lynnfield rescued the conversation with a blunt, “It needs butter. This is as dry as military rations.”

Lupin coughed. Lucius laughed. “I think restarting a dairy operation is high on the priorities. I’d settle for goat butter to be honest. I’m very indebted to the chef for felling this game for us, but yes, it does show the shabby state of the colony, doesn’t it?”

With an arched eyebrow, the merchant swirled his wine and said, “I’m told the locals are foreign to such things. A friend of mine once tried to sell cheese to them and was run out of the market for the stench!”

“Sounds like a motivated seller. I would have loved to buy it off of him,” Lucius said. “You know, before the war, I once had a whole chicken boiled in butter. An utterly absurd amount of of the stuff, but my god did it come out tasting delicious.”

Sammy said, “It’s a wonder you came out fighting fit if that’s what you were eating.”

“It’s all about moderation,” Lucius said.

“Moderation?” Aisha asked. “Like in how many women you invite into your home?”

Kajsa jumped up, which hardly changed her height. “He hired me! This is an entirely normal part of patronage. I don’t know what backwater you came out of to have these kinds of manners.”

“Aisha, I assure you, whoever showed up to work for me would have gotten the same treatment. Also, how many? The only other woman is Miss Lynnfield!”

Sammy pointed his goblet at Aisha. “She had better not count. Sera’s mine.”

“Oh? Are you going with them?” Aisha asked.

“Going where?”

Lucius interjected, “Miss Lynnfield will be accompanying me to the mine tomorrow, to inspect the conditions and efficiency.”

“And Kajsa is going too,” Aisha said.

“So she can comment on the delivery of the ore,” Lucius said, giving the alchemist a look to command her back into her seat. “You know what, why don’t you come with us, Aisha?”

“Certainly.”

Lupin shook his head. “Quite the spirited woman you have with you, m’lord.”

“About as spirited as the one you brought,” Lucius said, draining his goblet. Both women sat down and attacked their plates and silence reigned in the dining room. Lucius found himself daydreaming of the next day, and evidently so was Sera.

“You don’t think that drug has gotten into the prison, do you?” she asked.

“Drug?” the merchant asked.

“More of a poison,” Lucius said.

Sammy nodded. “It might have medicinal use but the smoking of it? Anything but.”

“I wasn’t aware there was a local drug. Is it like tobacco?”

“More like poppy. It might be a derivative, but I’d have to ask the grower to know.”

“And what?” the merchant asked, “is it killing people?”

“Not directly,” Lucius said, and sliced through another piece of venison. His knife hit something, hard as a bone and in the middle of the muscle. His first thought was that the arrowhead was still in the animal, which would have been very sloppy butchering. He dug at the meat, ripping it apart to expose the black kernel within. It wasn’t an arrowhead. It wasn’t even something as repulsive as a tumor or parasite cooked to death in the roasting. He pulled a single, unprocessed kuku bud from meat.

“I have to excuse myself,” he said, rising from the table and palming it from sight.

He got some strange looks for that, but Lupin at least kept up good manners. He turned to the redhead and said, “Miss Canta, I understand you are a singer? Could I trouble you for a sampling?”

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She rose, “Tonight, in one of the lounges,” she promised and chased after Lucius as he vanished into the halls. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Me?” he asked, spinning on her. The two of them stood close, pressed in by the bare plaster walls for the servants. No paint, no decor, not even fresh air filled the hall. “What do you think you’re doing?”

She balked, turning up her nose at him. “You’re the one acting irrationally.”

“Is this really about Kajsa?”

“Why shouldn’t it be? You should have sent her back the moment she arrived.”

“She’s not going to recognize me. We haven’t seen each other in half a decade, all of puberty!”

“For you maybe.”

Lucius rolled his eyes. “The only way she’ll realize who I am is if you keep acting like this. Understood? She’s just someone I know from my past, and with any luck will be too busy making me rich to cause any trouble.”

She crossed her arms. “Is making yourself rich so important?”

Lucius paced the hall and came back to her. “Any week now, we’ll hear word that Vassermark has begun a campaign of suppression against the central kingdoms. They’ll march out and put the radicals down, and you know what will happen? They’ll kill farmers that should have been planting fields. They’ll burn markets down and halt trade and a dozen other things. The winners will have the pleasure of plunder, but to take from others is a quick way to poverty. If they win, they’ll be rich in land, but poor in everything else, for years! And that’s if they don’t kick off some form of plague in the process.”

“The goddesses wouldn’t use a plague to stop them,” Aisha said.

“We can only hope so. But what is certain is the real winner will be whoever can sell to them afterward. I’m nothing but a steward of the colony, and that’s because it’s perceived as a cesspool. The moment King Arandall realizes I’ve fixed the place, he’ll pluck me out with some bullshit reward and give it to someone else.”

“Isn’t that a bad thing?”

“Depends entirely on when and where. What’s important now is getting the gold mining back on schedule, rooting out the demon, and not causing a controversy.”

Aisha shrank back until her back was to the wall and hung her head. “I’m sorry.”

Lucius softened his voice and said, “Just because she was my friend doesn’t mean anything now. I can’t let personal feelings get in the way, understood?”

She frowned. “Your tone is different when she’s around, you know that?”

“What? No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is. You normally have an edge to your voice like disobeying you is the last thing anyone should do. You speak strong, loud, sharp. But with Sammy and me, you laugh. And you’ve been doing that in front of her too. Your defenses are down. I’m afraid you’re going to slip up, but if this girl hasn’t seen you in almost ten years, you can’t actually trust her. She’s dangerous to have around.”

“She’s the best alchemist we can get right now. An unguarded tongue is something I can deal with. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a betrayer to deal with.”

“Just, you had better not be thinking of seducing her! You got that?”

“I’m not!” With blushing cheeks, he fled from her and stormed the kitchen. A scullion maid jumped up, hands filthy as she faced him. “Where’s the chef? The one who hunted the deer?”

“Pardon, m’lord?”

“The chef!”

She flinched back. “Pardon?”

“Do you not speak Vassish?”

She shook her head.

“Isalin! Get me Isalin!” he roared, and threw open the back door of the estate. At that moment, had he been able to rip the knowledge of the local tongue from someone’s brain, he may well have. The grounds around his manor had a handful of bored guards keeping watch, and the one he found had been dozing. Lucius snarled and stormed back to the main room.

Adam No-last-name arrived in response to the commotion, carrying a wineskin and quite disheveled. “Are we under attack?”

“I need to find the chef.”

“What? For second dinner or something?”

“To have a nice long chat,” Lucius said, and Adam did not make a snarky quip. “I don’t know enough of the language to rally the staff. I need your help.”

Adam bowed. “Certainly,” he said, and left Lucius in the lounge. He took a seat on one of the benches, steepling his fingers and brooding over the possible means of betrayal. To his dismay, it was the same lounge that his guests decided to retire to.

Sera Lynnfield strolled in at the front, followed by Lupin and the others. She immediately understood the nature of what had Lucius troubled. “Should I go get my things?” she asked.

“Mine as well,” he answered.

“What’s the matter?” the merchant asked, entering with a smile and making room for Aisha to enter with an elegant instrument something like a cousin of the guitar.

“Are you a religious man?” Lucius asked, watching Sera slip out the other side of the room to fetch their blades.

“It’s not exactly in question whether the gods are real…”

“But people do tend to pick and choose which of the divine they emulate. It seems one of my staff has chosen poorly.” Lucius watched as Kajsa and Sammy took seats upon the opposing sofa, settling in with watered down wine and reserved observation.

Aisha cocked an eyebrow at him as she tuned her instrument. “Something tells me you won’t be sticking around for my singing.”

“Such is my responsibility.” He paced to the end of the room, where reinforced windows gave a crude view of the night sky and the mottled forest below. He listened with half interest as she discussed options with the merchant and with Kajsa. They debated Giordanan versus Vassish music, the classics of the churches as well as the lowbrow tunes filtering from Aillesterra. Aisha had just gotten to a preferred epic poem, rhythmic verse matched to a simple chord progression, when Sera returned.

With sheathed blades in either hand, she said, “It’s bad.”

The chef had been found, and several men stood around the body with lanterns. They shifted and mingled, dancing their lights across the swaying corpse. It hung from a bent palm tree, a twisting pendulum over a river crag. “How did he get there?” Lucius asked.

Lexa said, “It’s the work of the demon.”

Lucius took one of the lanterns for himself and shown it upon the rope. It was too short to have been put around the chef’s neck before jumping off the side. What was more, he had been expecting to see old mooring line or some other sailing rope used. Mere vines ringed the man’s neck. “Get me Lamdo. I want to know every person this man associated with. Arrest them all if need be.”

“Sir? That seems a bit extreme.”

Lucius reached into his pocket and rubbed the kuku bud. “This was a threat. I don’t take kindly to threats. And retrieve the body. I want to inspect it in the morning.”

Lexa saluted. “As you command.”

Lucius walked back on his own. He spoke to the night and all things in it which listened. “You’ll regret this, demon.”