With only a half dozen people in front of them, Segwyn nervously eyed the cinders, challenging every prospective attendee. “What do you think they’re asking?”

  Glynfir half-turned his head, his gaze looking everywhere except at the ranger, assessing potential escape routes. “I dunno. Turin didn’t mention a password. Do we bail?”

  Segwyn wordlessly shook his head. They stepped forward with the advancing queue, down to four.

  “You sure you don’t want to go first?” the wizard whispered hopefully.

  The ranger cracked a smile. “Not a chance. We already agreed, you’re the one with the messaging spell. If you don’t make it through, those extra few seconds may make the difference for me. Then, at least one of us gets in.”

  Glynfir’s shoulders sagged in resignation as they stepped forward again. Two.

  “Fine. Enjoy wearing that silly bonnet,” the wizard hissed.

  “Now, now, Mustache,” Segwyn cooed through tight lips, “No need to be petty. It’s not a good look.”

  Glynfir glared in response, stepping forward to the first horned doorman, gathering his shoulder-length hair into a fist before lifting it off his neck, exposing the tattoo.

  “Good,” the cinder grunted, pointing the wizard toward his partner with a flick of his head before turning to Segwyn, offering the same head flick to suggest he step forward.

  The wizard's fingers idly traced the length of the copper wire in his pocket as he stepped slowly to the second cinder directly blocking his path onto the pier.

  The man’s glowing eyes bored straight into his own, his nostrils flaring as he stepped in close. His voice was deep and low, the acrid scent of sulfur blooming around him. “From below, we rise.”

  Gondammit. A second test. Should have anticipated this.

  Glynfir faked a violent cough, doubling over to buy himself some time; his mind raced through everything they had learned, every conversation, flailing for any possible answer, any dots to connect. The flash of images in his brain landed on the tattoo design, a circle with a line above it. Above…Iskvold’s childhood flashback…the gathering chant. The cinder cocked an eyebrow, unconvinced by the sudden coughing fit, his hand drifting to a dagger tucked into his waistband.

  The wizard straightened, drawing a hand across his mouth. The cool of the evening breeze was amplified against his suddenly damp brow. “From above we serve,” he replied, eyes glued to the cinder’s hand on the dagger hilt.

  The hand slowly receded, but the glowing red eyes held him fast until the man reluctantly stepped aside. A small smile spread across the wizard’s face as he stepped out onto the pier. His pocketed hand traced the pattern on the copper wire. Whispering the words of the Message cantrip, he pirouetted to face the ranger. With a wink and a smile, Glynfir snapped both his index fingers toward his friend, mentally relaying the answer.

  Segwyn clasped the wizard’s shoulder, pulling even as they walked down the pier, out of earshot of their inquisitor. “Well done!”

  “I was sure things were about to get messy,” Glynfir admitted. Confirming their relative privacy with a quick look around, his fingers glittered with incandescent orange energy. Passing them in front of his face, his appearance shimmered and changed. Gone were the wizard’s flowing locks and signature mustache. He was older, with a prominent scar on his right cheek, and human.

  Segwyn rolled his eyes, his shoulders withering under his companion’s questioning look. Through gritted teeth, he produced the crumpled magic bonnet from his pocket, gave it a snap, slipped it quickly over his head, and hurriedly tied the strings. “Happy now?”

  Glynfir barely had time to chuckle, seeing his friend in the ruffled white headgear of a milkmaid, before the ranger’s form flickered. They had agreed not to risk notice by altering their outfits, so those remained. Otherwise, he too was a different person: human, square-jawed, slightly bulkier, with short black hair and prominent buck teeth.

  Segwyn turned to face the wizard, arms spread, showing off his new look. “Well?”

  “It’ll do.” Glynfir’s lips stretched into a sly smile. “It’s too bad the bonnet itself disappears with your chosen disguise. It would be much funnier if it didn’t, though also less versatile, I suppose.”

  The ranger shuddered. “Trust me, just feeling it, knowing it’s on my head makes me feel foolish enough, visible or not!”

  As they approached the open doors of Warehouse Four, the wizard raised his arm between them, hand clenched in a loose fist. “Just a couple of round ears, heading to a meeting.”

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  Segwyn matched the gesture, bumping the back of Glynfir’s fist with his own. “Nothing to see here!”

  The space had been configured in anticipation. All existing inventory was pushed to one end, closest to the river. A low platform of stacked wooden pallets backed against the cargo served as a stage. Easily capable of holding over a hundred guests, the room was less than a third full when they arrived. Six open braziers were evenly spaced— three on each side, providing the lighting, the implied boundaries for the audience, and the faint smell of hardwood smoke. Everything non-cargo, associated with normal day-to-day business, had been hurriedly pushed to the outside, between the braziers and the warehouse walls.

  The pair positioned themselves at the rear of the existing crowd, twenty feet back from the makeshift stage and its three occupants, two men and a woman. Over the next several minutes, the din rose, and the space filled up with all those behind them in line filtering in. Segwyn watched a tall blond man on the stage. Dressed in clean, colorful robes and a neat haircut, his focus never left the doors. Not yet commanding the room’s attention, his flat, weary expression suggested he’d rather be somewhere else. His two colleagues on stage were no better. The crossed arms, weight shifting from one foot to the other, and clipped small talk, punctuated by small, forced smiles, made their discomfort and disinterest clear. This was not going to be a motivational talk.

  The blond man raised his eyebrows, casting a questioning head nod toward the back of the room. The ranger turned in time to see one of the cinders return the nod before pulling the warehouse doors together. The ember-eyed bouncer took up position in front of the exit, arms folded, facing the room. Something else caught his eye as he turned back to the stage—a flash of white hair in the crowd. Another drow?

  “The sooner we get started, the sooner we can all go home.” The blond man’s voice boomed off the building’s sheet metal walls. He waved one hand dismissively. “Or back to the pub, or whatever rock you crawled out from under.” His voice trailed off, almost to a mutter by the end of the sentence.

  A glance at the faces of those around him told the ranger they were no happier to be here than the event’s speakers. Forced mutual tolerance, nothing more. Glynfir saw it too, judging by their shared look. Segwyn tilted his head, leaning into the space between them, causing the wizard to do the same. “White hair, back of the room. Don’t make it obvious.”

  Glynfir nodded in confirmation as the blond man addressed the crowd.

  “First off, we’re moving up the delivery schedule to twice a week.” A collective groan bubbled up around the room. He held up his hands for silence. “She needs more souls and wants more warriors, so we’re adding a mid-week ceremony, starting tomorrow night.” A restless grumble rippled through the crowd before an unidentified voice rose from way back.

  “Don’t talk like you're making any of the decisions. You’re just relaying what She told you!”

  When heads turned in search of the speaker, Glynfir seized the opportunity to seek out the white hair.

  “Just do as you’re told, if you want to keep your soul!” He heard the blond man bark over his shoulder before a second voice stepped in.

  “Horace,” a woman’s voice cautioned him. “No need to make threats; they all know the consequences.” Raising her volume to be heard in the back, she took over the address. “If you had a quota for the end of the week, it’s now for tomorrow; those originally for next week also move up accordingly. The caravan rally point remains unchanged outside the city gates, sundown.”

  A flicker of white drew the wizard’s eyes, near the doors. As the head turned back to the stage, his shoulder twitched in surprise.

  Iskvold.

  Hurriedly turning back toward the stage, Glynfir stared at the floor, trying to make sense of what he had just seen. What’s she doing here? Not part of the plan! He swept the room for any other familiar faces. No result.

  “It’s too many, we can’t just keep grabbing people off the street!” a woman’s voice called from his left.

  “Let us worry about that,” the woman said confidently. “I’ll hire some extra town criers, send them out with a tale of increased petty crime, pointing the finger at soft policing from the League.” She paused. “Or the Shan King for those I send to Chagrothlond. Either way, we’ll say small groups of citizens have been commissioned to beef up law enforcement efforts.” She pointed a finger at the crowd. “Use your pendants and tell that story if anyone confronts you. If they kick up too much of a fuss…” She shrugged. “Just add them to the quota.”

  “Can we go now? We’ve got quotas to fill,” a man shouted sarcastically from immediately behind them, snapping the wizard out of his own thoughts.

  The third speaker, a bald human with equally fine robes and a ruddy complexion, stepped forward. “One more thing before we turn you loose.” Segwyn noticed his practiced hand gestures and measured engagement of the room, making eye contact and connecting with various audience members as his gaze swept back and forth. This man was a more practiced public speaker than his colleagues, perhaps a local politician.

  “We need about a dozen to head south, into Shan, to chase down some new information on the group that stole from the Mistress.”

  One of the ranger’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.

  A heavily accented voice called from the right. “How far South?”

  The bald man turned, acknowledging the speaker with a nod. “Near the border of Glahaneth, a town called Celben.”

  Segwyn and Glynfir instantly made eye contact again at the man’s mention of the town name they had planted in their fictitious communication to the Hub less than twenty-four hours earlier. Now he had their full attention.

  The man continued to scan his audience after answering the question. “You should expect a five or six-day turnaround. Obviously, those who take it up will be excused from the ceremony and any quo—” Suddenly, the man’s jaw clamped shut, a helix of red energy swirling around his face, his body contracting into the boxer’s pose, despite the lack of any visual cause. He hit the floor, howling in pain.

  “Shit.” Segwyn knew he had made a mistake. When the speaker’s gaze swept the room and met his, he immediately squeezed his eyes shut with a grimace, but it was too late. The Red Queen’s bond, her curse, kicked in instantly. A collective gasp sighed up from the crowd during the man’s agonizing sobs, before the room went silent. In that hushed moment, the unexpected crack of a broom handle hitting the wooden floor echoed around the warehouse, followed by the howl of a wounded cat and the cacophony of objects hitting the ground behind the braziers to their right. As the room turned in surprise, Segwyn melted into the crowd, retreating from the stage.

  Glynfir frantically rubbed the copper wire in his pocket, whispering the incantation before sending a rushed message to Bird. “Buffalo, Buffalo, Buffalo!”

  The Glimmerstone Enigma and The Siremirian Conundrum?

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