Kaitha startled and followed the agent’s gaze to the door of Spelljammer’s, which was fully eclipsed by a nearly square profile.

“You can’t be serious,” said Kaitha.

“Daring… adventure!” rumbled a familiar voice. A hulking Ogre pushed out onto the patio and made for Lori’s table with all the grace and tact of a dreadnaught pushing through a fleet of fishing skiffs. His meaty, tattooed arms jostled tables, startled patrons, and sloshed tea as he lumbered toward the Elves. A one-eyed Human clad in black leather and a Gnome with his hair dyed an eye-watering shade of pink followed in Brunt’s wake, righting toppled chairs with muttered apologies.

“You’re repping Brunt?” Kaitha asked.

“Mr. Brunt,” corrected Lori. “Like I said. A crazy market.”

“Boundless… opportunity!” Brunt erupted.

“Promise me you’ll think about the premium breakfast grains,” Lori whispered, then turned her attention to her next clients. “Mr. Brunt! Mags! Timbleton! So good to see you! Let me order a pot.”

Kaitha managed to bid her goodbyes without making any untoward remarks, took the Heroats artwork, and left the cafe.

It was late, and the day had been long and fruitless. Exhaustion weighed her every step by the time she made it back to her building. “It’s all the same,” she muttered to herself as she staggered up the stairs.

It wasn’t even the good kind of stagger. She’d had many pleasant stumbles up these steps in the past, the sort where her grin was as lopsided as her gait and every bump or trip seemed incredibly amusing through a chemical haze.

Not tonight. Tonight her bones ached with every clomp of her leather boots on the steps. She felt the sort of weariness that made friends remark that they were getting too old for something or other, but as an Elf, she wasn’t getting too old for anything. She wasn’t aging. Or changing.

“Everything just stays the same.”

She shook her head as she unlocked her door. Dark thoughts lay down that path. She just needed some sleep. But first…

An old memory compelled her into her bedroom closet. She pulled a small chest from the back shelf and blew the dust off it. Then she set it on the table and opened it.

The box held an ornate knife, expired licenses, contracts for her favorite quests, and other mementos that were only as valuable as the memories they inspired. And near the bottom, tucked beneath a poster advertising a hefty sum for slaying the Hydra of Gauntcragge, was a roll of parchment bound by a red ribbon.

She opened the aged scroll and read. “Her oats are Heroats.”

It was the exact same woodcut they’d pitched back in twenty-four. They hadn’t even bothered to update the slogan after five decades. Kaitha tossed the new proof back in the box with its older twin and headed to the balcony. From her apartment on the Eighth Tier she could look out at most of Andarun, a river of lights and rooftops spilling down Mount Wynspar. It was beautiful, but her eyes were drawn westward, past the Ridge to the stars shining over a horizon that she couldn’t see.

This was familiar too. How many nights had the Jade Wind spent staring at the black emptiness above and trying to fend off the crushing despair? How many nights had she turned to drink to help in the fight? How many times had she used salve to escape it? The emptiness was always with her; it had never left, except…

Except when she entered that garden, and when its king had followed her from it. And she’d felt him there, known that he…

He was never coming back, Kaitha reminded herself. She turned and walked back into her apartment. He’d had more than enough chances to meet her, and he chose not to. That was answer enough to any questions that might linger.

The hollowness inside her grew a little at the thought, a space in her heart that might have been full, but turned out to have been empty all along. Thane was no help. Success was no cure. There was only one way to appease the gnawing void, and nobody else was going to give it to her. She scratched at her aching wrists as she approached the closet door. Her heart was pounding in her ears; steady and loud, irregular and ringing like a bell.

Kaitha paused to consider this cardiovascular oddity, and realized that the sound wasn’t so much her heart as a small, pink sprite banging against the glass doors of her balcony. She shrugged off the urge with the aid of the distraction and opened the window.

The messenger sprite flitted inside and settled on her table. “Kaitha of House Tyrieth?” it trilled.

“I am. Say your message.”

“Lass, it’s me,” said the sprite in a high-pitched grumble. Kaitha couldn’t help but smile as the sprite hunched over and glared at her in an approximation of Gorm’s mannerisms. “Get geared up and meet us at the usual place in the mornin’. Me an’ Gaist think we know how to find where them barrels are headed. We’re on the trail.”

Chapter 10

“I thought you covered your tracks.” Cigar smoke curled from the edges of Johan’s grin. The wisps evaporated up into the haze that hung in the small, sparse room in the rear corridors of the Palace of Andarun. “You said that you were immaculately careful.”

Weaver Ortson froze, his tumbler of spirits halfway to his lips. The king’s smile was congenial and teasing, but cold fury lurked in his voice like a shark in dark waters.

“Careful only goes so far,” said the Gnome across the table. The Tinderkin was a recent addition to the king’s secretive meetings, to Ortson’s chagrin. The guildmaster thought of the Gnome as a sort of viper with a topknot. His face was adorned with a black goatee, silver earrings, and a series of scars and cuts that crisscrossed each cheek. He didn’t wear suits or even a business-appropriate jerkin, but instead came dressed in black leather armor and wielding a bladed hook. And he spoke out of both sides of his mouth, in the most literal sense.

“What I meant to say,” the Gnome said, “is that every precaution was taken, but Your Majesty knows how tenacious Gorm Ingerson can be.”

A shadow flicked over Johan’s face at the mention of the Dwarf. He pointed at Flinn with the burning end of his Daellish cigar. “So I do know, Mr. Flinn! Ha ha! What I would like to know is, what do you plan to do about it?”

“Oh, I got plans, but it ain’t time for ’em,” rasped Mr. Flinn. His face contorted as though he’d taken a bite out of a lemon, and then he added in smoother tones, “Contingencies are in place, though at this moment the best course of action is observation.”

Ortson glanced meaningfully across the table at Goldson and Baggs. The financiers were watching the conversation with a distant disdain. Baggs shrugged at the guildmaster.

“Contingencies! Ha! I’m glad to hear it,” said the king. “But I’d be more glad to hear specifics.”

“I thought you’d want to keep your hands clean,” said Mr. Flinn, and then after another spasm, “What I meant to say is—I know what I meant to say!” The Tinderkin’s hook hand jerked up to within an inch of his own face, and he stared at it like a gladiator staring down an opponent. After a labored moment, the Gnome grabbed his own arm, flared his nostrils, and pushed it back down to the table. Then he looked up with an expectant smile, as though the outburst had never happened.

“Are you all right, Mr. Flinn?” asked Mr. Baggs. “You’re acting a bit odd this evening.”

“More so than usual,” Mr. Goldson added into a tumbler of whiskey.

Ortson dropped the charade altogether as he turned to the king. “Is he quite mad?”

“Ha! Perhaps. Mr. Flinn is a man of two minds about almost everything.” Johan smiled and nodded at the Gnome across the table. “I’m sure you remember that Mr. Flinn assisted us with assembling Al’Matra’s heroes and cleaning up the matter at Bloodroot.”

“I’m sure I don’t,” harrumphed Mr. Goldson.

“We do our best not to get bogged down in the details of such matters,” said Mr. Baggs. “It makes our lives easier.”

“And keeps our liabilities limited,” added Goldson.

“Eh? See? Keeping their hands clean,” growled Mr. Flinn.

Ortson, though, had a deeper knowledge of the mercenary companies operating in the Freedlands, if only for the sake of keeping tabs on his competition. “Wait, this is the same Mr. Flinn from the Silver Talons! The one we hired for Bloodroot, and to bring in Ingerson.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that.” Johan’s smile brimmed with cruel amusement. “It’s true that Mr. Flinn has let us down on occasion. But since those unfortunate incidents, Mr. Flinn has disbanded his mercenary organization and formed a most useful… partnership with another entity.”

“Who?” demanded Mr. Ortson.

“It’s best that we don’t know,” said Mr. Baggs coldly.

“You got that right,” growled Mr. Flinn.

“Needless to say, he has—or rather, they have—become central to several of my plans.” Johan stared at the twitching Gnome. “Their combined service has been unerringly helpful. Until now.”

“Sire, we don’t know that Ingerson has actually found anything,” Mr. Flinn said.