Fir watched Serene out of the corner of his eye as they walked down the street. She walked quickly, with her head held high, eyes steadily on the road in front of her—maybe a little too steadily.

“Nervous?” she suddenly asked.

Fir glanced at her. “How do you know?”

She nodded to his hands, to the coin he’d been, almost unconsciously, walking across his knuckles.

Fir snorted and tucked the coin back into his pocket. “So you know our tells. That’s fantastic. How long did you spy on us before you talked to Kil?”

Serene sighed. “Look, I can understand you’re probably angry, despite what you said back in our rooms, but—”

“I thought you could read me.” Fir grinned.

Serene squinted at him, her lips pursed. “I mostly spied on you before a job, or during a job. I know what it looks like when you’re nervous, or excited, or focused, but I’m not sure what it looks like when you’re upset.”

“Fair enough. I’m not mad, by the way. Not really. I’m not saying it was right for Kil to keep your marriage a secret, but I can understand it. It’s not like I didn’t have my own secrets to keep from him until recently.” Fir stuffed his hands in the pockets of his vest, considering how to voice all the emotion tumbling inside of him. “What’s bothering me right now is how you’re pushing to get the puzzle box back. And Kil’s going right along with the idea.”

“And you’re wondering if this is how it’s always going to go—that I’ll constantly drag Kil into trouble.”

“Maybe,” he grumbled.

Serene stopped on the side of the street and turned to face him. “You can ask Kil yourself. This... relationship it wasn’t my idea. Basalt sent me to spy on the crew, to see how good you were, to take advantage of your set-ups and steal things from under your noses.”

Fir nodded. “The first few jobs, you didn’t let us know of your presence. You just took stuff.”

“Yes.” She resumed walking, her feet kicking up the dust along the cobbled walks. “But then I started watching each of you individually.”

Fir’s stomach sank. “So you noticed my gambling habit before anyone else?”

“I noticed you went to games more often than anyone seemed to notice.” Serene shrugged. “When I came to Kil, I was...puzzled. He kept some of the money he earned, but the rest of it, he gave away. To the poor, to orphans and widows. He bought pastries for an entire orphanage once.”

Fir chuckled. “I remember that.”

“I started realizing that he was doing it out of pure kindness. And I wondered...would that kindness extend to me? So I started letting you catch glimpses of me. But I was still afraid that Basalt’s people were watching me—it was only around that time that he started letting me travel on my own. Before then, Eras had always gone with me. And I was afraid that she still hung around, secretly watching me.”

“Why are you so afraid of her?”

Serene ran her hand through her hair, tucking the bright red strands behind her ears. She ran the tasseled end of the blue silk scarf around her neck through her fingers before replying. “They call her the Bloodhound. She can track anyone, anywhere. No one has ever escaped her. And it’s not just stories. I’ve watched her.” She laughed, a sound that was a bit choked. “Back to the letters. I left hidden messages on them in disappearing ink, begging Kil to help me. And it finally paid off. Only instead of just meeting me on the roof of your inn like I’d asked, he attacked me. And when he finally revealed my face, shouting at me and demanding to know what tricks I was up to...I just started crying. I was so terrified that I’d miscalculated, that he would just kill me. But he didn’t. And then our relationship turned into something more. And then he asked me to marry him. I told him it was a bad idea. I told him that I was under contract to a crime lord who would probably kill him if he ever discovered our relationship. But it didn’t bother him. All he said was that he’d been saving up to buy my contract ever since I’d first told him my story. Since before he even fell in love with me.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Fir watched her face during the entire recital, wondering if she was lying. But Serene’s tone held steady, and she didn’t flutter her hands around nervously, or search around the area as if looking for inspiration. And everything she said—it sounded exactly like Kil. “All right,” he said slowly. “But why—”

Serene held her hand up. “Look ahead,” she murmured.

Fir turned his head. Ahead of them, about a block away, stood a solid, square stone building with Do’orite words carved above the door. A small wooden plaque affixed to the side of the door had smaller, Leremite letters on it.

“Rohondeish Watch and Prison,” Serene said. “This is where Snitch will be. Over here.”

She led him to the corner, where they both crouched in the shade of a tree and leaned back against the stone wall of the building beside them, as if just taking a break from the sun. No shops had doors facing toward the prison—they all were to the side, or on the other side of the buildings.

Serene kept her eyes on the prison as she began to speak again in a low voice. “Why we’re going after Mock? Is that what you were going to ask?”

Fir nodded.

Two men in light leather armor, both carrying spears, rounded the side of the prison building. They paused at the front corner, eyes on the two in the shade.

Serene lifted a hand and waved, then leaned her head back against the brick wall and closed her eyes.

Fir dropped his eyes to the ground.

After a moment of silence, he heard the tramp of light boots on pavement. The two guards moved on, continuing their circuit around the building.

“I was told that the only way to keep Kildare out of a permanent slave collar was to ‘persuade’ him to retrieve the puzzle box,” Serene said simply. “And given Kil’s caring nature, I suspect he was threatened with our safety as well. This is Basalt’s back-up plan—this is why he chose your crew. He knew that if you failed on the first attempt, then he would have leverage on Kildare to persuade him to continue the job.”

“He’s too softhearted sometimes,” Fir said.

Serene smiled. “I agree. But without him, we wouldn’t be anywhere, would we?”

It was true. Without Kil, Fir would’ve grown up to be a part of a gang in one of the Leremite towns. Or dead—from starvation, or exposure, or a knife in the back because someone wanted what meager belongings he’d had. Kil had been the one to get them out, to start the idea of a team who could pull off more than what one thief individually could do.

Serene was silent, and they watched the guards make two more circuits.

“What’s your suggestion for getting Snitch out?” Fir whispered. “You have any experience with this prison?”

Serene snorted. “No. For your information, I’ve never been in a jail cell.”

“Seriously? Even when you were first starting out?”

She shook her head.

“Kil and I spent a month in prison near the border of Ermen,” Fir said. “It happens to everyone. I can’t believe you’ve never been in prison.”

“Like I told you earlier, Eras always tailed me, until a year or so ago. If I got caught, she stepped in.” Serene pressed her lips together and didn’t say anything else.

Fir understood the unspoken implication—that Eras had made Serene wish she’d been in prison instead of being bailed out. He rubbed his hand on his left arm, feeling the unusually smooth scar tissue. The first and only time he’d ever gotten a beating, he’d tried to defend himself. The whip mark on his arm was the only one that had scarred.

“Fir, you’re a manipulator, right?” Serene asked.

“Yes.”

“What’s the type of ley you manipulate?”

“Plants. I can strengthen them, make them grow quickly—”

“Like that?” Serene pointed to the side of the building. “Near the back.”

Fir leaned forward. There, growing by one of the window wells sunken into the ground, he could see green and white vines curling up the side of the building. Ivy of some kind. Fir grinned. “That should work. You stay here.”

Serene nodded.

As soon as the guards turned the corner, he dashed quietly across the square and dropped down into the window well.

Ivy crawled along the side of the building and the cobblestones next to it, draping over the side of the window well. Fir lifted the vines free of the side of the well and draped them over his head. At least this way, he would have a little bit of cover. As long as the guards didn’t look too hard.

Fir ran his fingers along the casing of the barred window. It was wooden, and he could see where a few of the vine tendrils had latched onto the wood, beginning to dig their way in. Fir cupped one hand around the tendrils and, with his other hand, began feeling for the invisible, slick lines of ley. He found it and pulled it toward the vine, feeding it into them.

The leaves trembled, tickling the palm of his hand.

Fir opened his eyes and watched as the vines thickened a little, their roots burrowing a little deeper into the window casing.

Hope we can afford to wait, he thought. This is going to take a while.