The first clan to seize power in the tumultuous years after Irekji's death was the Ociek clan, who were the first to consolidate their holdings. In a daring attempt to secure the Heartlands as fast as possible, they marched through the Ashen Desert and prepared to lay siege to Avir, the western-most link in the Great Citadel Chain.

  Much to their surprise, they were welcomed with open arms by the late Emperor's Tahmed clan who opened the gates for the Ociek's vanguard.

  Although suspecting a trap at first, the Ociek swiftly realized that the Tahmed had been decimated after the rebellion and did not have enough men left even to bring in the harvest, let alone do battle.

  Excerpt from 'Annotated History of the Dust Empire'

  The back alley was as filthy as Felt expected it to be. The cobblestones beneath her soft leather boots were covered with dirt of a sort she could not identify, nor did she care to. The smell was repugnant. It was not a sharp smell, more an insidious one that changed as she moved along, never providing enough clues to know exactly what she was smelling. The alley was also filled with empty crates, broken barrels and other sorts of garbage. They only cleaned out alleys like this once a moon, and Felt could tell from the sheer amount of trash that it had been more than a moon since this place was last cleaned. So much the better for me, though. More trash meant more potential hiding places.

  There were no lights here apart from a single lantern suspended above the door of a nearby warehouse. This suited Felt just fine, and she slipped along the alley, tightly grasping the runestone that contained the Shade Shroud spell in her hand. Her target, the warehouse belonging to the Hischi trader Echeb, was the third building on the left. One out of a row of many similar warehouses that littered the harbour district.

  She grasped her left ear. “May the Nightsinger's song be silenced,” she uttered softly.

  ?ther rushed through her hands and was absorbed by the sigil in the stone. It would take longer to charge than her old one as the sigil required more ?ther on account of the shroud lasting almost twice as long; something she wasn't happy about.

  Felt knew thieves should never linger, so the added duration of the shroud was useless to her. I can tell that Hyna doesn't employ any thieves if this is the shroud they use.

  Eventually, the feedback signal softly shook her hand to indicate that the spell was ready. She cast it immediately, but with only the light of the stars in the narrow gap above her, she was unable to tell if the spell had been activated. Felt started to move, trying to ignore the disgusting sounds that came from beneath her feet.

  As she passed the single lantern in the alley, she confirmed that the spell was indeed active. Reassured, she moved on to her goal: a solid brick warehouse that stretched upwards to the partially clouded sky.

  Felt counted three floors, each with a handful of small windows and a single door as the back entrance.

  She reached inside her pocket and grasped the signal stone contained within. Again she fed some ?ther through the stone, and after waiting for a moment it softly vibrated in her hand, indicating that Hans had received her message.

  Satisfied, she grasped another stone, this one a scrying stone, and carefully stretched out her arm towards the back door. It did not take long for a pattern of coloured lines to appear on the stone. Felt had to squint as the shroud obscured the scrying stone as well.

  I wish someone would come up with a shroud spell that allows you to see yourself.

  A dim blue and yellow light shimmered across the stone.

  A warning sigil on the door. As expected.

  She put the scrying stone away as she wasn't planning on using the door. There were at least five men inside the warehouse right now, and even if she was to drain the charge of the warning sigil, the risk of being spotted the moment she went through the door was too high. It's probably bolted shut on the inside as well.

  She looked up towards the windows on the first floor, which looked like dark holes from down here. One of those would be her way in, and the means towards that entry had been provided to her by Hyna.

  She swung her arm to remove the pack from her back and opened it. The scent of fresh hemp greeted her as she reached inside to retrieve the source of that smell: a strong piece of rope with a large flat stone attached. It was as big as a dining plate with a large ring at the top where the rope was attached. The stone itself contained a particular Force spell that allowed it to attach itself to any surface and hold a significant amount of weight, as long as it remained charged. It was one of the more useful spells for a thief, provided you could work fast and were part of one of the larger thieving crews in the city; freelancers like Felt could never hope to afford such an expensive item.

  In the distance a dog barked and Felt withdrew herself next to a broken crate in response. Shroud spell or not, standing in the middle of the alley would not do as charging the clamp would take a while.

  As she waited for the spell to complete, she listened for any nearby sounds. The warehouse behind her was silent, as Felt had expected. These buildings were of a solid construction, built many generations ago, to capitalize on the ever-increasing trade coming in both from the sea and from up the Lacine. They could have a loud drinking party in there and she would barely hear a sound.

  The signal stone vibrated in her pocket and Felt subconsciously held her breath. The only reason Hans would signal her now was if something had happened. She stopped charging the clamp and translated the intermittent vibrations.

  Two men... outside... maybe patrol... currently not moving.

  Felt twitched her nose. When she surveyed the warehouse yesterday, nobody had bothered to make a round—but now there was suddenly a patrol?

  If they aren't moving, it might be nothing. They won't come back here anyway, or they would have used the door.

  She grasped the signal stone with one hand while the other resumed feeding ?ther into the clamp. The process of charging two different stones was something only a few people could do easily, yet Felt had practised that particular feat for years. Without interruption to the clamp, she used the signal stone as well.

  Inform... movement.

  If they were going to come here, they would have to walk south for three buildings first to reach the nearest passageway that allowed them to reach this alley. There would be plenty of time for her to prepare for their arrival.

  The clamp stone gave her the feedback signal.

  Okay, now for the athletic part.

  She walked back into the alley and looked around one last time. It was as abandoned as it was before. At this time of night, nobody would dare enter a dark alley like this unless they had crime on their minds.

  With a swift stroke past an exposed ley point, she cast the spell. Afterwards, she carefully lowered the clamp while making certain nothing solid touched the flat surface. She placed her legs a short width apart and started to spin the stone around.

  That one right there, Felt thought as she eyed one of the dark windows in the wall.

  She let go of the rope and the clamp flew upwards towards the wall, the hemp running swiftly through her hand, chafing her palm.

  She could hear a loud click as the edge of the clamp hit the brick wall. It was immediately followed by an even louder clank as the clamp pressed itself against the side of the warehouse.

  Felt studied the location where it had landed. It wasn't exactly where she had wanted it, but it was close enough. She couldn't waste time as the charge that held the clamp up, and by extension her, did not last very long. This was why she normally preferred using a common steel grapple instead, but unfortunately this warehouse had no places for such a hook to grab onto.

  She gave the rope a pull to confirm that it would support her weight and then swiftly began her ascent. The stone bricks felt rough underneath her feet, a welcome change from the slippery cobblestones she left below. When she was level with the window, she looked inside only to be greeted by darkness.

  No lights means nobody is on this floor. Good.

  With a rapid motion she wound the rope around her feet, giving her the needed support so she could free her hands. Again she looked around to see if anyone had entered the alley during her climb. Even though nobody could see her, a careful observer would be able to see the clamp and a moving rope with a piece missing in the middle.

  Almost as an afterthought, she reached for her scrying stone and used it near the window. She wasn't expecting there to be a warning sigil here, but out of habit she scried the window anyway.

  A moment later she was softly cursing underneath her breath as she brought the scrying stone close to her eyes to confirm what it showed. A pattern of purple and orange swirled across the stone, almost taunting her with its presence.

  What the blaze is this? There's definitely a sigil here, but what is it? She narrowed her eyes and looked at the window again. Purple and orange signified a Force dyad spell, yet she had never heard of a warning sigil belonging to that dyad.

  So that means...

  She stuffed the scrying stone back in her pocket and then thrust her hand into her runepouch, counting the small side pockets with her fingers as she kept her balance on the rope.

  This one, she thought, pulling out a runestone from one of the pockets. It was a scrying stone like the other one, only with a different function. The one she had used already merely scried the nearby ?ther to see if there was a sigil present and indicated which elements were held in the charge contained within. This one, however, allowed the user to scry for the exact amount of elements within the charge itself, but only for a specific dyad. She had six others in her pouch that when combined represented all the dyads that a thief was likely to need such a scrying stone for.

  With a rising sense of anxiety, she watched the stone as the pattern on it slowly shifted while she moved it around. It didn't take her long to realize that her initial hunch was correct.

  It's a ward.

  She clenched the hand containing the scrying stone into a fist. A warded window presented a barrier she had not expected. She had assumed that at most there would be a simple warning sigil present, but instead this window had been magically sealed, making it as impervious as the wall that surrounded it. She would not be entering the warehouse by this route.

  Disappointed, Felt put the scrying stone away, wondering what to do now. The presence of the ward worried her. No matter how you looked at it, a ward was an excessive security measure. One you would expect to protect gold, jewellery or something else of high value. Not for a warehouse that was supposed to hold only barrels of salt and clipfish; especially if one considered that there were at least a handful of men present at all times.

  In the past she had known men who built their security according to their paranoia rather than their need, so she could not entirely discount the notion that Echeb was prone to the former.

  However, Felt also recalled what Hans had told her about the possible connection with the Dust Empire, and that made the presence of this ward here appear in a far more sinister light.

  Don't speculate, she thought as she ran her tongue past her teeth. Focus on the task at hand.

  She untangled her feet and climbed back down towards the cobblestones beneath. As she descended, she let her eyes run over the remaining windows. I could try one of those, but they are probably warded as well and I don't have time to check them all anyway.

  Fazed by the setback, she reached the ground and squatted down, making sure she had an easy view of the length of the alley.

  Should I try the back door after all, then? she thought before immediately dismissing the idea. The reasons she didn't want to use the door had not changed, and if anything the presence of the wards above her had made her even more reluctant to try.

  She let out an exasperated sigh. What bothered her wasn't that her original plan was ruined; that happened all the time. No, it was the fact that she couldn't bow out. Had this been a regular job, she would have simply given up and gone back to the haunt. Either to plan for another day or to leave it all together. However, that wasn't an option this time, as it would take at least two days to prepare and execute a new plan. Two more days' worth of charge gone from the White Candle sanctum's wards, and the Whisper had made it abundantly clear to her that any more delays were to be avoided at all costs.

  While she did not like to be rushed, she understood the reason for their urgency. The ghast that had escaped from the sanctum the same night she escaped from the Stockade stood as a solemn warning that bad things could happen the moment those wards gave out.

  M?lstrom.

  The word had been dropped into a private conversation she had overheard between Hans and Raviel, and it had lingered in the back of her mind over since. If she had to choose between a m?lstrom and rushing a job, she would choose the second option in a heartbeat. With a determined motion, she grabbed the rope and sent some ?ther into the thin metal thread that was entwined with the hemp. She caught the clamp a moment later as the attached rope draped itself around her.

  Rolling up the rope, she considered her options and quickly arrived at a solution. If I can't go in through the back, I'll have to try the front instead.

  Hans had not signalled her again after mentioning the two men stepping outside, which meant they were still there. I might be able to slip in behind them just like I did at the Candle.

  After securing her backpack, she started walking towards the nearby narrow passageway that connected this back alley to the main road in front of the warehouse. She could feel it before she reached it as a stiff breeze blew from that direction, the air compressed within as it entered from the other end of the passageway. Felt breathed in the humid air.

  Salty, she thought. The wind was coming from the sea in the south, and she could hear the wailing of gulls in the distance.

  It's a peaceful night, she thought as she walked through the passageway. It's been a while since I've been able to enjoy one.

  Once she reached the main road, she peered around the corner to look down the street.

  There they are.

  She could easily tell both of them were Dusters, even at this distance. A nearby streetlight gave their skin a golden sheen, though it was only their faces she could see as both men were warmly dressed. A bit too warmly, perhaps. The start of summer was only three weeks away and the warm wind coming from the sea raised the ambient temperature even higher.

  As she crept closer, however, she saw why they were so warmly dressed. They both had black, spring-curled hair and the hue of their skin was more olive than bronze. They're from one of the south clans, she realized. She didn't know much about those, only that they lived a harsh life near, or even in, the Dust; the great desert that gave the Dust Empire its name.

  They were engaged in conversation and one of them was smoking a reed, as Felt could see the little orange pin flame that betrayed its presence.

  Are they waiting for something, or just wasting time? She looked back down the main road to see if there was anything coming. There wasn't another shipment coming as far as she knew, but they were acting far too leisurely to be properly guarding. Especially considering they had left one of the warehouse doors behind them wide open.

  A trap?

  Normally she wouldn't even have considered that option. Thinking about it logically, the odds of the open door being part of a trap were almost non-existent. Only Hans knew that she was here right now, as they had decided to not let anyone, neither the Whisper nor Hyna, in on the specifics of the operation. The tracking spell the Whisper had used on her had expired yesterday, and Felt had been more than annoyed when she learned how they managed it.

  The runestone that Hans had given her before her escape, the one that was supposed to avoid triggering the warning sigils, turned out to be a tracking spell. She herself had given it enough charge to last for days afterwards. It was clever, for sure, but that didn't make her feel any better about it.

  Felt redirected her gaze towards another warehouse on the opposite side of the street. There, Hans was keeping a lookout from behind the second-floor loading crane, hidden in the dark. Right next to him was the shift anchor that Felt was to use if she got into trouble.

  The only way that this could be a trap is if Hans has betrayed me, and that's not possible. For a brief moment she stared at the black hole below the distant loading crane.

  Or is it?

  The doubt the question represented was familiar to her and it entered her head casually, not unlike a well-known patron stepping into his favourite bar. She had run the events of the past week through her head a thousand times; all it did was make her realize that despite her long history with Hans, she still did not entirely trust him. She had heard his reasons for his part in her escape from the Stockade, and his main argument had been that she would have been turned over to Callium had he not helped her.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  It was a sound argument and one she had accepted; yet deep inside she realized that her trust in him had become damaged. She didn't know if it was because of the ease with which he fooled her, or because of the claimed 'accidental' loss of the sewer gate keys forcing her into Lak territory, but somehow she could not bring herself to move past it all.

  If this really is a trap, then this would be the best moment to deal with me. Only Hans knows I'm here right now.

  She pinched herself in an attempt to shake off her hesitation. No, I have to trust him. If I don't, I'm lost before I even begin. What was it again that her old pack-master used to say? A good thief can discern a trap, but only an excellent thief can tell a trap from an opportunity.

  Felt smirked and turned her gaze back towards the two Dusters and the open door behind them. I'm an excellent thief.

  As she passed the two Dusters under her shroud, she halted for a moment to listen in on their conversation, but soon realized it was pointless. Officially all the clans spoke Enti, but each one had their own dialect and Felt wasn't familiar with the one the men were using. She could pick out individual words, yet the exact context of their conversation eluded her. Even so, going by their facial expressions and the words she did understand, Felt determined that they weren't speaking about anything of importance.

  She slipped through the warehouse door behind them and pressed herself against the wall immediately inside. She grabbed her signal stone and informed Hans that she had entered the warehouse. Now the job begins for real.

  There were only two lights burning in the loading area. One near the back door that she had avoided, and another one near the foreman's office. They cast a dim light over a group of large barrels that were tightly grouped near two of the closed warehouse doors; the ones that they received today. More voices drifted towards her, though she could not see the men they belonged to as they were hidden behind a line of barrels.

  She moved along the wall towards the barrels, having spotted one with its lid open somewhat. Reaching the barrel, she slowly raised the lid a little further with a single finger so she could see inside, and was greeted by the sight of a white substance filled almost to the top of the barrel.

  Salt.

  She put some in her mouth to be sure and made a face as the taste confirmed it.

  Alright, the trading part seems genuine so far, so why all the security?

  Hans had told her there were two points that were of interest to the Whisper. The first was the possibility of goods being smuggled inside the barrels of salt. Of course, she couldn't start upturning barrels to see if there was something more inside, so her next goal was the foreman's office to see if there was something worth finding there.

  Back when they were drawing up the plan, Felt had initially dismissed that goal. Any good thief knew that keeping your plans at the place where you executed those plans was stupid. Hans had countered her with a question. “From all the thieves you know, how many of them do you suspect would make a mistake like that?” The answer to that had been: “A lot.” He was right, of course; he always was in these things.

  She began to move in the direction of the voices. As she rounded the line of barrels, she saw them. Three men, all sitting on mats, were playing a dice game.

  Good, Felt thought. They aren't paying much attention either.

  Unlike the men outside, these men were not from a southern clan. The tall burly one on the right had long dark-brown hair that hung straight down his face all the way to his chest in the typical hairstyle of the Uzzaj clan, whose homelands Felt knew lay to the east of the Jelabi.

  The man next to him, who gained a fierce expression every time he took up the dice, had the same hair colour and style, though his hair was much shorter, indicating that he was still a young man. In the Uzzaj clan, only a man who had come of age was allowed to grow his hair long. He had a similar build as the first man, though his shorter height made him look far less imposing.

  The last man seemed as tall as the burly man, but much scrawnier; his legs stuck out like twigs from the trousers folded around them. He was bald and his skin was a common tint of bronze, so Felt could not tell which clan he belonged to. They all wore a typical workman's outfit, Felt noted: a sturdy cotton shirt that you could button to the studded trousers worn beneath.

  Too bad they're sitting in front of the foreman's office, Felt thought as she eyed the thin wooden door that separated the office from the loading area. Both the Uzzaj men could see the door from their location, so attempting to sneak in would be too risky. Besides, she knew how doors acted in old buildings like this warehouse. They would make enough of a racket to alert the entire building when opened.

  Felt crept as closely towards them as she dared, and sat down against one of the thick wooden pillars that supported the building. She kept the pillar between herself and the men and started to observe them, as that was the second point of interest to the Whisper: try to find out anything at all from the conversations of the men here; what they are doing here and why Hyna has an interest in the place.

  Fortunately, the Enti these men spoke was much closer to the form she was familiar with.

  As she watched them play, she noted that the two Uzzaj men were ganging up on the third one. They both laughed if one of them threw a good roll and both scowled if the bald man did.

  “Are you cheating?” the young man asked with a cold look after the bald man threw another good roll.

  The bald man met his stare with an equally cold gaze. “We are all using the same dice, so how am I cheating?”

  “I don't know,” the young man said. “But your rolls are too good.”

  “I could say the same for you,” the bald man bit back. “You rolled djavitt seven times now and you say my rolls are too good?”

  “I was born under a lucky star,” the young man retorted. “As we all are.” He glanced at the burly man who nodded with solemn approval while glaring at the bald man.

  “Lucky star,” the bald man mumbled with disdain. “Superstitious lot.”

  “What did you say?” the burly man said with a threatening tone, stretching out his arms so he appeared bigger.

  The bald man regarded him coldly, but did not speak.

  These men are not friends, Felt realized. Perhaps that's why those other two stepped outside? Members of different clans usually didn't get along very well, that much she knew; especially not if their homelands bordered each other. If you went back through their history, there was always some feud to carry a grudge over. Even in the Bronze Block here in Rios, fights between Dusters occurred regularly even though their homelands lay thousands of kivors apart. Lands that most of them had never even visited. How does the Dust Empire even manage to stay in one piece?

  The burly man seemed to decide he didn't care for the bald man's glare, and he rose threateningly to his feet.

  “What are you going to do, Steb?” the bald man said, his voice still filled with disdain. “You want to fight? Go ahead, I dare you to throw a punch at me. Vitan will be most pleased with you.” The last sentence was filled with sarcasm and Felt noted that the burly man hesitated.

  Felt watched in anticipation. If they were going to fight, she might have an opportunity to sneak into the foreman's office behind them.

  “What is this?” a voice said sharply from somewhere behind her.

  For an instant, Felt thought she was at the Candle again, peering around a corner when a voice spoke up right next to her. She had replayed that memory a thousand times in her head, thinking about what she could have done differently. As such, perhaps to her good fortune, she did not spin around like last time, instead slowly turning on the balls of her feet.

  A short man with olive-coloured skin and short black hair was standing some distance behind her. He was dressed in the same workman's clothes as the others and he was angry, his eyes shooting fire.

  But not at her.

  He angrily paced forward and right past Felt, who quickly hopped out of the way.

  “What is this?” the short man said again, even more sharply this time. The burly man called Steb bowed his head, his threatening demeanour completely replaced by one of meek servitude. “I'm sorry, Vitan,” Steb said. “Tevasch provoked me.”

  “Really, Steb?” Vitan answered with a mocking tone. “He provoked you by calling you a superstitious moron? You are a superstitious moron. You and Ciz both.” Felt noticed that the bald man, who was apparently called Tevasch, didn't seem pleased with the scolding the other two were getting. Instead he kept his head down as Vitan spoke. He's probably worried he'll be reprimanded next.

  That didn't happen, however, as Vitan caught sight of the open door. “Why is that door open?!” he yelled, his voice breaking with anger.

  “Moba and Dajeed went outside,” Steb replied timidly.

  From where she was sitting Felt could not see Vitan's face, but from the trembling in his shoulders she could tell he was furious.

  Vitan jabbed a finger at Ciz. “Get them back in here. Now.”

  Felt watched as Ciz scrambled to get up and went outside to get the other two.

  The door slammed behind them, and almost immediately after, Felt's signal stone started vibrating. The message was that the men had left, as she expected, and she sent back a confirmation. Despite her current misgivings about Hans, she was still glad he was nearby.

  “What in Ris' name were you doing outside?” Vitan fumed when the two southern men appeared, the anger still clear in his voice.

  One of the two men mumbled something Felt could not hear, but it obviously displeased Vitan as he struck the man across his face with the back of his hand. “I knew you were stupid, but I never realized the full extent of it. Do you know how many shrouded men could have come in through that door while you were fuelling your filthy addiction?”

  At least one, Felt thought, smirking.

  Vitan reached inside his shirt and produced something that he held up for them all to see. “You know what this is?” Vitan said as he watched each of the men in turn. “What it will do to you if you anger me?” None of the men responded, all choosing instead to look down at their feet.

  He's holding a runestone, Felt noted. That probably means he's a channeller. The meek behaviour of the other men suggested that they were not.

  “You should feel lucky the scions graciously decided to have mongrels like you on the team,” Vitan continued. “You are part of the Empire, and therefore by the right of the heart, you serve us.”

  So this Vitan is Hischi then, Felt thought. That's good to know. It was also good to know that this outfit didn't run on loyalty, but on fear instead. Information like that could be useful in the future. She started eyeing the foreman's office. If Vitan kept berating them a bit longer, she might be able to sneak in.

  “Now lock that door and follow me,” Vitan commanded as he gestured in the direction Felt had seen him first. “Ozajil and the rest have arrived.”

  Felt snapped to attention at those words. Ozajil and the rest have arrived? She looked around in confusion. Apart from the six men in front of her, there was nobody here. Arrived from where? And where are they? She was certain she had not missed any of Hans' messages, and the one from a moment ago proved he was still out there watching.

  She pressed herself against a barrel as Vitan and the others walked past her. “You two stay here,” Vitan snapped to the two south clan men. “I will deal with you later.”

  Then he stepped into what appeared to be a blind wall and vanished.

  Felt blinked once as she took a step closer to get a better look. One by one, the men stepped into the solid brick wall and disappeared completely. The two remaining men walked past her and sat down on the mats.

  Felt meanwhile moved closer towards the wall and stretched out her arm. She couldn't see her hand to begin with, but she felt no resistance as she moved her arm forward.

  An illusion, Felt thought. That explains how Vitan suddenly appeared behind me. The foreman's office wasn't important anymore. Whatever these Dusters were up to could be found beyond this fake wall.

  She reached for the signal stone and informed Hans what she had found. The brief response came shortly after.

  Confirmed... take no chances.

  Felt twitched her nose. Take no chances, he says; but it's obvious that this is one I have to take.

  She reached up towards her back to feel the blackshift stone between her shoulder blades. As long as I have this, I can afford to take a little risk.

  She looked back one last time at the two men who were sitting downtrodden on the mats, one of them rubbing his cheek where Vitan had hit him. They weren't going anywhere for a while, so she stepped through the illusion.

  On the other side she found a brick wall in front of her, a real one this time. She looked around, confused, and then noticed there was a crude stairway going down to her left.

  At the bottom she spotted a sun sigil illuminating a room and could hear Vitan giving orders.

  She crept down the stairway, making sure not to slip on the crude steps that had been dug out from the earth with a wooden board hammered into each one. Before she reached the bottom of the stairs, she halted and crouched to look into the room the Dusters had dug beneath the warehouse.

  The room was small, or perhaps it only appeared so because it was filled with people, all Dusters. Vitan and the others were there, and so were three more men standing around a cart of some sort. Steb and Tevasch were lifting a strange object onto a wooden board that stuck out the side like a drawer. They were handling the object with great care, and by the way Vitan watched them Felt knew that whatever the object was, it was something important.

  At the other side of the room there was another sun sigil burning, and beyond that Felt saw what had allowed Ozajil to arrive unseen.

  A tunnel. They dug a tunnel.

  None of the men was paying attention to the stairway; all eyes were fixated on the object, so Felt took the opportunity to slip past the sun sigil.

  One of the men, with a fierce black beard, looked up and stared at the stairway with a surprised look on his face.

  Krat, Felt thought, flattening herself against the wall. Did he see me? She froze in place. If he saw anything, it couldn't have been anything more than a dark shimmer in the corner of his eye. The other sun sigils are casting the shadows of the men in this direction. I hope he thinks it was just a trick of the light.

  The man ran his eyes past the wall and Felt started to channel ?ther into the blackshift stone on her back. Look away, look away!

  After what seemed an eternity, the man turned back to watching the cart and Felt breathed an inaudible sigh of relief. That was too close.

  Steb and Tevasch finished placing the object on the wooden board and the man who had almost spotted Felt reached down and shoved the board back into the cart.

  “Last one,” Vitan commanded. Steb and Tevasch moved towards Ciz who turned over a piece of cloth revealing another object, the same as the previous one.

  Felt got a better look at it now as they lifted it up. It was a round disc as thick as her fist and as big as a large wheel of cheese. There were six protrusions from the edges of the disc, grouped in pairs of two. The entire thing was a deep brown colour with thin streaks of white running randomly across its surface.

  What the blaze is that? Felt could not see very well from her current location, but she dared not move. The room was too small for that. If one of those men suddenly stepped backwards, they would bump right into her.

  “Careful now,” Vitan cautioned. “These are worth more than all your lives combined.” The tone of his voice had shifted from before. Rather than speaking angrily, his tone was now matter of fact, as if his remark was the simple truth and not an exaggeration.

  With a soft thud the object landed on top of the cart, and Steb and Tevasch immediately backed away from it.

  Vitan nodded approvingly. “They're all yours,” he said to the man with the fierce beard. “Don't break them, because there won't be any more coming.”

  “I'm aware,” the bearded man said. Felt noted that Vitan wasn't being condescending to the bearded man like he was to the others. That must be Ozajil, she thought, as she saw that his skin colour was similar to Vitan's. He's Hischi as well?

  Ozajil nodded to his men and they positioned themselves in front and behind the cart. The one at the front grabbed a robe to pull and the others pushed. They slowly rolled the cart into the tunnel.

  “Get back up and keep watch,” Vitan snapped at his men, who quickly scurried up the stairs, leaving Felt with just Vitan and Ozajil.

  Vitan walked towards the stairs and looked up as if to verify they were really gone. Ozajil looked down the tunnel, watching his men vanish into its darkness.

  Seeing her chance, Felt slowly moved away from her current position towards the darkest spot in the room.

  Vitan's harsh look softened and he moved back towards Ozajil, who had retrieved a coin from his pocket and was flipping it around between his fingers.

  “How are we doing?” Vitan asked.

  “Not as well as we should be,” Ozajil said, staring at his coin. “Those last three will help, but it's still going to take longer than expected. We had to rearrange some of the locations as well.”

  Felt noted that he spoke with the same accent as Vitan. He's definitely Hischi. I hope they won't switch to their local dialect.

  Vitan shrugged. “That's not surprising. I'm certain the scions will understand. The plan was greatly accelerated, after all.”

  “And it was done so for good reason,” Ozajil said as he slowly looked around the room. “If we delay now, then what was the point of doing so in the first place? They won't be pleased.”

  Vitan raised his arms. “Well, there isn't much more we can do without more kareks.”

  Kareks? Felt didn't know the word, but she was convinced that Vitan was referring to the objects they had loaded onto the cart.

  “I'm aware,” Ozajil said again. He shot the coin away with his thumb, causing it to fly past Vitan and hit the wall behind him.

  Felt could feel a cold chill creeping up on her. The location Ozajil had shot the coin was where she had been standing only a moment before. If I hadn't moved...

  Ozajil made no attempt to retrieve the coin, instead bringing his hand to his face and running it through his beard, making it even wilder than it already was.

  “Did you have any problems?” he asked Vitan, now looking at the coin on the ground.

  Surprise appeared on Vitan's face. “Problems? Like what? The delivery went smoothly. As usual.”

  “Not that,” Ozajil said, surveying the room once more. “I meant with regard to security. Have your men been properly guarding the building? Are all the wards in place?”

  He suspects something, Felt realized. That coin shot of his wasn't accidental.

  “I made the rounds before you got here,” Vitan said. “All the wards were active and every door we don't use is barred from the inside with warning sigils attached.”

  “Then everything is secure? There have been no gaps in security at all?” His gaze moved back towards Vitan as he asked the last question, looking him straight in the eye.

  Oh no. If Vitan tells him about the open door...

  “None at all,” Vitan lied without blinking. “I keep a tight rein on those mongrels, as you saw.”

  Not tight enough, Felt thought nervously. I'm here, after all. She was grateful for the lie, though; if Vitan had admitted to the breach, there would have been trouble.

  “Is there a reason you ask about this?” Vitan said, his tone becoming sharper. “Are you questioning my competence? I performed my part of the operation perfectly.”

  “You are not done yet,” Ozajil said, losing some of the tension in his body. “That's why I asked.”

  Now he's the one lying, Felt thought. It was obvious that the relationship between these two men was a strained one. That was probably why Ozajil was approaching his suspicion that he saw something in such a roundabout way. If he was wrong, he would look like a fool, and Vitan seemed like the sort of man who would eagerly point out such foolishness to whoever gave them their orders.

  Vitan waved his hand, “Yes, I know, the tunnel. We shall take care of it in the coming days. Our Breaker over-exerted himself yesterday so he needed rest.”

  “Over-exerted?” Ozajil asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “The wards, I made him refresh the charges three times a day.”

  “That's not a wise thing to do,” Ozajil said.

  “No, but it guarantees security,” Vitan bit back.

  At this point it was clear that neither man cared to continue the conversation any longer.

  “Very well then,” Ozajil said, turning around and walking into the tunnel with a brisk pace.

  Vitan scowled at Ozajil's back and then turned around to go up the stairs. A moment later, Felt was alone.

  Slowly exhaling, she sank to a sitting position on the ground. That was close. The anxiety she felt earlier was slowly ebbing away again. I never can get used to situations like this, she thought. Even though I must have been in countless ones already.

  After taking a moment, she considered what she should do next. To her left the darkness of the tunnel beckoned, and she could just make out a set of wooden beams that acted as the tunnel's support. I wonder where it goes...

  She wasn't planning on finding out by entering the tunnel, however. Despite Vitan's lie, Ozajil did not seem entirely convinced that what he saw was just a trick of the light. Even if it was only a hunch, Ozajil struck Felt as the sort of man who dealt with every possibility. It would be perfectly easy for him to set up a trap in the tunnel that ensnared or even outright killed any pursuers.

  She rose back to her feet, only to realize that something cold was touching her backside. Reaching behind, she felt the spot and realized her trousers were wet. She looked at the spot where she had been sitting and she could see a very shallow puddle. Slightly annoyed, she wrinkled her nose. I should have worn leather.

  However, the wet spot made her realize something. Wherever this tunnel led, it couldn't be very far away. During late winter when the melting snow from the Fire Mountains rushed down the Lacine, the water in this tunnel would be up to one's elbows. There would have been no opportunity to dig until spring arrived in force, which gave them a moon's worth of digging time at most. Getting rid of all the earth they dug out wouldn't have been easy either.

  In her mind she reformed the map of the surrounding area and drew a line marking where the tunnel was headed. The answer she was looking for almost immediately came to her.

  The boarding house. That's where this tunnel leads.

  Satisfied, she looked around the room one last time. Apart from the cloth that had covered the kareks, there was nothing there, and Felt knew that she was done here. She had already learned more things here than she could have possibly hoped for. Her next target would be the boarding house.

  ?ther rushed across her spine and into the blackshift stone.

  Felt closed her eyes just before she shifted as the sudden change in surroundings always made her feel queasy. When she opened them again, she was somewhere else. A dark place. With a frown, she turned around and saw a dimly illuminated figure sitting next to an open window. The starlight coming from outside revealed his face, and Felt was relieved to see it was Hans. She opened her mouth to tell him she was here, but then changed her mind. Carefully, she stepped outside the shift anchor, taking care not to knock over any of the runestones. She crept as close to Hans as she could and studied his face.

  He looks worried, Felt thought. Anxious, even. She noticed that he was clenching his signal stone in his hand and smiled. The worry he showed was the same as when they had been part of the rat pack. In this faint light, she could even imagine seeing him as the boy he used to be. A rounder face and shorter, more ragged hair.

  She leaned even closer.

  “Hans,” she whispered.

  To his credit, Hans didn't let a sound escape from his lips as he jumped up and fell backwards on the wooden floor. With a loud thud he landed on his back, rolling himself into a ball and using his momentum to make a full turn before landing on his feet.

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Felt?” Hans whispered.

  I've teased him enough, she thought. She was pleased with herself. A successful job always gave her that feeling. “Yes, it's me,” she said, dispelling her shroud spell.

  Hans rose to his feet. “How long have you been here?”

  “I returned just before you started masturbating.”

  “I don't masturbate while working,” Hans said, sounding relieved. “You're confusing me with Millen.”

  “Ah, yes, my mistake,” Felt chuckled. For a brief moment it felt like old times again, and old memories ran through her mind.

  “So what happened? What did you find?” Hans asked, abruptly pulling her back to the present.

  “Pack up your things,” Felt said. “We have another target to visit. I'll explain things on the way.”