For a free life, where we are not stock for the larder, cowering from the mists and moon? Any price, any trial is a pittance in comparison.

  -The recorded pact of Maeve and her twelve paladins.

  This wasn’t the first time Komena had needed to go to ground. Duel seeking fools were the kind of attention it was better to simply wait out. This was different, but not so much that she didn’t have an idea of what to do. The same rules still applied. Find somewhere discreet, and move in. Call in that favor with Ervan, get someone else’s name on the papers. Pay to have wards put up, half the purse would get just as good results as the full thing. Live in the mask of an empty apartment, powerless and waiting for months. She could do that comfortably.

  There were tricks to it. The most important, obviously, was speed. Twelve hours until sundown. There was a lot of work to get done before then. The second thing was comfort. The ability to stay in there took good food, books, and games. An unoccupied mind would eventually look out to read the situation, and then get taken off at the neck.

  Twelve hours until sundown. Twelve hours to get comfortable, to tie off loose ends. So instead of scurrying off to set Ervan to work, the first thing Komena did was go to the Corlin Embassy. While the gate slid open as usual, the front door was locked and there was no answer to her knocks.

  “Kave! Are you in there?” She called, pounding on the door harder. “It’s Komena! Let me in!”

  The door stayed locked and silent. It was possible that he couldn’t hear her. Weeping in his apartment, deaf and blind to the world. It was understandable, if unsustainable. She looked up at the walls and windows, to see if any lights were on. She walked around the building, until she was certain she had the right one.

  The first stone, picked from the lawn, sailed through the air. It was caught by the wards, but they were old, and likely always weaker than they should have been. It clattered against the glass. Kave’s head didn’t pop out to yell at her. The window stayed closed to the world.

  The second stone was heavier and crashed through spell and window both. No reaction from inside. Whatever mourning Kave needed to do, he had decided that home wasn’t the place for it.

  Komena went around the empty yard before leaning against the wall. She was tired. The last few days of effort had only been possible from the tension of the case, too much tea and the excitement of the investigation. Now those lines were going slack, and the momentum left would only go so far.

  She checked the bag she had been paid with. They had given her rubies this time instead of emeralds. She absently wondered if any of them had been enchanted to explode. Fire and glittery shrapnel would kill her just as dead as the Flauros would. She beat the thought back. If it got out that Dean’s had killed someone with their pay, no one would ever take their payment ever again. Once she started getting paranoid about money, she would be too paranoid to do anything but stammer and wait for the claws in her throat.

  She sighed, rubbing her eyes, and pushed herself off the door. There was still a loose end to tie and only one other place for it to be.

  ***

  The rubble of Selim’s mansion was a hollow shell. The walls might have been stone, but what could burn inside, had. The stones that made up the building had baked until they’d cracked. In places, they had shattered under their own weight.

  There was still a crowd gawking in front of the ruin, and even more passing by who turned their heads like swivels as they passed. The Faculty of the Mundane had sent guards, covered in silvery robes and head wraps with short scimitars on their hips, to keep them out. They were doing a good job. Only one of the watchers was even close to the building, their oversized turban blocking the view of front door.

  Unlike the others, who were muttering to themselves, Kave was quiet and unmoving. Komena pushed through the ring of watchers. The guards noticed her before the boy did, two of them turning to enforce distance. She didn’t have the authority or the energy to push past them for this.

  “Did they leave him here?” Komena asked. It was a weak question, impersonal, like she was asking about the weather, but it seemed the most pressing thing. There wasn’t an answer for a long time. The crowd didn’t know what she was talking about. The guards wouldn’t tell her if they knew. Kave just stood there.

  People jostled behind her, taking her lead as an opportunity to push closer. The guards drew their swords in response, spells dancing in their free hands.

  “No, they found some bones inside the wreckage of the study. Two sets, Selim and Struth, far away from one another. I’ll have an urn of ashes by tomorrow. We were the last ones out.” Kave said, his voice even but his eyes glassy.

  Komena let that moment sit. He was entitled to anger about that, some accusations about her lying to him. They didn’t come. He just watched the burned-out ruin.

  With a sigh, she pushed forward. It took a sympathetic glance to the nearest guard, but they let her through with a head gesture. Another guard threw a spray of sparks behind her, keeping the crowd from following. In a few steps, she was behind the boy, hand on his shoulder. There was no reaction. He didn’t turn to her or shrug her off. He just kept looking at the husk Selim’s mansion. She grabbed his wrist with both hands and started pulling him out from the crowd. He dragged his feet, not actively fighting her but not moving along.

  “Come on, let’s go somewhere a little quieter. The last thing you want is to give these people a show.” She said.

  That got his feet moving, albeit slow and ploddingly. She led him out of the crowd and down the streets. She gave a running commentary of everything they passed as they went, from the stupidity of how some of the houses were designed to idle gossip she had heard about some noteworthy passerby. Anything to keep Kave somewhat engaged with the world around him. Eventually, the two of them arrived at a small plaza on the edge of the district. It was only about five meters squares but marking out even that much space just for some benches and flowering shrubs would be unheard of in a less upscale district. The perfume coming off the bushes was strong enough to overpower the usual smell of people and dusty waste that defined the city, likely due to an enchantment on the plants. The only other living thing was a brown bird, small enough to fit in Komena’s hand, pecking at the roots of a shrub in search of seeds or bugs.

  The two went over to one of the benches. Kave had come back into himself enough that he sat down without prompting. Komena took the other end of the bench for herself.

  “Kave, I know that I’m not your favorite person.” She said, getting a slow nod from him. “But they aren’t here anymore. And the moment he was gone the Dean’s started talking about you like a shipment of beef cows. They also closed our contract, meaning we’re on our own dealing with Flauros. So, I’m going to ground. I want to help you to do the same, but I need to know why you’re such a target if I’m going to help you.”

  Kave didn’t respond. It was likely a question he was used to ignoring.

  “Look, if you’ve got it handled, then tell me and I’ll move on with my life. But if you’re not going to tell me because you think I’ll turn around and use you like they will, then you’re a fool. I don’t have the power to do whatever they plan to. So, I don’t care enough to hurt you.”

  That got him to turn his head and look at her, his eyes focusing into a familiar cynical squint as he tried to read her.

  “Do you know what the Fiendblessed are?” Kave asked.

  “Barely. They’re a Corlin myth that get shared around the docks every once in a while. Something about a species of demons that were summoned to hunt vampires.” Komena answered.

  “That’s more than I did for a long time.” Kave said, unwrapping his turban. As the cloth unwound, two large horns began to poke through. They sprouted out from high on his brow, curled around his skull protectively and ended in sharp points by the back of his head. They were dyed slightly red, almost the shade of pink you got from the rising sun, making them stand out against Kave’s dark, curly hair.

  “I used to pare them down, but Struth put a stop to that. Struck him as too close to self-mutilation, that I was trying to hide something by cutting it off. Which I was, but it didn’t make the ridiculous compromise we settled on any better.” He said, coiling the cloth of the turban into a tight loop before pocketing it.

  “They started growing in around when I was seven. I had been living in some back-alley orphanage for as long as I can remember before that. It wasn’t a good place, but it wasn’t the kind of nightmare it could have been. Kept me around when I was bedridden from these growing in.” Kave said, the hem of robe fluttering again. Komena saw the tip of a pale, whip like tail peeking out from under it.

  “When that was finished, and I could walk again, that’s when they sent me into the streets with a few coins and scraps of food. I was able to use that to buy my way into a gang of street kids that ran around nearby. Those were a rough couple of years, but I pulled through. Learned what I needed to do to survive.”

  Komena nodded. Stealing, running, begging, and fighting. The four pillars of urchinhood. She’d brushed up against them growing up. It was what children did when they grew up on the docks, in those few years between being allowed to run around without supervision and needing to work or study. She’s had to stop before any of her friends had, her disability made it too dangerous when the other children had begun learning serious spells. She was proud that she had lasted longer than others who should have been able to hold their own.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “At some point, the rumor mill spun something out about an urchin running around with a tail, and someone important wanted to look into it. Little brats sold me for half purse of quartz.” He continued, with a flicker of almost amusement. It was a very cheap price to buy someone. Either his gang had been stupid or desperate.

  “And that was Struth?”

  “No, it was some nobody professor from the Faculty of Summoning. I don’t know who, I set fire to the carriage they were carrying me in before I could learn. After that, I threw myself out and went back into the alleys. Stole a knife and some robes, started carving the horns off. Lived by myself for a bit. Always on the move. Slowly starving. Eventually I gave out. Collapsed on a street corner. That’s when I met Struth.”

  Kave slipped away from the world again. Komena gave him a minute before clearing her throat. It took a few tries, but she was able to bring him back. He was almost smiling as he continued.

  “Next thing I know, I’m sitting in the embassy with a pitcher of lemonade and a bowl of shrimp stew. Apparently, he was out for lunch, noticed me in an alley, and carried me along with him. I couldn’t run away and eat, so that gave him a chance to explain some things.” He said, tapping one of his horns. She understood the relief there. The confirmation of her own disability hadn’t been one, but it hadn’t been actively warping her body.

  “After that, I ran out on him. Spell through the window, running leap, lost him in the alleys. It took him three days before he tracked me down again. Got me another meal, talked some more, then I ran out on him again. That went on for a few weeks before I started coming by on my own. He offered me a position as his assistant a few months later. Formal adoption a few years after that.”

  “So, Struth recognized what you were and took an interest. And this Fiendblessed thing is the reason the Deans are looking at you like you’re the spell for turning sand to scallops. Couldn’t keep it quiet, could you.”

  “It’s an easy thing to spot once if you know what the look for, even without these.” Kave said, his tail flicking up high to mark his point. “Still, apparently, we’re respected in Corlin. The idea of abusing me was almost alien to Struth. He told Taim about me at some point. That attention drew others, until everyone who mattered knew.”

  “I’m surprised Struth had the kind of clout to keep them from carting you off.” Komena said. She couldn’t really see Struth having the authority to stop them even when he hadn’t been the only diplomat left in the city.

  “I think the Dean’s spent almost as much time keeping me out of each other’s hands as they did trying to get me. Besides, Struth was sent to man the embassy for a reason. The Ironheart’s are one of the premier military families of Corlin. No one wanted to risk the insult of stealing his son, just like no one wanted to be the one to tear down the building. Who knows how the barbarians would react?”

  “You never thought about going along with any of the experiments they wanted to run? See if you could buy them off with your cooperation?” Komena asked. Kave glared at her in response, a return to his normal, constant irritation.

  “Do you know what the first person was planning?” He asked. “I could hear him talking about it in the carriage. The first experiment was going to be taking the skin off my back and seeing if a summoning circle drawn on it in my blood would be more efficient. The second was going to be seeing how I would react to having a demon’s organs transplanted into me. I think the theory was that I’d become easier to control. That’s about when I started panic casting, so it’s hard for me to remember the details.” Kave shook his head. “There’s no compromise. I’m either a person who can’t be touched or a subject to be exploited. The only one who said I was a person died in that mansion.”

  Kave leaned back on the on the bench, letting out a deep sigh. Komena had hunched over, hands clenched, brow furrowed.

  “What about reaching out to the other Ironheart’s for protection? Struth adopted you. That’s the sort of thing nobility takes seriously.”

  The idea made Kave pause. Komena worried she had lost what progress she had gained with him. He just sat for a minute, staring ahead. Teeth grinding until he spoke.

  “I watched Struth send a letter back home every two weeks. Ran most of them to the docks for him. A few even had requests to take me in. There was never an answer. Whatever influence the Dean’s thought Struth had in Corlin obviously didn’t exist and I don’t care about meeting the family that abandoned him. I don’t think I even really care about what whichever Dean gets their hands on me will do. What I care about is that one of those bastards killed Struth and I want to see them burn for that.”

  The last sentence was punctuated by a puff of smoke from his mouth. The depression had been burned out from Kave’s eyes, replaced with focused rage. Komena sighed.

  “Kave, the Deans are taking the investigation into their own hands. I wanted you to know that. Maybe I could help you hide safely or leave the city, but you’re talking about revenge against mages. That game isn’t ever worthwhile.” Komena said, fingering the hilt of her knife. Instead of the expected outburst, he just let out a single laugh.

  “So, you’re just going to hide out until it blows over? What about seeing the job through?”

  “I did see it through! I went as far as I could go and gave them more then they needed to finish this on their own. This was just a high stakes job to me, and my contract’s run out with full pay.” She said, shaking the purse they’d given her.

  “Don’t pretend you ever cared about that. I’m talking about solving the case.” Kave said.

  “You’re being -” Komena replied, but Kave cut her off.

  “The jobs you do are for pennies and snacks. Your usual employers are store owners too poor to get the guard’s attention and children. Literal children. Don’t pretend you’re interested in cold professionalism. Did you think we didn’t notice you trying to avoid any real progress on this? Did you think we didn’t see you throw that away the instant something about the case caught your eye? Don’t lie to my face and say you’re some calculating professional. You only care about staying safe and solving mysteries and it’s time to pick which one you’ll stand by!”

  Kave’s was shouting by the end of his tirade. Komena glanced around the park. Still empty, and with no one on the nearby streets, but sound traveled far on these roads. She slapped her knees and hopped to her feet.

  “Well, in that case, I have a safehouse to set up. I’m thinking of renting a boat for it, keep mobile and all that, so I need to get down to the docks.”

  If all you cared about was security, you’d be an accountant or a chemist or any other office job for the Faculty of the Mundane. Even if you can’t cast, you’re obviously clever enough to do everything else. If anything, the job you do now is harder without magic. If you don’t do it for money, or safety or because it’s easy then the only thing left is that you care about something. And if it’s justice, or helping people, or even just finding the truth, then you’ll help me.” Kave said to her back.

  “None of those things are going to pay for dinner or keep a demon’s claws out of my throat.” Komena said waving her hand over her shoulder as she got closer to the plaza’s edge. “Take my advice, kid. Don’t pick fights with people who can re-arrange the streets. Stowaway on a ship to Corlin, thank Struth for the opportunities he gave you, and put the rest behind you.”

  Kave leapt to see his feet, the smoke pouring from his mouth was mixed a few faint sparks and the beginning of tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. “If we leave the Deans to find this, they’ll tear the city apart for a few days, wait to see if any more of them die, then decide that it’s not a major issue and move on. That, and conjuring flaming sandstorms have been how they’ve dealt with every political crisis since the city’s founding. Nothing will change, whichever one of them did it will win, and no one will know how or why! And you’re going to just leave things like that?”

  “You don’t get it!” she snapped back at him, turning around and snarling at him. She stalked towards him. “Your whole life, you’ve been strong. Even when you were some half-starved child, tied up and on some carriage floor, you could get out of that with nothing but your own power. You’ve never had to bow and scrape your way through, knowing that someone could just make a collar of air around your neck and start to squeeze.” She whipped out her knife. He reflexively snatched her wrist out of the air but wasn’t fast enough to stop the tip from tickling under his chin. She didn’t try to break free or finish the stab.

  “I have a knife at your throat, and you’re not worried in the slightest. That’s the difference between you, the Deans, everyone I’ve ever known, and me. I don’t have the luxury of risk like you have. I can’t just burn down a carriage or challenge them to a duel when someone decides to get rid of me. That means that I get told to move out of the way out of the way, I move. Even if it means that not everything gets solved.” She let Kave drag the knife away, until he let go and she put it away.

  “If I don’t look into this, then they go free, and I’ve got half a chance to get out of this mess. If I do, then they kill me and go free. It’s a clear choice.” She said. Kave met her gaze.

  “Do you think it stops there? If you let this go, whoever is responsible will do something else. Do you think they’ll ever leave you as a loose end for that? Do you think someone else will catch them eventually? Do you think that they would even make whoever it is face real consequences if they are? This is the one chance. Not because he broke the law, but because he broke the rules of their game when he killed one of their own.” He said.

  Komena sighed, her face sinking into her hands. She stayed there for a moment then, groaned without looking up.

  “I really do want to solve this case.” She said. She regretted saying it immediately. It was true and admitting it to herself made going into hiding impossible. She would know the lie and it would gnaw at her as she hid, until it drove her out. Before she could even try to take it back though, she needed to grab Kave’s shoulder before he could bolt off.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” She asked.

  “We have to start questioning them before they can start covering their tracks.” He said. He had come back to life. No, he was more alive, more fanatical, than she had seen him before. The serving boy had been replaced by a hound with a scent.

  “No. Even if we’re going to investigate the case that doesn’t change the fact that we have no jurisdiction and a leopard demon hunting us tonight.”

  “Then we’ll need to work quickly.” Kave said, shrugging her hand off. “If we’re quiet and careful we can work this out before they even know we’re trying to. We can hide in crowds again if needed.”

  “That won’t work. It’s too unreliable. What if they run out of patience and decide to risk it? What if they just institute a curfew? We need actual protection if we’re going to get anywhere.” She said. “Besides, the only reason we were able to get this far because we were backed by the Dean’s authority. Without that, we’d do as much good ringing a bell and shouting on a street corner. We’d need to literally fight for every question we’d want to ask.”

  “Then we’ll do that! We’ll get the one responsible eventually.” Kave said, eyes burning, words smoking. The blood thirst he had kept on a leash was now loose.

  “No, we just need to get that authority back. All the Dean’s will be conducting an independent investigation. We just need to convince one of them to put us in charge of theirs.” She said. Kave spat in in response. It splatted and sizzled briefly on the cobblestones.

  “Except that that’s suicide. Anyone we go to could turn us down or give us faulty protection or just kill us themselves.” Kave said, rubbing at the bridge of his nose.

  “You said it yourself, Kave. The other Dean’s won’t be willing to let the murder of one of their own go unpunished. It shouldn’t be hard to convince on who’s innocent to hire us again.”

  Kave shot her a glare. “If your plan is to go to each of them, and offer your services to each of them, then accuse whoever rejects of being the culprit, I’m leaving.”

  Komena smiled and gently punched Kave on the shoulder. “Have some faith. I already know who we’re going to. And I’m certain she’s just as eager as we are to see the Flauros banished.”